Are those jingle bells that I hear?

Well, I do declare, I believe those ARE jingle bells . . . Padsworth and I are happy to have a guest poster today, and we are declaring this to be a "Christmas prep" day, today!  After all, you want to be prepared for all the festivities, right? (Grin)

We saw a wonderful project on Belinda's blog, The Seam Rippers, and we asked her to put together a tutorial, for all of you wonderful Lilypadquilting peeps!  So, we'll turn it over to Belinda, and let her take it away!

Hello from Arkansas!! My name is Belinda and my daughter and I share a blog called The Seam Rippers. We do a bit of sewing, quilting, painting and the odd craft from time to time. When Snoodles first asked me to be a guest  on her blog, I was a little unsettled as I'm OK with doing things on my own blog, but on someone else's...not so much. She was very encouraging and so without further ado, here is my Christmas tutorial for July.

Embroidery Hoop Ornament

 

Gather your supplies listed below:

fabric

felt

embroidery hoop

ribbon

scissors

cording

hot glue and gun

pattern

puffy or slick paint

Optional supplies:

Acrylic paints and brush (you may want to paint your hoop red or green)

needle and embroidery thread (to outline your pattern or hand applique instead of hot glue)

embellishments of your choice (floral picks, buttons, studs, gems, etc.)

Cut a circle larger than the outside hoop and if desired, mark with a watercolor pencil or disappearing ink pen. Make sure your pattern fits inside the circle with plenty of space around it. I like to use children's coloring pages for pattern ideas, and sometimes I just free hand something.

Cut your designs out of felt or fabric of your choosing. I like the felt because it gives it a little more texture and doesn't fray.  We are doing a gingerbread man today.

Choose which embellishments you want and begin the fun stuff by hot gluing the cut out to the fabric in the center of the hoop. You can also stitch your design on, and this gives it a different style and dimension. 

Using puff or slick paint, create your man's features and let dry completely. To make the little heart, I put two round drops side by side, then take a straight pin and pull down from each one meeting in the middle underneath. You can see where I practiced on the paper.

Tie a loop in your cording, wrap around the screw at the top of the hoop and secure with hot glue. Then tie your ribbon around the screw and start adding your embellishments, hot gluing to keep them in place.

I finish it off by hot gluing rick-rack around the edge and covering the back with more fabric to give it a cleaner look. Just glue it on and trim.

The possibilities are endless and it's great fun to find new designs to try. This is a project that doesn't take much time or money and I hope you enjoyed learning about it!

Thanks for inviting me Snoodles!! Merry Christmas in July!!

Hi, It's Snoodles, back again! Aren't those adorable? I can see several of those in my future! Thanks ever so much, Belinda, for putting together a tutorial for us, and showing us how it's done! 

I hope y'all will leave her a comment and let her know if you liked her project -- and maybe take a quick hop over to her blog and say "howdy" over there!

We'll be back soon with more fun!

Love,

 

I Gotta Loosen Up!

All over blogland, the quilters are making wonky blocks, wonky houses and trees, and lots more. Looks like fun, right? And I giggled when Annie said it was really hard to do "wonky". . .

I'm not giggling any more, Annie!  I agree with you now!

I'm struggling with loosening up and letting things be wonky, too. I'm trying to create an "artsy" kind of quilted piece, for a guest post over at Jackie's.

Here is what I started with:

Why is it so hard to do this?  I had to try over and over to get lines that were not matchy-matchy. To get corners that didn't line up. To be wonky.

Unlike the blocks for my quilts on the virtual design wall, these scraps were not cooperating with me!

Moses Kitty was watching intently as I got more and more exasperated. Even my patient Brother machine was glaring at me as I tried to put right sides together, but have one side hanging out further than the other! This is difficult!

After a fair amount of trial and error, uh, cursing, um, becoming re-acquainted with my trusty seam ripper, this is what I got:

It's not very wonky, is it? Ya think it could be called artsy? Hmmmm . . .
That's the only peek you get, until I show it when I guest post!!

I'm linking up today with Katherine's Corner and The Cottage Market for the Thursday Favorite Things linky party, and with Marcia's Minutes for Me linky party, too! Stop by and see all the creative things happening at these blogs!
I'm also linking up with Sunni, at Love Affair with my Brother, for the "This Week" linky party! Fun!
Love,