Christmas Sewing

Unbelievably, I'm starting a small Christmas project. As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended the International Quilt Festival in Long Beach last Sunday. However, not only did I leave the camera at home, I left the phone in the car and was much too lazy to walk back and get it. So, no pics! I did buy a few things, one of which is this darling Christmas table runner pattern and kit. Not being much of a quilter, I'm more interested in the market than the quilts on display, although many are quite marvelous. As all of you know, I'm also not much of a photographer, which is a skill that I definitely have to improve to be a successful blogger of embroidery. I'm working on it...

But isn't this little guy adorable? Oh, where shall I plug this in??

I plan on making this into a hanging for my mom's apartment, so it will have to end up somewhat smaller than the table runner dimensions as originally designed.

The pattern suggests fabrics using Christmas red, but the kit I bought is much more subdued and "country-like" with a lot of brown tones in the reds. While I'm not a big fan of the folk art/country look, I do like this selection of fabrics, and besides, as I've mentioned so many times before, I just love kits. The floss didn't come with the fabric pack, so I pulled a set of matching colors from my almost complete collection of DMC floss. Thank goodness for the DMC color card, it's unbelievably useful. I was able to match several shades of the floss with the fabric easily.

The instructions in the kit say to color the body of the bird (and the heart ornament, I think) with crayons to give them some subtle shading. However, I think I'll just try to add depth using the lighter shades of floss. The kit calls for one shade to be used for all the embroidery, but I've pulled several others to add some nice detailing. I will also try to jazz it up by using stitches other than the recommended backstitch and French knots, but we'll see how that goes.

Some months ago I purchased a pack of Transfer-Eze, so I figured this would be a good time to try it out. So far I've copied the pattern onto the Transfer-Eze, but haven't yet applied the printed film to the fabric. There is a pretty good reason for this, as I have cleaned out the sewing room to have the acoustic ceiling treatment (aka popcorn) removed. So I've been pretty busy with sewing related tasks, but not much that's very interesting. I did manage to set aside a few projects to work on while the remodeling type is going on, and I hope to post some progress on those projects.

It's hot here, in the 90's. Don't roll your eyes at me, I'm completely spoiled living in Southern California so near the Pacific Ocean with the mild climate.

I mistakenly posted this article a few days ago without the photos, my apologies to those of you who saw it and were confused.