Noel, Noel the Angels did sing..

My lovely sister dropped me a bag full of goodies off on her way home from her shop yesterday.  She brought them to cheer me up because I hadn't been very well over the weekend and there was all sorts of Christmassy loveliness inside.  So with today being a damp and dreary indoor kind of day I thought I would make something nice for her, to say thank you.  I have included prices where I have them and pictures of each stage of making.  I hope you like the finished results and I hope she does as well.

Isn't  it a gorgeous collection of goodies.

 I thought I would use the small embroidery hoops to make a Christmas decoration.  I don't like the word XMAS and YULE always seems to conjure up blue frosty colours when I think of it.  So I picked the word NOEL, it always seems to be a red and green word.  Do you associate certain words with certain colours, or is it just me being me again?  

I cut a sixteenth of the fat quarter to fit the hoop.

I laid out the letters to see how much fabric I would need .

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I cut a piece of red and backed it with the bondaweb.

Can you spot my mistake, I thought I had been careful!  But the N was the wrong way around.

 When you draw around the letters remember they will be reversed as they are on the back of the fabric.  So after I got it wrong I had to cut another N.

All cut the right way.

Cut the wrong way!

After cutting out the letters I ironed them on. 

I cut out the letters and ironed them on to the swatches of green.  The glue in the bondaweb held them in place when heated.

 Then I stitched around the edges in gold thread with a running stitch.

Place them in the rings.

Place them as centrally as possible in the rings, tighten the screws slightly.  Pull the fabric taught and then tighten the screws fully.  Next I cut a length from the red striped fabric and pressed it into a tube shape and folded the ends into a point.

My daughter thought it was a tie!

 I stitched the tube with wrong sides together and created a point.  Then turned it inside out, if you trim close to the seam first it will lay flatter when turned.  I added a hanging loop to the top and then slip stitched close.

I added ribbon bows to the top and stitched the rings in place with a few tacking stitches.  I then added red ribbon bows to each of the rings.  The bells are strung on the gold thread and stitched in place with the ribbon and button.  I have loads of fabric left and lots of other bits and pieces out of the stuff she brought me.  I'm going to see how many things I can make out of that one bag of goodies, so keep watching.  You could put a single word in one of the larger hoops she sells instead or it you want a different word add more hoops.  

Below is a list of things I used and the prices I have, if you want the price for any of the others just contact Carolyn on her Facebook page, Make Me Fabrics or pop into her shop.  She is open Tuesday, Friday and Saturday on Elmsall market.

4 Hoops @ £2.60 each

Alphabet templates £3.00

Gold decorative thread £1.15

Small red button ?

6 Fat quarters @ £1.50 each

3 large Gold bells ?

Thin red ribbon 30p

Bondaweb?

I still have loads of fabric left, if you wanted the backgrounds to be the same it would mean you could use a fat quarter for that and one for the letters.  Hope you like this project, it was quite easy and didn't involve a lot of sewing, but I think it looks quite effective.  I'm going to make myself one now, it will look lovely hung on the fire place.

So I'll talk to you all again soon and keep sewing,

All my love

Louise xx