A-tissue!

A little Christmas gift sewing this week. I found this nice little tutorial by Two Brown Birds for making tissue holders and wanted to give it a try. My first one (made in yellow and green and decorated with a hand made button and seed beads) came out rather nicely. So now my family will be getting tissue holders as part of their gifts this Christmas - and considering how often I make my sister cry with my choice of gift (in a good way, I promise) I think she might find this gift quite useful. I have been making more gifts for this year's festivities but I will put up photos of them later - I don't want to give too much away to those relatives who might be reading this.

New beads for the winter season

I finally got around to creating a few new beads this week. A touch more Oriental, a little abstract, some traditional, Scandi-inspired and colourful. Some are already available in my Etsy store but the rest will be added over the next few days. There are also more in the pipework that I have not finished yet. One thing is for sure, with all those bright colours they certainly cheer up those cold, wintery days.

A finished quilted project!

At last! I managed to finish a quilted project that was not made from a kit. There are so many pieces of unfinished patchwork around my work room that I really need to do something about it. I made a meditation mat for myself using a pack of Moda's 'Welcome Fall' charm squares. It is made up of disappearing nine patch squares and has made me very happy. The disappearing nine patch is so lovely. Really simple to make but looks so complex. The mat is 25 inches square. I quilted the top with a cotton wadding behind the patchwork then stitched on a back and put a square of leftover duvet (from when I was making dog beds for my sister's dogs) inside. My patch placement needs a bit of work (my obsessive compulsive side is annoyed that the bright yellow patches are all on the one side) but it is just what I needed for those rare moments of calm.