subject: Reveal Your Creativity By Creating Astonishing Designs [print this page] Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas,
Or just the week after;
With plenty of scraps and trims
All over the floor again;
Enough of a mess to make any stitcher groan.
Honestly, this is the first year that I havent hummed this little ditty quite a long time. Generally, the week after Christmas is time that I spend getting my sewing room back in order after making quilts and a million other homemade gifts. Cleaning up as I go becomes impossible as the pace picks up to complete things on time.
While Im happy that this week has been quite easy compared to past years, I still miss the hustle and bustle of dragging out all of my quilting supplies to create my gifts. Of course, it would be quite rude to do that in my father-in-laws house. We will be in our new home in a couple of weeks and I can make a mess then if I choose.
Of course, because I didnt make any gifts this year, Ill have to make sure that the gift list for next year is extra special. Getting started next month might actually be necessary!
Two years ago, I discovered that using machine embroidery quilt designs helped me to complete my projects quicker. Instead of hand-guiding my quilting stitches, I could just pop the project onto the embroidery machine and let it add the embroidery quilting for me. This has made it possible to get a lot more done than ever before.
And, I must say, my embroidery machine and the embroidery quilt designs I have collected do a much better job than I do at adding wonderfully intricate quilt embroidery to my projects. As long as I can get it hooped, I can stitch it!
My favorite items to create for holiday gifts are place mats and stockings. Both go together so quickly and easily. For the place mats, I use a festive Christmas fabric on one side and a more general fabric on the flip side in hopes of matching each recipients decor. A thin layer of cotton batting in the middle adds the necessary padding. Once I have it basted all together, I will add whatever embroidery quilting designs strikes my fancy. So that it is useable all year round, I use pretty threads in the needle and the bobbin. Red work designs are perfect for this.
As well as making quilts and other decorative items for gifts, I also love to make my own quilted items for my home. This year, however, Ive just been going through my late mother-in-laws linens to add the festive touch that this house is known for. Im not sure my sisters-in-law like that Ive done this, but their father sure does, and Ive managed to get a lot of new ideas for creating my own versions of her pretty items, some of which are quite vintage in origin. Of course, her originals were stitched by hand. Ill just have to cheat and do mine with embroidery quilting.
