Fusing some Christmas trees

I seem to have a thing for Christmas trees for my handmade cards. I’m not sure why, but at least I’m consistent! This year my cards were totally inspired by The Sweet Stitches - do go and check out some of her reels on Instagram, they’re amazing.

I’m pleased with how my cards turned out, and while I started much earlier than normal as I was keen to get my cards posted as they were doubling up as change of address cards from our house move in the summer, I seem to be sharing them here much later!

Yes, with postage costs what they are I have no shame about doubling these up, even though they’re about half a year apart. As it was MOH’s eyebrows were raised when the post office teller gave the amount for twenty four second class stamps, which wasn’t too bad as we’d managed to hand deliver many of our change of address cards to friends on our recent London trip.

But anyway, back to the cards…

I started with some templates, four for good measure. I think that’s why I keep coming back to trees, their shape is pleasing and like nature, there’s room for some variation each time, I’m not one for being rigorously contained - and that goes for trees too it seems!

I had scraps of fusible interfacing as well as plenty of scraps of material. I kept my palette pretty simple - reds and greens, and the snowflakes on my red Christmassy fabric was a bonus.

On the scraps of single sided fusible interfacing I drew on some Christmas tree shapes - for my test I tried different pens ranging from a Sharpie, to a regular biro to a pencil, and all worked perfectly fine. I mostly continued to use the biro as it was easier to use and was easily visible from the other side.

I ironed on small scraps of fabric which I’d cut into random shapes. These were quite small, and that was on purpose as my templates were pretty small too. The trick here is not to overlay the fabrics too much (as they won’t stick) and not to get too stuck on (pun intended - sorry) covering every part, though seeing where fabric covered the template was useful.

Cutting them out was more enjoyable than you might think. Seeing that pile of trimmings grow and the trees take shape was satisfying, and I was keen to check the size on my card blanks.

It was simple, but it worked for me.

So the tree production started.

Every one different. Every one unique.

If you looked at my Instagram inspiration then you’ll notice a very obvious difference. Mine don’t have the top stitching, well one does - I tried it and my shapes were too small and too intricate for my machine. So I need to work on that, or at least work out if free motion embroidery is an option for my machine!

Instead I added little diamante studs to the end of each branch and a star on top, which worked a treat.

Now I’d love to show you an image of a final card, but somehow in my keenness to get them to their recipients I don’t have one - not sure how I managed that, but take my word for it the sparkles definitely finished them perfectly.

I’ll be trying more of this technique next year I’m sure - my learning is to try bigger shapes and bigger scraps, and hopefully I’ll be better at photographing the end result!

Papped in the City

One of our festive traditions is to treat ourselves to a steak night in the run up to Christmas. I think it probably started as a reward for Christmas shopping, starting most probably, not completing it. But over the years the shopping part has been dropped and the steak is the focus. Last year we managed to fit in a visit to the Hawksmoor at Borough, walking from Fortnum & Masons in Piccadilly, mostly to avoid the tube and because it had been such a long while since we’d been into London.

This year though we were headed towards the City of London, so I thought our Fortnum & Masons luxury mince pies (another festive tradition of ours) might not be on this year. Then I learnt that they had a shop in the Royal Exchange, you don’t know how happy that made me. And so with my mince pies ordered for click and collect to coincide with our steak night, I was happy. The mince pies are divine, expensive, but divine.

What I wasn’t expecting was to be papped by Gillie & Marc’s Paparazzi Dogs at the entrance to the Royal Exchange, but I was so glad we were.

They definitely made me smile.

Mince pies, paparazzi dogs and steak - it was shaping up to be a very good night.

It’s the first time that the dogs have been in the UK, I’d like to think they knew I was coming - but that’s not true at all.

On the Royal Exchange website, they explain more about their temporary exhibit:

Designed to highlight the pack mentality of the media, the four Paparazzi Dogs have been travelling the world from New York’s Rockefeller Center to Melbourne’s Federation Square, Shanghai’s Jing’an Sculpture Park and Dublin’s Dundrum Town Centre, before arriving at The Royal Exchange to turn their lens on Londoners in a piece of public art that gives us all a taste of the glare of celebrity living

As well as the dogs, the mince pies and the nibbles to try in the store both the exterior (top) and interior (below) never fail to impress. For many years I worked opposite this building, and for many of those years had never been in until it was transformed into a posh shop mall - and even then, mostly just to look.

