Christmas Makes

As every year I've made a few Christmas gifts and Christmas ornaments. A friend of mine has recently retired and wants to start to embroider so I made her this box and filled it with some essentials.

Then I made these patchwork note book covers

A couple of bird ornaments 

Then I made a couple of folders with papers I bought in China. The first is a very typical Chines pattern

and here are some Shanghai ladies from the twenties. I hope my friends from my Asia time will enjoy them. 

 A Christmas pillow. I used two tea towels from my mum's bottom drawer, which she lovingly embroidered with her initials but then never used. The applique is done in felt. 

 This pillow gave me the ideas for this year's Christmas cards. Luckily I started early as I had to make about 80 of them. 

Let's look at those babies a bit closer. I really enjoyed drawing them and I must say they got better and better the more I practiced

and then I couldn't stop and made a few tags too. 

And of course the obligatory Christmas cookies.

and ready to be given away. 

I hope you have a wonderful Christmas filled with joy and light and a fantastic New Year.

Vreni xx

The good news is....

..... I've finally finished my The Aunts' Quilt-top! I've decided to take it with me to Singapore and have it hand quilted in the Philippines. I will show you the finished quilt when I get it back but here's a little sneak peek.

I've also made a few small Christmas gifts:

A couple of embroidered ornaments. The one with the santa was a kit I bought a while ago from here and the Christmas tree is a free download you can find here.

This stocking is for a friend filled with goodies for the 6th of December, which is Santa Clause day in Switzerland. Santa brings sweets, nuts and small gifts for children on that day! I found the free pattern here via Pinterest.

I've also started making Christmas cookies. You can find some of my favorit recipes here. Now it's back to writing Christmas cards. I've given myself a deadline and hope that I'll be able to post them all by the end of this week in order to make sure, they'll arrive in time.

I hope you are enjoying the season.
Cheers
Vreni x

Checking in!

I can't believe a whole month went by since my last post. How did that happen? I guess I've been busy and trying to make the best of what's left of this year. I want to be super organised this year (don't I say that every year?) and have already started to "stockpile" Christmas gifts and bought Christmas cards as well as made a few for special people who appreciate a hand made card.

I found a tutorial here of how to make fabric stamps and made some with Christmas fabric. Aren't they cute?

Here are a few more things I made for the Christmas charity fair:

Coasters with coordinated boxes

A couple of tea boxes with  glass lids

a Singapore photo box

I've seen these Christmas house ornaments on Pinterest and was dying to try to make them myself. Here's the first attempt. It turned out a bit too big, it's almost a small pillow so I will have to give it another go!

Last week our group made sewing kits to sell

and since they they are great for travelling, I made one for myself as well.

Then I made  another sewing box and if you are wondering how many sewing boxes one person needs, well this one is much bigger and can hold all my Auntie Green Quilt paraphernalia which is great when I work on it away form home. 

And talking about my Auntie Green Quilt; I have to be careful not to let that fall by the wayside and have decided to work on it each day for as little or long as I have time for. Here's a progress photo.

Till next time, take care everybody.

Cheers

Vreni x

Finally, some Christmas crafting!

In case you've been wondering what I've been up to these last couple of weeks, I will tell you. I've made some Christmas ornaments, stitched in felt and then put into small (3 or 4 inch) embroidery hoops.

This one is for mum as I tried to copy her childhood home. 

I hope she can see what it's meant to be. My husband and my son recognised it instantly, so that was a relief ;)!

I wanted to make some more, but unfortunately the shop I got the little hoops from had run out of stock and if I order them over the Internet, the chances are that it's too late by the time they arrive. Oh well, something to plan for next year. 

As I had the felt out, I've made this miniature pin cushion, which has been on my to do list ever I've seen it here, 

 Isn't it cute? I'm going to make a whole lot more of them. 

A small selection of the Christmas cards I've made so far.

I love making the "10-minutes table runners" although they take me a fair bit longer than 10 minutes. 

 Christmas box to give away Christmas cookies. 

A tea box for a friend,

I still need to buy the tea bags to go inside

and last but not least, my seventh Camelot block. Silly my, I've put the middle part together the wrong way, but at the moment, I can't be bothered to take it apart. 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend.
Cheers
Vreni x