Monthly Archives: December 2012

Wreath Redo

crafts

I was feeling crafty today and like taking a break from searching for pattern ideas for the next quilt project for Christmas.

I’ve been taking a simple approach to the Christmas decor in our house this year, which basically means only a few of the decorations are making it out, as opposed to the somewhat cluttered feel I can tend to give the house during Christmas time.

One of the Christmas items I took out is our Christmas wreath.  As soon as it was out, I felt the urge to give it a makeover.  Perhaps you’ll agree it needed one:

Sure, it’s a classic look, but with all of the Pinterest-ing I’ve been doing lately, I felt like starting over.

I pulled all of the pieces apart.

Then, I took a bunch of my red fabric I’ve been working with lately, and just laid it out.

In my mind, I just wanted to have a simple wreath, with a simple decorative look.  To do that, I found strips of fabric long enough to make bows.  One bow was small, the other large.  I sewed the little bow onto the big bow and tied them to the wreath.

It looks better already!

I thought I was done, but I didn’t quite like the look.  I added one sprig with 3 pinecones and one sprig of berries.  To me, it finished the look.

I hung it on our door with another strip of red fabric, which brought everything together.

Hurray for simplification and makeovers!

Food Quilt Finished!

quilting

A couple of months ago, I found a great charm pack (set of 5-inch pre-cut fabric squares) at Pacific Fabrics, one of my favorite fabric stores.  It was a pack of photo-realistic food-themed fabric.

My mother is a gardener, and this fabric seemed perfect for a Christmas gift for her, but I was stuck on ideas for how to use it.

Then I came across this fantastic charm-friendly pattern from Moda’s Bakeshop, and thought it was perfect!

Here’s the top so far (I’m still working on the border).

I should have taken pictures along the way, but I keep forgetting to take photos as I’m working on my projects!  I tried to go with a zig-zag rainbow color pattern and I think I more or less achieved it.  It was tough to implement simply due to the overwhelming lack of yellow and blue, but I like how it worked out (except for the white-value blocks in the lowest left corner, but that’s okay).

I think for the border, I’m just going to use more white fabric.  I bought some more food-themed fabric, but I think having a print on the border would just be overwhelming, so I think I’ll save it for the binding, instead.

This is my third Christmas project done!  (Pajama pants and another gift are the first two completed, but I forgot to take pictures of the pants and I’ll post about the other gift after Christmas so the recipient doesn’t get a surprise early reveal!)  Next projects in cue:  two more quilts, and one fasteners quiet book for little G.

Update: I just realized I made a modification to the pattern while piecing the rows so that there was more white together than in the original pattern. When I had laid it out per the pattern, I didn’t like the way it looked. The print seemed a little too busy. So I flipped the 2nd and 4th rows to match up white sashing pieces. I like the extra white space.