Christmas in July Blog Hop

Here we are in July and somehow I found myself with two Christmas in July celebrations within days of each other. Saturday was spend with the Jubilee Quilters for their marathon Christmas In July celebrations. Today is our first day of the Christmas in July Blog Hop hosted by Carol from Just let me quilt.
Here is the schedule, so you can follow along.

July 23

Creatin' in the Sticks 

MooseStashQuilting

Lily Patch Quilts

Adventurous Applique and Quilting

Melva Loves Scraps

Sew Many Yarns

Cynthia's Creating Ark- You are here

July 24

Wont-To-Be-Quilter

Words & Stitches

Home Sewn By Us

Desert Sky Quilting

Thimblemouse and Spouse

Seams To Be Sew

Clever Chameleon Quilting

July 25

Quilt Doodle Designs

Kwilty Pleasures

Creative Blonde

Just Because Quilts

Vicki’s Crafts and Quilting

Quilter in Motion

Made By Marney

July 26

Quarter Inch Crafter

Marjorie's Busy Corner

Tu-Na Quilts, Travels, and Eats

Ms P Designs USA

Selina Quilts

Beaquilter

Mountain Quiltworks

July 27

Life in the Scrapatch

Quilt n Party

Days Filled With Joy

Quilt Fabrication

All Thingz Sewn

Sew Golden A Chance

Just Let Me Quilt

 I have to admit I was still working on my project on Saturday as I had a restart on my project. The original project which is all cut ready to sew didn't get to the sewing machine. So that project will get put aside to be used for a project later this year. The benefits of celebrating Christmas twice a year.       

So what did I make for this Blog hop. When it comes to Christmas I love Christmas trees and you all know how much I love stars. Now what happens when you mix trees and stars together, you end up with a Christmas Star tree.

With the tree stitched in place and added my borders for my wallhanging. Cut my backing fabric you can just see it sticking out in the picture below, than run into a wall and ran out of time to finish my wall hanging off.

But at least you can see where I am going with this and I will finish it later this week and share with everyone.

Don't forget to visit everyone and enjoy their blog post because I know there is lots of great projects to see.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

What size to make a Wall Hanging?

As a good friend pointed out the other day, Christmas is just around the corner. So does that mean we should be preparing our Christmas projects! For a change I have a Christmas project in mind something that has been bouncing around in my head for a couple of years. Yes it must be something worth doing if it is still there. Now I haven't designed a Christmas project before so this will be interesting.

So I am designing away, finally having nailed the design that has been bouncing around in my head, so I move on to block sizes. I am calculating the sizes when  I have an Oh No moment when I added everything together and my wall hanging is more like a quilt in size rather than a wall hanging. My thought was to use bigger blocks so it could be a quick project. Now that gets me thinking what is a good size for a wall hanging? The size I had in mind seems too large for a wall hanging now.  Is 20" a good size? Is 40" too big?
 I ask the question on my Facebook page and got some help, including 40" is good, depending on the wall space on you have to fill and even  smaller at 15" was suggested. So it seems to be a personal choice and no clear way to go.
What size do you consider a good size for a wall hanging? I would love to know your opinion on this topic.

Here are some of the fabrics I have selected from my batik stash for the Christmas project. Yes I am back to working with batik fabrics.  Not all these fabrics will end up in the project but I wanted a good variety of fabrics to choice from. Just wondering if there is any other colours I need to add to it. What do you think? Have I missed something? I feel I am missing something.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia

A Quick Christmas Project.

I had to visit a fabric/ homewares discount shop yesterday for a couple of things and though I don't buy my quilting fabrics from them I always look in the remnant bin to see what is in there. Generally I am looking for pieces that will work for the soft toys I make. I have found some fur like pieces and felt pieces which suit animals. Anyway for some reason I picked this piece of red and white Christmas fabric, I couldn't really see the design but I could tell it had some red reindeer on it and it was only $4.00 for the 50 cm piece. What the hell I thought! I am sure I can do something with it. Let's see if I can create a quick and easy project.

When I got it home and open it up it screamed table runner.

So here is how I turn this piece of fabric into a quick table runner for a quick last minute gift or for your own table. As this piece was longer than the standard quilting fabric length I need an extra piece to length the backing fabric.

I cut the green into two pieces and sewed the striped fabric to them.

It was time for basting the two fabric with batting in between them and pin the layers together. You can use basting spray if you prefer. It was too hot to use it as I tend to use it outside due to the smell of it, which I don't like.

Some simply straight  quilting for this quick project. I used masking tape to help keep the lines fairly straight with white cotton.

Remind me to but a better brand of blue tape as they were nearly off by the time I finished my 6 lines of quilting or maybe it was just too hot, over 40 degrees again.

Then it was time for the binding and I went with red. I did consider the green I used on the back but I liked the red a little more.

There you go, a completed table runner. Of course this would work with any fabrics of any theme to make a quick table runner.

Until Next Time

Keep Stitching

Cynthia