Monday 15 December 2008

Christmas Wallhanging.

Here is what I have been working on this weekend. It is a little gift for my great-neice Freya. I like to try and make her a handmade gift for Christmas and I am very pleased with this years offering. It measures around 10 x 12 inches. The santa is hand stitched using a design from a quilting stencil and then I have trapuntoed it. I have also used my new favourite technique - hand quilting with beads to give it a snowy appearance.
Clare, my neice has just announced that she is expecting again in June so next year there will be two gifts to make!




What I am most pleased about is that it was designed, stitched and finished all in 2 days. I know that may not sound brilliant to some of you quilting queens out there but for me it is a real step forward. Usually I would spend days just thinking about it and never get it finished. In fact finishing things is one of my weak areas so lets hope this will spur me on to finish some of my other projects.
The main reason I have not had much time for posting or sewing lately is because of the big Christmas Clean in this house. I have this strange need to clean the house for Christmas which usually takes over all my time at this time of year. I really do not like housework and usually do the minimum but now I am cleaning tiles, window frames etc. It is also all the piles of magazines and carrier bags of fabric which need to be found a home. We also took a car full of stuff to the tip and I have sorted lots of bags for the charity shop. The whole thing just starts to spiral out of control - I was even cleaning under the bed this morning. The sad thing is that the only guest we are having this Christmas is my uncle who wouldn't notice if I hadn't hoovered for a month! I think it all goes back to when the kids were small and I used to spend all Christmas Eve cleaning which was really horrible - one year I even wrapped their presents at 3am on Christmas Day! So I think I just don't want to leave myself with all the cleaning to do on Christmas Eve - maybe I'll be able to spend it quilting and drinking sherry this year!

No comments: