New Living Room Wallhanging

 I had to replace my living room wall hanging.  I recently washed the old one and it shrunk up on the corners.  I should not have put that darn thing in the dryer.  Doing dumb things.  That's me.  

The replacement is a big star.  I used Missouri Star Quilt Company's video tutorial found here.  It a super easy block and it a lovely large size.  One block makes a gorgeous wall hanging.  The cool thing about this pattern is that if you adjust the size of your squares to any size you can make the block the size you need.  Using 10" squares of fabric for my block, I have a star that is 24" square.  

I love stars and this big star is easy to make.  The light blue fabric is the fabric I used to cover my ironing board, so my wall hanging matches it.  I made this in about 5 hours from fabric cutting to adding the hanging sleeve on the back.  

The Start of My 2016 Christmas Tree Project

   I made two crazy little Christmas tree decorations to start off this project that I will be working on all year.  These are going to be my substitute for a regular Christmas tree during the holiday season.   I don't put up a regular tree because of my kitties and I miss a Christmas tree, so I decided to make some trees that they can't destroy and put them around the house during the holidays.

    This is the first one I made a a couple of weeks ago.  This idea looked prettier in my mind than it actually does made up, but I like it.  My idea was to crochet a long piece and shape it into a tree and secure it on fabric.  To make the crocheted piece, I used embroidery thread with a 1.7 mm steel hook, crocheted a chain of about 64 stitches, crocheted a round of half double crochet around the chain and then added a picot edge.  I attached it to the fabric, added sequins, and bound it.

     

   This is the second tree I made.  I crocheted a border around this 3" embroidery hoop using embroidery thread then I added the small embroidery.  I found the border idea here.  I have five more of these embroidery hoops, so I'll be using those up and crocheting different borders in different colors.

     I used a skein and a half of embroidery thread with a 1.7 mm steel hook.  I put the border around the outside hoop so I could add the embroidery.  The designer uses the inside hoop for her borders because she is using them as picture frames and doesn't need the outside hoop.

    The third Christmas tree will be a larger appliqued piece.