Christmas embroidery

Here is a Christmas Wallhanging from the 2008 (I think) Christmas Crafts magazine, called It´s Christmas Time at Last. I made it in 2009 but just finished the backing last week.

Christmas decorations

Here are few Christmas decorations I made the other day.

The Christmas Elf is a standard easter bunny pattern with a hat instead of ears. Ooops, just realised that this guys needs his own elf ears, so I´ll get onto that now...

The Nutcracker man is the Blossom Bunny pattern from the Penguin Softies book, however, if I made more, I´d take 2 cm off the width to make him a tiny bit thinner. The Soldier Nutcracker man is the only one of these decorations that my son likes (well, at least he´s honest...sob). But that´s probably OK, because my husband was born very near the Erzgebirge region, so sewing Nusscracker decorations are probably pretty appropriate for our family. I also altered the Blossom Bunny pattern by leaving out the circular base altogether. The stuffing hole is left in the side, and the top and base are sewn across (right side still together) and then lain flat, and have had the corners sewn across. This makes the top and base square rather than circular. I´ll take some work in progress pictures to show how this is done when I make some more.

The Wichtelmann is from the german book Kuscheltiere Nähen from Topp books, which my sister in law sent me. I sewed him in Xmas fabric. Mmm - I kind of like him, but I think I´d just sew little Christmas trees, halving the side, all in one colour Xmas fabric next time.

On top of Mt Ruapehu, North Island, New Zealand

Christmas bunting

Christmas! I´ve finally gotten onto making some Christmas bunting between bouts of colds, after caving in and buying some pinking shears on sale at Thimbles & Threads.

You just cut out lots of isosceles triangles and them wrong sides together 1cm in from the edge. Then cut the edges with pinking shears. Finally stick the tops inside a length of bias binding tape and sew along the tape edge. Ta da!

The Pinnacles, Mt Ruapehu, North Island, New Zealand

Christmas apron

This is the Sunday dinner apron from Heather Ross' Weekend Sewing book. I've sewn it in Xmas fabric to be a Xmas apron, which I will hopefully wear while baking my intended Stollens, Xmas cookies, etc. Anyway, its a good excuse for another apron, and kind of sets the mood for Christmas baking. The pattern was easy to follow. It seems a bit short though, and I think I sewed it slightly longer than the pattern said. I´d definitely add a few inches onto the length next time.

Christmas countdown numbers

Christmas countdown numbers. The idea is to start on 1 December and have the blocks showing the right dates up until December 25. They hang on the wall. I made two 1s, two 2s, and one 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0. They are about 5 x 7 inches in size. I got the idea from an old german Brigitte magazine, although they had theirs made of wood. Its taken me quite a long time to do them, because I usually only have time to sew one seam at a time. But I'm glad I finished them in time for this Christmas. They are a bit wonky in parts, but they are made for kids to handle, so I wanted to make them fun-looking rather than formal.

Nikolaus bags

On 6 December, Nikolaus leaves chocolate, nuts & bikkies etc in the shoes that children have cleaned and left outside their front door (German custom). Apparently, according to Brigitte magazine, Nikolaus will, if pressed, leave these goodies in goody bags too. So this is a Nikolaus goody bag. Now, 3 more to go...