Christmas Tree Bunting

It may be controversial in some circles to have your decorations up before advent....but you can definitely scratch that festive itch by making some!!

It's always been on my to do list to have a stall at a craft fair and so when the opportunity presented itself for the Christmas Fair at my sons' School I thought why not...a sentiment I never repeated once the reality of making bits and bobs that people who know me will have to walk past and buy or ignore *gulp*

Its a week and a day away now and those who know me well will be right in thinking that I've probably got a lot to do.

However, this is a fun bunting you can make easily and quickly.

1.  Make your templates, being the scavenger I am I used an old birthday card and a magazine cover.  The card was useful as its already folded in half.

If you're not confident making your own, you can follow this link to a pdf to stick to card and cut out.

Christmas Tree Bunting PDF

2.  Now pick your fabrics.  I chose 4 complimentary greens and one Christmas Fabric.  Now use the larger tree template to cut your material.  Fold your fabric in half, right sides out with the tree 1 on the top.  Cut around the template in a big curve...this template is just to make sure you have enough.

3.  Now lay tree 2 on top of the fabric and pin in place

4.  Sew all the way around your tree with machine or by hand and unpin template 2.


5.  Trim approximately 1cm from sewn line with pinking shears for a lovely tree like edge.

6.  Choose or make some bias binding and cut roughly 2m.  Fold it over so you've got two neat edges so you can tuck the top of the trees inside as seen above and iron gently.  Starting in the middle pin one tree in place and then measure equal distances to each side and attach your other trees.  I put 6 inches between each of my trees. 


7.  Sew from one end of your bias binding to the other securing all trees in place.

8. Et Voila!  Sit back and enjoy your festive smugness..

Keeping up with the Kashubians

Firstly apologies to anyone of Kashub descent for that shocking title but it was too tempting to resist!

Without further ado let me just show you why we're talking about this ethnic group from North/Central Poland....

YES - a fabulous folk print, I'm getting obsessed with folk prints.  They're having a fashion moment and this is one you DON'T see everywhere.

This 100% cotton print and will shortly be available for sale on my website www.finecityquilting.co.uk and is inspired by the rich embroidery patterns of the Kashubian people.  Etsy is awash with beautiful Kashubian inspired embroidery and if you want to go back to the source to get some inspiration, I found this site really useful:  http://originalhandicraft.org/en/kashubian-embroidery-symbolism-and-history/

I'm thinking these patterns would look awesome quilted on a whole cloth quilt too...

The Beast from the East

Having ventured to Copenhagen in February half term I thought we were hardy to this cold....but no!  We didn't count on the Beast from the East and being in the East of England (Norwich) we really got hit by it!

A few weeks ago I felt that nothing I was sewing was coming from the heart.  I started reading about improvised quilts and felt like 'Yes!  This is what I should be doing!'....it wasn't easy.

Olly and I had been missing skiing and wishing we'd booked to go and gradually the blocks and different sized half square triangles were forming something like a mountain scene.

For once instead of feeling like it 'had' to develop into a quilt I decided to have a go at a wall hanging.  I feel I should let you know that at this point I felt that I was making the best of a bad job but I guess that's part of finding yourself as an artist is to let yourself make these mistakes and grow with them.

Starting to quilt this wall hanging was a relief, with my complete lack of FMQ skills I decided to just jump on in and give it a go...I wanted swirling wind/mist round the mountains....I got this!!

Do you know what though...I finished it and then took it out to play in the snow!