Handmade Holiday Week: Day 4 - Home Goodies

I couldn't resist whipping up some Christmas decorations for some of the people on my list.

1. Yarn Wreaths
I'm in love with the yarn wreath trend and was pleased with the one I improvised for fall so I tried two more versions, one in traditional Christmas colors:

And another with a more wintry feel:

I was thrilled to find a great Etsy seller for beautiful felt, Benzie Bazaar. If I'd put my mind to it, no doubt it wouldn't have been a great leap to realize that somewhere there was an easy source to buy something a little nicer than the cheap poly sheets sold at the local craft store. However, I didn't think to look until someone mentioned this store on their blog. I gave it a try on a whim and the lovely selection of colors, great customer service and beautiful product definitely sold me.

2. Christmas pillows

More of that lovely felt made it's way into this quilted pillow. I added some handstitching and yet more funky Michael Miller prints. I also used an envelope back for the first time and I'm wondering why I've been bothering to faff around with fiddly zippers when these work so well. I love pinks and teals in my Christmas decorations and I have some other yummy prints that were destined for a table runner for myself which I never quite got around to. If I still feel like facing Christmas fabrics in January I might knock it together for next year but I know I have a lot of yummy new fabrics coming my way (including from this fantastic giveaway, which I can't believe I won!) and a very long list of new projects both for myself and for gifts.

I'm pretty slow at the handstitching so this one took a loooong time to finish up. I love making pillows and can usually knock them up fairly quickly, but its such a fun design I'm glad I put in the extra effort.

The print on the back is from Lizzy House's Outfoxed collection. I have quite a few fat quarters still rolling around that I haven't decided what to do with yet so, aside from a few snippets here and there in my Christmas sewing they're still waiting for me. You might notice that I have a bit of a thing for contrasting natural linen with different prints and colors and I ran through about 3 yards last month just on little projects like this. Its probably time to find a good online source to bulk buy some more.

Bilbo couldn't quite conceive of any possible reason why I would be out in the yard with a camera and not taking pictures of him so he kept photobombing my shoot.

Here to stay lady. Deal with it.