Xmas Tree

There is nothing more fun than decorating a Christmas Tree with children! My boys still help me and enjoy hanging all their favorite ornaments. When they were little I bought [safe] ornaments made of resin so they could hang them on the bottom part of the tree. I handled the breakable ones to their chagrin because those were the shiny ones.

This wall hanging, “My Kids’ Tree”, pays homage to those times (yep, pictures are not that great but I don’t have these projects with me to retake them – they are hanging at Quilt Market in Houston right now!). The hexies remind me of the ornaments they could hang, and the balls decorated with Deco-Foil (by Therm-O-Web) are the ones only I could hang.

The green scraps of fabric were fused to the background using HeatnBond Lite by Therm-O-Web and appliqued using blanket stitch.

The balls were prepared with fabric and batting: I cut 2 circles of solid fabric, placed them with right sides together over circles of batting, stitched all around, poked a small hole through one of the fabric layers so I could turned them inside out, and pressed them. Then, I cut the hearts with the die cutter using the Hot-Melt sheets, ironed them over the circles, let it cool and peeled the paper. Positioning Deco-Foil sheets with the color facing me, I ironed them onto hearts, let them cool and peeled the Deco-Foil off. Easy!

Before the ornaments were ‘hung’ on the tree with tacking stitches, I used Aurifil 50 wt white to freemotion quilt the strands of garland on the tree and quilt the background with simple meandering. I like it!

I am a little ahead of the game for Christmas and that is good because I am getting busier and busier at school. Deco-Foil is fun and easy to use (be careful not to iron anything too close to it once it is applied to the project – ask me how I know!).

Perhaps you got some Christmas inspiration with this and the other two projects I posted this week (see them here and here). That was the goal! I will be linking this post to Crazy Mom Quilts and Confessions of a Fabric Addict on Friday.

Happy Day,