The Christmas Holiday Is In Full Swing Here

   I pulled out my embroidery machine a few weeks ago and I've been doing some embroidery to make some small decorative Christmas pillows for me and dear daughter.  I had fun thinking of names of businesses that would be unique. Here are a few of the pillows I made:

     I used Christmas fabric on the wrong side to do some of the embroidery, but I have to admit some of them are hard to read.  I just couldn't bring myself to put all of this fun on plain muslin or white fabric.

     Cold never bothered my anyway

   

     Let it snow

   

    Dear Santa, I can explain

    

    Team Naughty and reverse side is Team Nice

    

    Bah Humbug Lounge (can't you just picture Scrooge at the bar knocking a few cold ones back grousing)

    

    Bassett's Gingerbread Cookie Company

    

    Festive Figgy Pudding Bakery

    

    I have a lot more of these type of pillows I want to make with more little sayings and names I made up for Christmas and Fall.  I'll be making these throughout the next year to get them done.  No rush now.  

   I made a batch of gingerbread men on Monday night.  I use the recipe from The Stay At Home Chef, link here    I like this recipe because it doesn't make a lot of cookies, just enough.  I got a total of 11 from the batch I made this year.  Last year I got 14 out of it.  It was the perfect way to start my holiday season.  

 Christmas garlands:  two wins and one loss.

   At the beginning of the year I posted about crocheting a garland for dear daughter's tree.  We finally got to install it last Saturday and it did not disappoint.  It looks awesome on her old tree, I can't wait until she gets a new bigger tree (hopefully next year) and we put that lovely garland on a new tree.  I'm sure it will shine.

    The fanfold hymnal page garland  I was trying to make from a very grainy picture snapped from a video was a complete fail.  Since I only had the picture to go by and no instructions, I could not figure out how to get the my garland to look like it did in the picture.  After two unsuccessful attempts I scraped the project.  I'm quite bummed but I can't spend time working on it, I have to move on.  

    So I had a bunch of hymnal pages leftover and I found inspiration on Pinterest to make a different kind of garland.  This time with my sewing machine.  I cut out heart shapes, layered three and sewed them together, then I sewed them to twine to hang them.  I got two of these garlands from the leftover pages.  I gave one to dear daughter.  I will be leaving this heart garland up all year.