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Monday, December 24, 2012

Merry Christmas!


After a three- or four-year hiatus, I was inspired this year to make ornaments again--but only a few and mostly for family members.  And because I limited the number I enjoyed making every one.


One of my favorite parts of the Christmas celebration is the journey of the Three Kings--three obviously intelligent human beings who find themselves wandering around after a star and who are driven by such curiosity that they can't send a servant or an annoying brother-in-law to check things out but have to see for themselves what is going on. So my inspiration began with the number three.



I then decided to use some of the hosta flower stems I had harvested in late fall. For some reason they had turned a beautiful mahogany color this year--or perhaps they do this every year for a brief time since the ones I neglected to harvest are now the usual faded tan color. And they turned out to be hollow!

Fabric was next and I rummaged through my drawer of African fabric that I love, but I have rarely had the courage to cut it or the project to use it in.  And now I had a project: a patterned background would be a perfect contrast for the plain stems. One of the cool things about African fabric is the damask-textured fabric they start with before they dye or batik it. (This shows up a little in the purple but not at all in the blue.)  The blue fabric came from a project, whose name I have unfortunately forgotten, to give very poor women a skill by teaching them batik.  More of the fabric can be seen on the back of the ornament.

I made the fabric squares first with batting sandwiched in the middle.   Then came the tubes and beads.  And it was done!

Hope you have had much to celebrate this year!

Peace. . . .

2 comments:

Gypsy Quilter said...

Lovely idea. Very creative. Thanks for sharing.

IHaveANotion ~ Kelly Jackson said...

Great ornaments....creative and interesting!

Kelly