Advent calendar - Day 18

Hello my friends,

Today I am joining in with Jo's Advent Calendar!

If you haven't been following along so far ..... have a look here, on Jo's blog to see what is behind the other doors!

Thank you Jo for the work you do in organising your blog hops ..... it is such a fun way of meeting, and getting to know other stitching bloggers!

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Jo asked us to post a photo of a Seasonal design:

I think this pattern for a cake band was from Cross Stitcher magazine ..... 

if you've visited my blog before you may have seen this one .....

..... as this Margaret Sherry cat is one of my favorites!

Jo also asked us to share a treasured ornament, something with sentimental memories. I was intending to have finished the Goldwork ornament I have been making this year ..... but I spent too long stitching my Christmas bag 

..... and ran out of time for my Goldwork .....

so, perhaps...... just for this year ..... Jo would accept last year's new door wreath as our treasured ornament?

I look forward to sharing more stitching with you next year!

Thank you for visiting, 

and

Happy Christmas everyone!

Hugs,

Barbara xxx

Friday Night With Friends/ And a Finish!

Hello my friends!

Sorry for the delay in posting ..... it's been such a busy week here, I haven't had time to upload my photos until now!

Thank you all for your encouraging comments which spurred me on and helped me finish by Monday morning!

Oops this has ended up a rather long post, and I got more than a little carried away with the photos because I was thinking of writing a proper tutorial, still might ..... maybe, another day!

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Anyway, if you've been following my blog you will know that last Friday night I was stitching along with Cheryll's  "Friday Night with Friends" .....

..... and you would have found me crawling round the floor of our bedroom .... with the door shut to keep the furbabies out ..... as I twisted and turned my fabric on my giant sized cutting board .... looking for a suitable corner of fabric from which to bias cut two handles for my little Christmas bag!

As usual, time ran away from me, and there wasn't much stitching that night, apart from joining the two fabrics for the lining, oh, and I decided to add a tiny pocket too!

Saturday morning I finished stitching the pocket in place, took photos, stitched the handles together, and threaded some wadding into them .... that was a bit complicated ..... but by wrapping the wadding tightly with paper, sticking a safety pin through said paper, and holding this between two of the press bars I was able to force the wadding into the handles neatly; then topstitch either side of each handle.

The Press bars really helped to straighten the handles.

BTW I am not endorsing this product ..... these press bars just happen to be what I use, and they work well for me.

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Last year I found an embroidery pattern, and stitched my first tree, but couldn't decide what to do on the second side, until now ....

the second tree was made with some of the scraps of Christmas fabric I bought from the Pilgrim Quilters exhibition (where I won my lovely quilt), and using Lara's Crafted Appliqué method I added the appliqué tree on the other side of the bag!

Once I had added the second tree I wasn't sure what sort of quilting to do. The fabric wasn't as white as the embroidery cotton so I couldn't really copy the first side, and then I remembered Lori Kennedy's blog - The Inbox Jaunt -  about FMQ (free motion quilting). 

I've never tried FMQ but I remembered Lori saying that you should practise by doodling, hence that is what you can see in my notebooks ..... lots of doodling; and that the stitching should flow from one shape to the next. I don't think my stitching was too bad for a first attempt, do you? (Especially considering I kept manoeuvring the foot up and down! And if you don't know FMQ what I mean is that I wasn't really stitching "free motion".)

I loved stitching the presents too! If you follow the link below you will see Lori's presents are a little different from mine ..... I was working from memory ..... I had no time to check how she did her stitching.

When I stitched my little packages I kept thinking the word "doodle" to myself, and tried to make the lines look like doodles ..... so they were intentionally double ..... not single lines! 

Lori has since posted 10 Christmas tutorials, which you can see here.

There are a few more pictures of  my doodle stitching toward the end of the post.

Finishing the seams

I was very nervous about finishing the seams because the red fabric I used frays very easily (it's Osnaburg which has a very open weave which is good for embroidering ..... I should have hem stitched the edges at the start, but I never thought I would be working on it for so long.)

As I sew, I hold the fabric in line with the edge of the masking tape on my machine, keeping the seam measurement the same throughout the project.

"Bagging Out"

Just look at those handles ..... do they get cuteness points, or what? ..... and the pocket too!!

I was soo.... happy, as I finished making my bag by Monday morning!

And to think this started with me trying to think of an embroidery scene for a bag ..... spotting an embroidery pattern for just the right tree on "Super Mom-No Cape"'s blog (yes, the white tree shown above!) 

Thank you for visiting, and I leave you with this picture ....

Our naughty cat trying to catch birds, at the water bowls.
Mitzy says, "Funny, when it's sunny I don't see so many birds!"

Have no fear, shortly after taking this picture we moved the plant pots away so the little monster can't "hide" so close to the bowls!

Do have a great weekend, and I now I'm off to catch up on some blog reading!

Hugs from

Barbara xx

Linking to all stitching friends at

Cheryll's - Gone Stitchin' for

"Friday Night with Friends"

and            

Amanda - Crazy Mom Quilts for

"Finish it up Friday"

Yipee! A couple of Friday Finishes!

Hi!

This week I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to finish some Christmas stitching ....  I know, who hasn't!

But yet again, I've been somewhat diverted by a couple of friends' blogs! However, from ideas on those blogs I now have two little finishes, which were quite fun and easy to make.

So, I am linking to Amanda's wonderful patchwork and quilting blog, for her:

"Finish it up Friday"

do pop over and see the wonderful things Amanda, and everybody else are making.

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Oh, and talking of visiting Amanda's link party, if you have visited before, then, a few weeks ago you may well have seen on Diann's blog - Little Penguin Quilts - that Diann wrote a tutorial for keeping computer wires under control!

Now here is my version!

I changed the measurements slightly, as my wires are pretty heavy duty, and I felt Velcro wouldn't keep it together ..... and so I hand stitched a buttonhole (I can never control my sewing machine enough to make neat buttonholes .... I used to be able to, once upon a time) .... but I think I am just too impatient these days!

My first hand stitched buttonhole!

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Those of you who join in with "Friday Night with Friends" over at Cheryl's blog will probably have seen the clever coasters she made, which you can either use for standing your coffee mug on, or, push the bottom of your wine glass inside the folds of the coaster to easily identify your own wine glass at drinks parties  ....  I couldn't resist trying them out! I've made one coaster!!!

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Then I realised  ...  I have something more important I want finished for Monday .... which is what I am working on tonight .... while I am joining in with Cheryl and her "Friday Night with Friends", as I attempt to finish that urgent Christmas stitching which I want to use on Monday!

Here's my sneaky peek for you! Do come back to see it finished!

Hope to be able to show this Christmas finish very very soon!

But for now .... I must get stitching!

Have a great weekend!



Barbara xx