Embroidery and Piping

I'm very proud of the embroidered chicken I made for my mom.  I'm getting better at learning how to keep my stitches from stretching the fabric.

 Although I think the chicken is totally cute... my grandmother's work still kicks it's butt!  When I was in Houston in October she ended up giving me a beautiful peacock embroidery.  This weekend I decided to turn it into a pillow for my bed.

When I bought the fabric for the pillow I had originally decided to make two borders: a small blue border and a design border. The peacock was so large though, that I decided (with my friend Ali's help) that the design border should really just be piping.... so it was time to learn how to make piping!
Here's the result!!!

I love the back fabric so much!  I have a lot extra and my plan is to make two smaller pillows out of it for my bed! 

Christmas Skirt

I'm finally getting around to posting my Christmas tree skirts.  I made 3 this year.  That's right 3!  Never again!

I realized after starting this project that I #1 hated Christmas fabric, and #2 procrastinate when I hate a type of fabric.  Overall, I am pleased with how they turned out and glad I made them.

The first part of the project was cutting strips.  I had to cut 80 strips per skirt.  That's 240 strips total. 
I then sewed them into blocks of 10 before I started cutting!

Cutting strips and sewing them together took the longest (I started in Feb... took a LONG break from it and finished in October).
Once all the strips were cut, I then made a template out of freezer paper and began cutting them into the right shape.

I used the same freezer paper method with the border fabric. 

Don't ya just love sewing circles?  I had to sew 24 of these bad boys!
Here's what the panels looked like sewed together.

Once I laid out the panels where I wanted them.  I then cut out 16 holly leaves (48 total) and 16 berries per skirt.  I ironed these puppies on and then did a zig-zag stitch around them so they didn't frey.  After that I sewed the panels together and made my sandwich!

Machine quilting is my favorite part.  I did holly leaves on one, swirls on the second one, and snow flakes on the last one. Here's a look at a finished skirt!

I finished the first two before Christmas.  Mine came after.  Such is life!