Oh Tannenbaum, Oh Tannenbaum...

As it is now the end of November I feel justified in showing off some of my Christmas sewing.  I have attended two Christmas sewing workshops this month and have another one booked for mid December.  We don't go overboard at Christmas at our house but slowly we are starting to get some nice Christmas decorations together and more recently these have been made by me.  I like the idea of heirloom Christmas decorations which come out each year and then having the feeling of being reunited with an old friend.

First of all, here is my Christmas Tree wall hanging which I made with a group of friends at Patchwork Garden.  The pattern was written by Sarah Williamson and we had the privilege of her tuition as well.  The pattern is amazing and it was wonderful to see the different variations we all created.  Sarah is a super talented sewer, quilter and pattern-writer and she taught us lots of tips and tricks along the way.  We had a wonderful time and I am already keen to book onto another course with her.

This Christmas tree does not have traditional Christmas colours, but it will look perfect in our house at it matches a table runner and some bunting I made last year.  I wanted to create a "scene" so added blue fabric for a winter sky and white fabric with a silver print to create the look of snow.  I love the crispness of the look.  I then tarted it all up with plenty of ric rac and then buttons to look like baubles.  I did two "shadow" quilting lines around the tree in silver thread to give it that blinged look.  I need to put a star on to finish it, but I couldn't resist including it here today.

As if that wasn't enough, I have also attended an Advent Calendar class, again at Patchwork Garden.  A friend bought me the panel last year, but I did not get around to making it (and I also felt rather daunted as I was not as good a sewer then.)  I had so much fun making this and already want to make another one next year.  My mum loves traditional Christmas scenes (I usually spend lots of November and December hunting down nativity Christmas cards for her) so this will be going to her.  She loves Christmas decorations and will love putting gifts in for her grandchildren, especially as it tells the story of Christmas.

In typical fashion I have put quite a lot of quilting on here and could not resist gold thread to outline the stable, to include in the sand and to outline the star.  As it is a wall hanging I used a cheap man-made wadding, which was trickier to work with, but as it had greater "loft" (listen to me!) it gave the overall hanging more depth.  My mum will love this so it quickly needs to get in the post so she can start advent promptly.

I did both of these projects with sewing friends and sewing classes so it seems appropriate to link this blog post to Lorna McMahon's blog Sew Fresh Quilts who has a Wednesday "Let's Bee Social" link up.

Happy Advent!