Nativity Sewing

I am using the bean bag method for making these little characters. I just gather up circles. for the body, add a tubed strip for the arms and then add hair and faces, wings and halo's for angels- very easy - only fiddly and it takes a lot of time. I like the fact that with the soft material, I can mould them into characters with poise and movement! I don't think I will finish all I want to do this year. The baby Jesus at the end of this post was made years ago, so this is an ongoing act of love for my children. I feel very passionately about having nativity scenes that the children can play with and enjoy 'acting out' the Christmas story with.

Christmas Quilt done in under 24 hours!

Okay so I cheated....firstly it was a panel and secondly my lounge room looks like a bomb has hit it, ( apart from sewing, I did not do much else) and thirdly I only did buttons/knots instead of 'proper' quilting and fourthly I had two children helping me, Jo and Erica! (I pay my kids to help me sew as I am that desperate to get quilts done, what with my brain popping with ideas and all. My girls have had woodwork classes with the boys and the boys have learnt how to sew....Jo wants to make some easy money, so he will sew!) But despite the cheats we are still we are very happy with the results, take a peek at the details...we used bells to embellish and bunches of cotton on buttons to look like ribbon....






Thanks for a gorgeous panel, Nancy Halvorsen!