Oh Christmas Tree - Dec. 2nd - Second Day of the Blog Challenge

Thank you to the 40 people who have visited my blog. For me those numbers are great and the best since last spring. I hope y'all will keep coming back.

 Now for the Christmas tree story. My wife was showing me how to use her beautiful, Bernina sewing machine. She showed me a best practice of putting a little starter strip of fabric under the foot as a way to make an even start when you begin sewing. She used a little piece of green fabric that was next to the sewing machine to show me what to do. Since she used it that day I assumed it was a scrap, silly me! Some days later I thought I would use her pile of scraps to make Christmas tree. The two you see here are a couple that I made that day, along with the four trees together on a wall hanging in the next photo down. Well, those 'scraps' were actually bias cut strips that she had ready for an appliqué project. They were to be the stems between flowers on a bed size quilt. When I showed her what I made she just smiled and walked away. I could sense something was wrong. She later told me about the appliqué project and admitted it was all her fault because she used that little piece as if it was a scrap when it wasn't really.

So from that example you see how most of my projects happen. They just happen as I put together shapes and fabric in pleasing combinations. In this photo you see the wall hanging with four trees in it. That is one of my favorites and is used to decorate for Christmas. It contains the fabrics from my wife's appliqué project, so I don't think I can part with it. It is one of the many pieces I hope to write a pattern for. In the mean time, in the same photo you see two new wall hangings one with three trees and one with two trees in various stages of completion.


In addition to my small strip trees I have made some larger strips into trees. The first group of five sold right from my FaceBook posting. The single trees below are actually the second group I made this year and there is another "Joy" waiting for the hanger on the back to be finished. I use scraps to make the trees and decorate them with those fancy stitches on the sewing machine that never get used. These will also become a future pattern or maybe a class.