More Banner Work

I spent quite a bit of time working on church banners in the last week or so.  We changed over to fall decor at church last Wednesday night.  That gave me a week to get busy and get the banners completed.  One of our ladies made the banners last year.  They have a fall leaf design on one side..

and solid fabric on the reverse. 

  

She asked me to do something to the plain side.  So I made ginormous leaves - one for each banner.I started by printing off simple leaf shapes from the Internet.  I like using coloring book designs for easy applique and they are free.  Then I copied the shapes onto transparencies, enlarged them with an overhead projector at church and traced them onto large pieces of paper.  These were my patterns. 

I decided to make the leaves as stiff as I could so they would hang well.  So I traced the patterns onto Tear Away stabilizer which was the stiffest interfacing I could find.  From there I stitched veins onto the fabric

 and glued the edges of the fabric over the stabilizer so I could applique them to the banners.  The process was pretty simple, but I did all the applique by hand, so that I could sew only onto one side of the banner and not have the stitches show on the backside.  That was the time consuming part.  I managed to come up with 5 different designs and fabrics and got them done in the week's time.

They are now hanging in the church and look pretty good.

I made one sunflower to have something a little different.  

I crosshatched a portion of the center and then dabbed on gold paint so it didn't look like a giant brown spot staring at you.

I also finished my mystery quilt from Kathleen Tracy's blog.  It finished at 30 x 30, so I am thinking I will hang it on the guest room wall.

Designing Monday

Seems like forever since I have sat down to blog.  Our Christmas season has been so fun thus far.  Our kids are not coming home this year, so it will be a lot different when Dec. 25 rolls around.  Our son and his girlfriend came to visit in early December so we exchanged gifts then.  We finished our shopping for other family and got their packages mailed off before the deadline.  That has left us with time to enjoy events in our area -- concerts, lights, evenings with friends.  I also have had time to quilt and sew whenever I feel like it.  Here are some photos of what I have been doing:

My first Christmas quilt:

This is from a pattern called Pretty Peppermints by Gigi's Thimble.  I just love it!  I am not sure when I will get it quilted, but I just love to look at it.  Be sure to hop over to Judy's blog to see more quilts.

I helped with decorating our church for Advent on two consecutive Sundays.  It is a big job for our little crew.  This is about half of the decorations.  This year our theme is The Wreath and our focus color is red..  So we have about 12 wreaths placed around the church celebrating our theme.

We took in the local Botanical Garden  on a Friday night when then temp was in the 40's - a real unusual event in Wisconsin in December.  Their annual fundraiser is a Christmas light display.  Photos can never do justice to such a fun exhibit, but it was truly magical.

Have a Merry and Blessed Christmas.  May all your days be filled with joy and lot of stitches.

Photos to Share

Last Sunday we decorated our church sanctuary for Christmas.  I took some photos after it was all done.  The head of our committee is very artistic and has lots of great ideas.  Her husband finally told her that we had to all go home after 4 hours.  He said she would just keep going because she always has another great idea.  We were going for a winter forest theme with lots of little trees.  The Nativity Set is on the altar.

Little wreaths hanging on the paraments.  Little trees in the right corner.

The road to Bethlehem

Green hydrangeas on the tree.  The tree topper is gold, silver, white, and green twigs, feathers,  flowers, and ting ting.

Designing Monday

I love how these blocks turned out.  I remade the template for the white background in order to get the required 10" finished block size that the pattern states.  I discovered once I started putting the blocks together that the star points would not meet.  I can only guess that all the pattern pieces were  too small.  I downloaded the templates from a free pattern provided by All People Quilt.  There was no gauge on the pattern, so I couldn't tell until it was too late that they are the wrong size.

I guess it doesn't really matter.  I think the blocks look great and the fabrics were fun to choose.  I like that there is so much white space available to quilt in.

Next comes the borders, so that means this top will make at least one more appearance on the blog.

I also took some photos this morning of our church sanctuary.  I am on the decorating committee.  We decorated for Advent a week ago and I forgot to bring my camera.  We like to keep a photo book of or work so we can make remember what we have done from year to year.  Thought you might like to see what we have done.  It is always fun to share ideas.  The star banners on the far right and left are ones I made last year for Advent.  I am glad the committee decided to use them again.

Hop on over to Judy's blog  to see more great designs.

A new month, a new class, a new mat

February is here and it's time to change out the decor for Valentine's Day. I have my hearts all over the place.

Our pastor started a Bible study for 2012 called the 3x5 club. We are reading the entire Bible in a year and doing it in order from Genesis to Revelation. We read 3 chapters everyday, except Sunday when we read 5 chapters. I did not know when I started if I would be able to stick with it, but so far it has not been a problem. I sometimes read ahead just in case I have a busy day and can't get to it. Genesis has always been one of my favorite books as there is so much to read about. We are now in the middle of Leviticus which is very tedious reading. It is a wonder to me that the church continued after God gave so much direction. I probably would not have been industrious or obedient enough to follow all his instructions. Of course, God probably would have zapped me like he did Aaron's sons. Our pastor seems to love to teach and really can bring some great insight into our reading. He has only been with us for 7 months and already has made a big difference.

My husband just went out a bought me a new plastic mat to go under my sewing chair. The old one had developed divots where the chair casters sat and the mat had cracked and pieces of the plastic had popped out making it nearly impossible to roll the chair. I can't wait to go try out the new mat and do some swirlies with my chair!! Yahoo!