Ho-Ho-Ho Garland Finished

You may remember my former posts, on Nov. 19 when I exhibit the results of drinking a mocha & visiting a shop of STUFF and begin making a banner or garland for the holidays. On Nov. 21, I posted a tutorial on how to make the fabric letters. Yesterday, the day after a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and conversation with our daughter and friends, we watched a university football game fraught with rivalry (the University of Oregon "Ducks", our family's team, versus the Oregon State University "Beavers", my sister's family's team). The incredible game kept us on the edge of our seats till the very end, when our team won in the final seconds, 36-35!!! What's this got to do with the garland?, you may ask. My dear husband set up a card table so I could finish its design and bring this fun project to completion so it could be hung on our front door before Christmas. I spread all the ingredients I'd collected on the table including scissors, wire cutters (for the canvas ribbon used as the base), thread, needles and pins.

 I love the result!

 Now when we open the front door, it's fun to hear the tinkle of the 4 green and red bells.

Bells, fake holly & berries, ribbons, and ornaments.

I found this cute Santa at a thrift store & gave him a new home.

If you make something like this, please share it. 

I enjoy seeing what others create!

Christmas Tree Skirt (reversible) almost finished! and Thanksgiving Prep

Patchwork & quilted tree skirt with ties, reversible.

My work in progress: I started this tree skirt before Christmas last year. Apparently I created my own layout since I didn't place the parts of the stars in the right positions. Oh well! I am so happy to finally have the binding and ties attached. The ties are black (made from a small Christmas print) to match the back side, which I also chose to design. I finished hand-stitching the binding to the back this evening after a long day of Thanksgiving meal prep. I want to add some machine quilting to the larger spaces now that I have a new machine (purchased after I'd put this together and did the initial quilting on my old, very old machine)! I'm so glad this will be done for our tree this year! How cheerful and homespun it will look.

Close up of what was supposed to be a star :P

****Don't forget to check out my recent interview of 2 designers featured on my previous blog page!****

I spent most of the day cooking the following:

Roasted & flavored pecans & walnuts

Homemade stock for gravy making

Homemade chocolate fudge

For those of you in the U.S., I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day celebration!