Our next stop was a favourite City pub - The Counting House on Cornhill - where both MOH and I have spent many evenings, with many colleagues. We were apprehensive about how busy it would be, and our tolerance levels for what we remembered being one of the busiest pubs where often it could take tens of minutes to make your way from the front of the pub to the back.

Reassuringly for us, less so for the publicans I’m sure, it was by comparison empty. There were people there, and we found a table to sit relatively easily - of course this was much to MOH’s horror, as he’s not a sitting down in pubs kind of person. But as I am, he did. It was still as beautiful as we remembered, and enhanced by the Christmas decorations.

After an aperitif or two, we along with our box of mince pies headed towards our steak restaurant - Blacklock just off Fenchurch Street. We’d been here before and in my usual style, I have no in-restaurant photos. We took the scenic route through Leadenhall Market to the restaurant, and this chandelier - in a coffee bar of all places - caught my eye.

Do you think it’s large enough?

Ah, Leadenhall Market always looks so good at Christmas, and while it’s the emptiest I think I’ve ever photographed it, it was good to see that some things don’t change. Let’s hope that the pandemic doesn’t completely silence places like this, that we know and love, but can’t always visit as much as we have in the past.

A just in time handmade gift

In Monday’s post I mentioned the Christmas gift that almost wasn’t ready in time, and which only managed to be under the tree with some last minute sewing Christmas Eve evening. MOH was bemused my by last minute industriousness, even more so when he realised it was for him. I was keen to get it finished, so he stood a chance of working out what it was, and of course to get it finished and wrapped so it could be opened on Christmas Day.

It was a bit out of the norm you see, but I needn’t have worried as he got what they were for as soon as he opened them, phew.

They’re mats for the wheels of his bike, for when it’s wet and dark, and so the bike stays in our conservatory overnight. Up until now he’s been parking his bike on some newspaper, which while it serves a purpose and does a job, tends to hang about for a bit and so I thought something more aesthetically pleasing must exist. Then I realised it probably didn’t, but was something I could make.

The trouble was when I had time on my own in the house, usually his bike wasn’t there so what size? In the end I guessed and cut a leg of an old pair of jeans to be approximately 40cm x15cm - I knew I wanted something hardwearing, but I also wanted something softer for the newly varnished conservatory floor, so a leg of some old pyjamas were just the thing, and I had some batting somewhere I’m sure…

PYJAMAS AND JEANS REPURPOSED

But I also knew it’d need to be more than just two pads for MOH to know what it was for. With a flash of inspiration one night I hit on the idea of adding some lettering, but what: bike park, stay dry, clean floor, no mess, not newspaper and so on, but in the end I went with the simple instruction of “Park here.”

The original plan was to embroider both words, in script, and “here” looked to be the easier and more continuous to do, so I started with that using twine. I’d written the design onto the jeans (and you can still see it in both photos) and it wasn’t onerous to do, and there was lots of tracing where the flow of the letters should go with my fingers, I realised I wanted more of the pyjama fabric on show too.

TWINE EMBROIDERY

So a new plan was hatched for the “park” which involved using my die cutter to cut out the letters from fabric ironed onto interfacing, which I hoped would stop them fraying (we’ll have to see how that works out), then stitched onto the denim. I toyed with the placement and went with a more jaunty arrangement, as time wasn’t on my side, and I preferred to have them clearly not straight rather than trying to be straight and failing.

APPLIQUED LETTERING

I’m rather pleased with how they turned out, with more planning I think I’d have quilted them some more perhaps, and given them a wash to remove the red felt tip lettering, but there’s time for that.

What was more pleasing was that when he opened them, he knew what they were for and sweetly suggested I could make these and sell them, however as they often say on Dragon’s Den, I think this is solving a problem that not many people know they have, so I don’t expect there’s much demand for these. They were fun to make, and to give, and as well as their practical-ness they’ve also demonstrated to MOH that sometimes old fabric can be put to good use, and uses you might not have first thought of!

How were your handmade gifts received?