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Congratulations to Karen Brasington (comment #27)! Karen has won a 20 Holiday Flourish Fat Quarters courtesy of Robert Kaufman and Toadusew. Robert Kaufman has donated some beautiful batik stripes to make the trees we posted a few weeks ago so keep watching our blog for the next give away!
Subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll receive notifications of new contests as we announce them!
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The Loot….
20 delicious Holiday Flourish Fat Quarters courtesy of Santa Kaufman up for grabs! We’ll be adding a few fat quarters of the Holiday Flourish we have in stock too.
The Rules….
Leave a comment (be sure to include your email address) and answer the question below…. We’ll randomly pick a winner a on Wednesday December 29nd.
The Question…
What’s your favorite Christmas Tradition?
– or –
What is your families unique Christmas Tradition?
I was talking to my Dad a few weeks ago and had a good chuckle as I listened to his saga about getting ready for my sisters visit and trying to find Christmas lights. This basic holiday tradition is a fairly simple matter for many of us, but for my dad who lives in Thailand, his odds on snow, Christmas lights and reindeer are all about zero. Much to his horror, December 25th isn’t even a holiday. I’ve tried to explain to him that most folks in Thailand are Buddhist and no matter how many lights he hangs, Christmas isn’t going to become a national event over there. My Dad, like most of us, isn’t going to give up his Christmas Traditions without a fight….
Today’s email said he’s “rigged up some lights” (I’m frightened to ask) and he’s located a turkey in a nearby village (again, I’m frightened to ask). Houses in Thailand aren’t built with kitchens like ours and don’t have ovens at all so he’s going to roast the “turkey” outside. OMG – if the house burning down from the rigged lights doesn’t kill him and he doesn’t have a stroke while cooking over an open flame in 100 degree heat then he’s certain to have a near death experience eating that “turkey”!
This got me thinking about my favorite Christmas traditions. Thankfully, my favorites don’t involve high stakes like my dads lol. My favorite Christmas traditions and ones I can’t live without are Figgy Pudding, Christmas Crackers and phoning my family and close friends. If I can have these things, I know it’s Christmas in my heart and feel the love and warmth of the people I love no matter where they are – after all isn’t that what Christmas Traditions are for?
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Blog Post written by Chloe Anderson © 2010 Toadusew Creative Concepts
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Congratulations to Linda of Ontario, Canada (comment #17)! Linda has won a 20 Holiday Flourish Fat Quarters courtesy of Robert Kaufman and Toadusew. We had so much fun putting together this bundle of Holiday Flourish Fat Quarters and reading all your comments, we made a second bundle and will be announcing our new contest in a little while - keep and eye on our blog or follow us on Twitter or Facebook…
Subscribe to our blog or follow us on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll receive notifications of new contests as we announce them!
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If you’re familiar with some of our designs, you’ll know we love to play with stripes of any kind and I loved the dynamic color and texture the stripe batik created in my corded tree experiment. The fabrics I used for this project are Patina Hand Paints by Artisan Batiks from Robert Kaufman. Debra and Michael Lunn, the craftsman behind all the Kaufman batiks, are true masters of color and pattern. I prefer to use their batiks because I can count on the fabric having rich and clear colors, being top quality, soft and never heavy with wax residue. If you want to make a tree of your own you can download a supply list here and read on….
Time required: 2 hours
I used the Wrights 6/32” Diameter cording and the 10”and 13” Styrofoam cones all purchased at my local Joann Fabrics. The amount of fabric/cording you’ll need will vary depending on the size of your “tree”, cording used and how tightly you wrap your tree so I always buy more than I think I’ll need. Nothing is more frustrating than needing a bit more fabric for a project that is well under way and not being able to find it because the store doesn’t have any and it’s been discontinued. ARG!
I cut my batiks into 2” strips and joined them together as though I was making a binding (for information on bindings see our free Toadtip download). If you’re using stripes, you’ll get the best results if you cut them so that the stripe runs across the 2” strip. No matter which way you end up cutting the strips, cut enough so that when they are joined together you have at least 300”of length for the small tree and 400”of length for the medium tree. The Artisan Batiks I used are identical on either side so I didn’t have to pay attention to which side was “right” or “wrong” as I joined them together. This is not so for all batiks so be sure to join them with the right sides together if you’re using something else. I opted to join the strips together at a 45 degree angle so that the joints would be less obvious in the tree and pressed them open to reduce bulk.
Next I loaded some matching thread and switched my presser foot over to the zipper foot (a piping/cording will work too). I nested the cording into the crease of the fabric and sewed fairly close to the cording (not so close as to make it tight, but rather gently secure the cording in place) , using the special foot made this much easier. When I started sewing I left a 4” tail of fabric without the cording so I could get a nice top on the tree. I also found it easier to leave the cording on the spoll while sewing and rolled the finished fabric cording back onto the spool when I was finished. I only figured this trick out after wrangling 300” of on the first tree – yikes!
I wanted the top of the tree to be a sharp peak so I had to fabricate my own as the cones don’t come this way. I shoved a couple of bent paper clips into the top and then formed my own peak by tightly wrapping a small scrap of wool batting around the paper clips and securing it with a pin (I ended leaving the pin in).
Before wrapping the tree I started my peak by wrapping the pointy end of a sharp pencil. I started by folding the 4” tail under and tightly wrapping a few rotations over the tail and pencil. To get that sharp peak I did the first couple of wraps on a sharp pencil. Once I was happy with the way it looked I carefully unrolled it a little and hit it with a glue gun a couple of times to lock it together.
When I had a good peak and enough rotations to almost cover my fake-o peak I took it off the pencil and worked it onto the top of the cone. I had to fiddle with the top for a minute to get everything lined up so that the transition to the cone was invisible once wrapped, and then it was smooth sailing to wrap all the way to the bottom. On the second attempt I learned a couple more tricks that made life easier… Keep the coils very even so that when I hit the bottom of the tree they’ll be flush and even all away and spinning the tree and keeping the cording still will prevent it from getting all kinked up.
Once I had evenly wrapped to the bottom I trimmed the cording to leave a 2” tail and removed the cording in this section. I unwrapped a few rotations then re-wrapped adding a spot of glue here and there to keep it all stable while I finished on the base of the tree.
At the bottom I folded the tail back and under itself to hide the raw edge and tacked it down with the glue gun. To finish the base I gently folded the raw edges of the cording over and glued them in place one layer at a time.
The finished trees look awesome over the fireplace and I’m hoping to get a 17” one done over the holidays! I hope the trees brought you a little Holiday joy.
I love hearing from everyone so if you have any thoughts or tips to share please add a comment.
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[ click here for give away details ]
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Blog Post written by Chloe Anderson © 2010 Toadusew Creative Concepts
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