I thought I'd blog about preparations for Christmas, even though I generally don't bother thinking about all that malarky until December rolls around. But when it comes to crafts, it's not practical to delay picking up a needle & thread or a glue gun until two or three weeks before the big day. So I decided to start with the simplest of tree decorations, and picked these snowmen.
You won't need to buy anything to make these as I bet you've plenty of scraps of fabric and ribbon in your sewing stash.
All you need to gather together are:
Scraps of white fabric (I was lucky to find some with a shimmer of silver thread running through. A white fabric with silver snowflakes printed on it would be ideal. Alternatively, if you've a metallic silver pen, you could draw the snowflakes on.)
A wee bit of orange felt
A small handful of polyester wadding
Thread in white & dark brown
Thin sparkly gold thread
A small piece of ribbon (or use felt instead or even knit a teeny-tiny scarf!)
Scissors, a needle & dressmaking pins
How to make your snowman:
If you wish, you can make a paper template before you cut into your material. The shape's essentially a rectangle with the top rounded off, so it's easy enough to cut freehand. My snowman's about 10cm tall, 4cm wide at the base, but you can have a short, tubby snowman, a tall skinny one, whatever you think looks best. Simply cut two pieces of fabric slightly larger by a centimetre or two than your finished decoration will be, to take account for the seam allowance.
With the material pinned right sides together, either hand sew or machine sew all around, leaving a gap at the base of about 3cm. Turn your snowman inside out and stuff with wadding, so he's nicely padded out. (If you don't have any polyester wadding, substitute a few scraps of material or felt, anything you have handy.)
Hand sew the gap closed, then add a carroty shaped nose cut from orange felt. You can glue it on with a dab of PVA, or make doubly sure his nose doesn't drop off with a stitch or two!
Now take your dark brown thread and sew a couple of French knots (or something that looks vaguely like a French knot in my case) for the eyes. Plus, five knots to to give the snowman a grin. Five rather than four because for some reason an odd number looks more pleasing than an even number. Nope, I don't know why either ...
Then you want to add twiggy arms with twiggy fingers. I did these in a very small chain stitch. After that it's simply a case of dressing your snowman in a snazzy scarf made of about 13cm of ribbon. Use sparkly metallic thread for make a hanging loop and you're done. Unless you feel like embroidering snowflakes on him, or maybe add a sprig of holly made from red and green felt. Even a black felt hat. Or you could personalise your snowman with an embroidered name .
Okay, that's the first of the Christmas Crafts blog posts. They'll get more complicated, but I'm easing myself in.
On to other matters: I usually post a Saturday story, but it'll end up being a Sunday story instead this week as other chores - both inside my home and down on the allotment are calling me. I haven't been doing any writing lately, but I have been reading.
I soldiered on with 'Theatre of Marvels', finally getting to the end, but it was all a bit 'meh!'. The book had the right ingredients for a gripping tale, but it fell flat with me. I'm not 100% certain what it is that distinguishes a cracking read from a yeah-whatever kind of a book, but as a reader you know it when you experience it. I'm only a chapter or two into 'Heresy' but already I'm in safe hands with this author. She writes with confidence about the historical period the book's set in, her characters spring off the page fully formed, and while I want to see the plot unravel and find out what happens, I'm not in a desperate rush to finish the book. I'm enjoying the journey.
The other thing that's been engrossing me over the last few days is making notebooks. I've cut up 15 or 16 pieces of thin card, scored them down the middle and covered them in hand-printed paper.
They're a real mixture of colours and designs, aren't they? I intend some of them to be Christmas presents, but others - if I can make them well enough - are intended for my Etsy shop. (Which I've never really put enough effort into and need to rectify that. I've a pile of vintage items that I must get round to listing.)
One of my favourites is the grungy circles one in the right of this photo. It reminds me of graffiti and street art, though possibly not pretty-pretty enough for most peoples taste? I am loving making these books though. There's something very pleasing about a mini production line, and they're ideal to assemble while I'm catching up on programmes on the iplayer.
When I've finished these books, I want to make another with a fabric cover, something lightly padded and embellished with boho-like trimmings. I popped into a local market a few days ago and picked up this lovely blue braid which gave off a boho-like vibe. Of course, being me I like the wrong side of the braid as much as the right side. Maybe you do too? I also couldn't resist the shocking pink ribbon. I do love a Schiaparelli pink.
Okay, I'm done for now. Don't forget, it's storytime tomorrow, so please wander back and have a good read.
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