Tag Archives: decorating

Winter decorations

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I’ve been enjoying making holiday decorations, mainly in the form of table runners, pillow covers, and a front door hanger. While it is currently carnival season, I was not quite ready to put up my Mardi Gras decorations, so I decided to make some season decorations for winter. Essentially the decorations are snow themed. For the dining room table runner, I designed a pattern that is supposed to look like three snowflakes. I am not sure if that is clear, but I like how it turned out.

Front door hanger with machine embroidery

Dining room table runner, it is supposed to look like three snowflakes

Dining room table runner

Buffet table runner

Buffet table runner

Pillow covers with machine embroidery

Late Summer Door Hanger

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I have really liked decorating my front door for various holidays such as Mardi Gras and Easter. Last month I used some fabric from my Independence Day table runners and the Thanksgiving table runners I have started making to create a door decoration for later summer. No holiday to celebrate. Just a celebration of the season and flowers. I found a nice sunflower appliqué, and I added a button to the center, and it created a perfect focus for the hanger.

Late summer door hanger

Sunflower applique on late summer door hanger

Quilted Wreath

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I like to decorate my front door with wreaths (Halloween, Easter, Mardi Gras, etc.) and other holiday decorations. I bought some spring and Easter fabric for some projects, and two of the floral fabrics in the collection reminded me of cherry blossoms. [The fabrics are from Dear Stella’s Hop to It collection.] The D.C. area loves cherry blossom season, and we are currently waiting for them to bloom in a few weeks. I decided to use those floral fabrics to make a quilted “wreath” for my front door to celebrate the cherry blossoms. The wreath has an approximate outside diameter of 18 inches with an inner diameter of about 6 inches. This is the first project I have made where I attempted to sew on a curve, and it shows, but I continue to practice and improve.

Finished quilted wreath hanging on front door

Making it was fairly simple. I wanted the wreath to be about 18 inches wide in total, and I wanted a 6 inch hole in the middle. That would make the fabric wedges have about a 6 inch radius after being cut. [My math, geometry, and drafting skills came in handy in designing this.] I started with two 9.5 inch squares of each fabric, and then I cut all four blocks on the diagonal.

Fabric squares cut on the diagonal

I then sewed two triangles of the different fabrics together and repeated four times to give me four complete squares.

The two different fabric triangles sewed together to make a square

I sewed all four squares together to give me a classic pinwheel design. I got the pinwheel point near perfect, and I was shocked and ecstatic about that, even though I was going to cut it out.

Complete pinwheel square

I then cut a six diameter circle out of the middle. I had a cutting template for that portion, so that was relatively easy. I couldn’t find a template for an 18 inch diameter circle. Instead I folded the square twice into quarters, measured a 9 inch radius, and then freehanded the cut. It came out fairly well.

Top fabric cut into wreath or donut shape

I then layered the fabric with batting and a bottom fabric and pinned together. I then free-motioned quilted.

Top fabric donut basted with batting and bottom fabric

Once it was quilted, I used the top layer as my guide to cut the batting and bottom fabric to give me a donut shape again.

Quilted sandwich cut into wreath

I added binding and a ribbon with which to hang the wreath. I also added fabric pockets like you would to insert a dowel or similar to hang a quilt. I added four pockets, but it does not work quite as well on a circle. I used wire to make a ring to fit inside the pockets, so that the wreath would keep its shape. I couldn’t get the wire ring to stay inside because the pockets were too shallow and the wire was not stiff enough. Thus I used the old stand-by of safety pins to pin the wire ring to the pockets. Somewhat messy on the back, but it works.

Quilt sandwich with binding and fabric pockets on back to hold wire ring