Christmas in July

The great thing about this time of year is that there's is a lot a Christmas stuff on sale; in preparation for the incoming new stock in a couple of months. Ok so maybe there's not a LOT of stuff around, but I have come across at least a few things I'm keen to try out. Plus here in NZ (I'm back in NZ for 6 months) it's winter which is the stereotypical time to make Xmas crafts since crafting is driven by the North.

While the Commonwealth Games have been on (GO THE KIWIS!!!) I have had a lot of time to watch replays (I'm most definitely not keen enough to watch it live at 2am) and do some crafting Christmas Crafting :

Woven Snowflake Ornament
www.pennymarblequilts.com

Here are my snowflakes. The original pattern called for 12- 6x0.5" strips with cardboard in the middle of the fabrics (stuck together with fusible webbing). These are the two largest snowflakes in the picture and...well...they're OK I guess, but the fabrics are already beginning to fray and they're a bit too big in my opinion (though prehaps the perfect size for a kids project?). The large red and white was my first attempt and I learned something very important that wasn't highlighted in the instructions - Folding Direction Matters! You can go all under/under, all over/over, (the same and my recommended option as the completed snowflake sits better), all under/over is also fine, but when you start to mix them up and just do whatever, you can end up with some rather odd feedthroughs as you can see in my first attempt.

So after I had it all sussed, the first thing I did was take out the cardboard filling in the fabric sandwich - you still need some stiffness so I recommend 2-3 sheets of fusible webbing - I also reduced the sizes of the strips (proportionally) and am really happy with the results.These will make great Xmas Card fillers this year, all they need is a nice gold ribbon to hang them with.

What could it possibly be?

I don't want to give the game away about my beading project yet. Suffice it to say that it is a Xmas project, and you can probably extrapolate from there. This is a lot of fun and a great craft to do while watching tv. As you can see I've got myself set up with a dinner lap-tray with a convenient border to catch run-away beads. Rather than count as I go, I have found it much easier to thread on 30cm or so of beads and then close off the end and start twisting. Next purchase might have to be a proper bead mat though, since a piece of scrap quilting fabric really doesn't have enough friction to get the job done properly. Keep an eye on that material though, you might see it shortly in another project...