12 days of ornaments (twelve)

This elf was my girlfriend's design and is very cute. The body and legs are candy-cane pipe cleaners; he has a felt hat and some ribbon suspenders. The pants are cotton fabric - she just cut each one to fit and they are glued in the back. A little dot of white fabric paint at the base of the suspenders looks like buttons. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas everyone!

~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (eleven)

Here's a Christmas gingerbread man. Some puffy fabric paint for frosting, buttons, a red felt backing and a bow does it! Enjoy!
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (ten)

I think these were made right before our church boutique, since there's no sewing on them at all; I think I was running out of time. The three different colors/sizes of scottie dogs were glued together, with the ribbon hanger sandwiched between layers. A dot of fabric paint makes the eye and some cute ribbon for the bow.
I've been following the conversation about slow cloth on SharonB's inaminuteago. These would definitely not fall into the slow cloth category. But that's what happens when you have to make 100 ornaments that are simple enough that non-stitchers can help make...
Happy Ornamenting,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (nine)

This is another relatively easy one. Each piece of wire begins at the endpoint of one of the six sections, goes down toward the center to form the left side of that section, goes thru the clear bead in the center, then goes back out to form the right side of the next section. The wire loops around the clear bead at the end of each section and then is wrapped around a knitting needle to make it curly. This one was made a few years ago, so I hope I got the directions generally correct.

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (eight)

This mitten is cute and easy. The stem is stitched using floss and silk ribbon embroidery makes up the leaves and berries. I sewed the cuff on by machine, then buttonhole-stitched the whole thing together, and added a ribbon hanger. Viola! Another cute ornament.

Happy Ornamenting,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (seven)

This one is super-easy. I put a loop in one end of the wire, wrapped it around a cone shape and then added beads and a star for the top. The colors really make it. I did this as a kid's craft at church and some of the kids made red, white and blue trees, some made all red and white striped, etc. I really liked the gold and white.
Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

Christmas Goodies

I've mentioned before that I always have a Christmas party for my women friends every year. I like to give out my version of a "goody bag", which is something I have made for everyone. This year it is doll head ornaments, with hats! The hats were really fun to make, mixing the trims, buttons and feathers.
I started out thinking I'd embroider the faces, but then ended up using stretch cotton for the faces, so that didn't end up happening.... It's funny how your original idea for something morphs and changes into something totally different!

~Lin Moon

New Challenge from SharonB!

There's a new challenge to look forward to! SharonB, of "Take A Stitch Tuesday" fame, has a new one for us for 2008. It's open-ended with just the right amount of structure and sounds fun! Check out her blog, inaminuteago.

Happy Stitching,
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (six)

It's ornament number six - Santa's Coat! This is made from sparkly(sp?) red felt. I sewed the side seams on the machine and finished off the sleeves with buttonhole stitch. Black felt was used for the belt and some shiny gold fabric was interfaced to make it stiffer, then cut out for the belt buckle. I sewed the back sequin on at the top and basted the fur trim on at the bottom of the coat. (You have to be careful when cutting the trim that you just cut the backing, not the fur.) I bent some red wire into a hanger shape and hot glued the coat front to the back at the bottom of the ornament. Viola! A cute ornament! I wished I had put some sort of bead on the hanger, to decorate it at the top.
Happy Ornamenting...
~Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (five)

I like this angel because it's a great showcase for gorgeous lace. Her body is just a tag, painted gold and then covered with lace. Her head is a wooden disk, painted with acrylics. (I probably have made her face a little more creative if I'd only been making one for myself or a friend, instead of 12 for a boutique) The wings are cardboard, painted gold. Pearly beads were strung on gold wire and then wrapped randomly around her wings. A small charm was glued under her chin. I once saw an angel in a magazine whose wings were made of strong wire. Beads on thin wire were then wrapped around the wings similar to these. But because the wings were empty inside, they came out looking very airy and ephemeral.

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (four)

Here is another ornament that I made for our Boutique. It started with a piece of cardboard, covered with Christmas fabric. A felt door, window and chimney were added, along with rick rack and other trim (all glued). The back was covered with felt for a clean finish. The fun thing about the house ornaments we made is that we put a sticker on the back of each one that said things like, "2 bedroom, 2 bath. Remodeled kitchen." or "3 bedroom, 2 bath. All new copper pipes." For some reason, this really cracked me up.

12 Days of Ornaments(three)

Here are a couple of heart ornaments. They are made from felt, and I think the red felt is the stiffened kind. I really like the candy cane striped curly-queues(sp?). I had lots of those ceramic buttons (Mill Hill, I think) and wanted to use them in some way. There's no sewing on this one. I had to come up with some ornaments others could help make, and most of those "others" don't sew. The white dots are fabric paint - very easy!

Happy Ornamenting,
Lin Moon

12 days of ornaments (two)

Another ornament(#2):
This is a simple wreath made from a cardboard base. I glued a donut shaped piece of white felt to the front, in case it showed through the fiber. The fiber is called "no wire chenille" and is from the Craft section of Michael's. Once the chenille fiber is wrapped around and a hanging loop is added, it's time to add the beads. I used white bead thread, so the thread would sink into the chenille and not show too much. In this case, I really liked the reversible ribbon I had for the bow, so I used bead colors that would coordinate with the ribbon. The beads are strung on the thread and the thread is wrapped around the wreath. The beads are "floater"; they can slide on the thread. Then the bow is added.

The chenille fiber comes in all sorts of colors, so you can do more traditional Christmas colors. You can get some really pretty effects using all gold and white, or all blue and silver. Hope you enoy it....

Happy Ornamenting...

~Lin Moon