Christmas – Page 3 – Sew Bittersweet Designs

Christmas Embroidery Projects

9 Comments / Christmas, Embroidery / By Melissa Dunworth

For Christmas I did several embroidery projects that I still haven’t shown you. Now that 2 more of them have been delivered to their recipients…though a touch late, I can show them off.

The first one is for one of my oldest friends in the world. She is a huge fan of penguins and when I saw this design on pinterest, I just knew I had to make it! You can find the link on my embroidery board.

I actually never took a picture of him after finishing, so my lovely friend took this picture and emailed it to me. Isn’t he just too cute?!?

The second one is for my amazing friend Kristy from Hopeful Threads. I just love what Kristy stands for and all that she does for her community and for the global community.

I took her logo from Facebook and turned it into an embroidery pattern. And again…I forgot to take a picture before mailing it off and Kristy was kind enough to email me this picture. I really need to get better about photographing the things that I make! LOL

I hope you are all having a wonderful Wednesday!

Christmas 2013 Sewing Reveals

13 Comments / Christmas / By Melissa Dunworth

A family picture from Christmas night 2013.

We spent 11 days in California over the holidays and had a wonderful time visiting with family and friends. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I did some crazy sewing!

On Christmas Eve I gave Anne her very special jammies. She picked out the fabric, you will recognize at once her unique flare!

Here she is next to the Christmas tree, she had just put out cookies with milk for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph (both of which were eaten, I am happy to report!).

The week before we left I decided to make a quilt for my Godparents. They were happily surprised.

This is the Charming Christmas Quilt – I am very happy with how it turned out, and even happier that they liked it!

My dad got the big surprise of the year:

I loved that he liked it so much. I hope it keeps him very warm!

Finally I gave my mom a sewing machine cover for her new Janome and did some hand stitching for her. She asked me to hang it on the tree.

The vast majority of the gifts we gave were handmade. I am not going to lie, I still have 2 left to mail and one left to make, but hey, being late just means the holidays get to continue on for a very long time!

10 Sewing Days Left…

15 Comments / Christmas, swaps / By Melissa Dunworth

Let me start out with an apology. This week I haven’t been able to get on email at all. Anne has been having some pretty complicated health stuff going on, in fact today we are running up to the army hospital because in the last week she has broken out in hives 3 separate times and we don’t know why and tomorrow morning we head up for an emergency kidney ultrasound. Email has taken a bit of a backseat, but I want everyone to know I am reading every comment and I truly appreciate every single one of them. That being said, I distracted myself from all of this crummy health stuff yesterday.

I have 10 sewing achine days left before I leave for the holidays. This naturally means that I should start a new quilt project that will need to be finished before I leave…right?

Pictured above are 154 Christmas charms and 14 solid white charms. I participated in A LOT of charm swaps 2 years ago. In fact I probably have enough left that I could make a second quilt this same size! I’ve decided to name this quilt the “Charming Christmas Quilt.”

This quilt will be for 2 very special people in our lives and I am excited because I have never made one for them before. I know this will go together quickly. Hoping to have the top 100% done tomorrow during preschool and nap time. Then I just need to figure out a backing and quilt it. Easy…right?!?

Are you quilting anything special in the last few days running up to Christmas?

PS. For a sneak peek at my next pattern, head over to Orchid Quilts today!

Christmas Diamonds Table Runner – Tutorial

22 Comments / Christmas, Fiber of All Sorts, tutorial / By Melissa Dunworth

I joined a Christmas swap on Facebook. I had a lot of fun sewing this lovely little table runner together for my partner.

Measurements: 16×40
Materials
20 White Charms (5″x5″)
20 Christmas Charms (5″x5″)
Backing Fabric at least 18″x42″
Batting scraps at least 18″x42″
Ruler
Fabric Marking Pen or Pencil

Note:
All seams are 1/4″

Start by pairing your white charms with your Christmas Charms and sewing your Half Square Triangles. I have a tutorial here if you have never made them before.

For this project I pressed to the dark side, usually I just press open but I find it is easier to match points perfectly when pressing to one side or the other.

Trim your HSTs down to 4.5″ x 4.5″. You will have 40 sets.

Next you want to lay out your pattern, don’t follow mine exactly as the upper lefthand block is actually turned (look at my first picture in this post to see how that block should be oriented).

I like to sew my blocks together in pairs, for each pair I pressed towards the green HST. This will make life so much easier and your points close to perfect when assembling everything.

Next sew the 2 pairs together butting the center seams nice and tight and you will have a block that measures 8.5″ x 8.5″. I like to alternate each block when pressing the middle seam, one up, then one down. Again this leads to better alignment. You butt the seams up next to each other and the point line up perfectly.

You will make 10 of these blocks total.

Assemble your top. Remembering to line up those alternating seams.

The above picture was taken after I ripped out my turned block and fixed my mistake. Oops!

Quilt as desired.

The wonderful Shanna from Fiber of All Sorts is who recommended the magical 3 lines to me for the quilting and I have to say I love how it turned out.

Bind using your favorite method.

Happy Holiday Sewing!

November Goal Party – A Lovely Year of Finishes

7 Comments / A Lovely Year of Finishes, Christmas / By Melissa Dunworth

Well we have finally made it to November. We are getting into full on Christmas sewing time, or at least I am anyways! My goal for this month is to finish the quilt I was working on when I sewed my finger on Sunday (read about it here). It is a Christmas present for someone very special in our lives and I have to finish it 2 weeks before Christmas. Here’s the plan, do the FMQ when I get my sewing machine back and then I will have 2 weeks to bind it before I gift it. I am giving it 2 weeks early so I have to make sure I get my timing just right.

I’m really hoping and praying that my machine is back on Monday or Tuesday next week to give me plenty of time to quilt.

Your turn!

What one item will you choose to do for November?

You have two requirements to be entered into the prizes this month.

1. Link-up {on this post} the first 7-days of the month

and

2. Link-up in the last 7-days of the month.

Add your blog post or flickr photo (with appropriate descriptions) to the linky party below.

Please grab a button or link back to Shanna and I so other people can join in the fun!

**Please note, the linky party is the same here and over at Shanna, so there is no need to enter twice **

For those unsure of how to link up go check out our Q&A Page for A Lovely Year of Finishes – there are instructions on how to link up from a blog and from Flickr.

Grab a button from my sidebar and spread the LOVE!

Oh yeah and there are prizes this month (as always!), here is what our fantastic sponsors are offering:

November Prizes Include:

1.A Prize from The Intrepid Thread