What are your plans for Christmas?

I mean, what are you making for Christmas, a quilt, pot holders, an apron with appliqué of Santa…

I have loads of ideas for Christmas quilting and patchwork.

Start with placemats with Santa’s head, design by Nancy Halvorsen:
First, trace the motif of Santa’s head (from the book Happy Holidays to you of Nancy Halvorsen) into fusible paper, special for appliqué. Then cut the with paper scissors leaving at least 1\4" from the drawn lines. Then plug in your iron machine until is very hot. Decide now the materials you are going to use for each part of the motif. Press with the hot iron for 5 seconds the fusible paper to the reverse of the material. Now use your sharp material cutting scissors to cut the cloth along the lines of the drawing. When you are ready, select a material for the background, cut it to size and press it so it would not have any wrinkles. Now, peal of the paper of the back of the motifs and place it in the background to your taste, make sure is all in the  perfect place (use if necessary some tweezers to place the small pieces of material in the right placebefore fusing together by pressing with the hot iron for 5 second in each section, make sure the whole picture is fuse properly. Now is the decorating with blanket stitch around the edges of the picture of Santa. You could use contrast colour embroidery thread, or all black. I am doing my Santa’s Place Matt by hand sewing with a black embroidery thread. The result is very nice, but use your imagination and put your personality on your patchwork project.
As you see in the picture, cut the left over material of the background, cutting on the left of the placemat background material, following the edges of the bierd of Santa, the hat, as seen on the picture.

I have just finished my Halloween Table Runner. I have used the pattern from FreePatterns.com. Designed by Marian Shenk. The finish project of this table runner is 18" by 52". You will need materials of orange for the appliqué of the pumpkins, green for the leaves, black for the eyes, nose, mouth and the lines with bias tape and brown for the stem. The background is white or cream, but feel free to be imaginative and give the project your personal touch. You will also need all the quilting utensils, like cutter, ruler, base, scissors…

You will need to cut 26 green leafs (14 reversed), 4 pumpkins, 8 eyes of solid black fabric, 4 nose solid black, 4 stems brown and 4 mouths solid black. Use the traditional technique for appliqué and place them as shown below in the other picture

The template is on the left reduced 50%, so enlarge the photo to double the size to draw the motifs. Take the fusible paper and transfer 4 pumpkins, see that the leaf will overlap, see the other picture below to know how to transfer the appliqué into your background.

Once you have place the leafs around the table runner, use a thin black bias tape to make the vines, also brown might look good. Press with a very hot iron to make it stick to the background fabric and give it a blanket stitch all around the motifs. I used in my table runner green embroidery thread for the leafs, bright orange for the pumpkins, and black for the eyes, nose, mouth and vines and brown for the stems. See some embroidery decoration is added to the vines in brown in the picture below, you could use the lines stitch or any other one that you prefer.

To make the edges in this round shape fold the material in half vertically first and the horizontally, then draw in the material the shape you desire in round shapes. Open it up and it would be the same in both ends of the table runner. If you are not sure what to do practice first in a blank piece of fabric to see the result before transferring to your table runner quilting project.

When you are placing the shapes in the background fabric first fuse the pumpkins at either side, the the leafs around the pumpkins and the bias tape as vine from one end to another, the last bit would be placing the leafs along the vines.

When you have placed, fused and  blanket stitched all the motifs, is time to cut the batting or wadding and the back fabric. Cut a piece of batting 18” by 56” and the back material too. Place with pins the right side together of the back material and the front of your table runner and put on top of the back material the batting and pin together. Sew around the edges of the table runner front, leaving a seam allowance of 1\4” leaving a small gap to turn over. Close the gap by hand sewing and press the whole thing. Now is time for the creativity. Design the way you want to quilt your Halloween Table Runner.

I can make some suggestions but is your project, so feel free to improvise.

I would suggest a simple machine stitch around the motifs in a light creamy color the same of your background fabric.

Have fun with the project and don’t forget to email me if you have any doubts. I will soon post here the picture of my finish project.