Hoop La

Traditions are one of the best parts of Christmas (well unless we're talking about re-gifting fruit cake perhaps). One of my favorites is the now three year old ornament exchange among my friends. About a dozen of us gals gather together for holiday cheer (aka wine and yummies) and jibber jabber until we gather around the tree to share a little summary of our year and distribute one of our homemade ornaments to each friend. Similar to a cookie exchange you make a set of ornaments and leave with a mixed bag of ornaments. Not only do you get new items to 'spruce' up your Christmas tree, you have a happy reminder of the exchange and the friend who took the time to make your little decoration!

After hours of surfing the interwebs looking for the 'perfect' tutorial or idea I finally decided on an applique sewing project I fell in love with. With total due credit to Pilli Pilli for dreaming up these cuties I set out to make my own. I ordered the teeny tiny hoops online (hoping they'd arrive in plenty of time to finish!), had a scrap of linen on hand for the 'canvas' and bought 1/4 yard pieces of little prints in reds and greens. There's always plenty of ribbon, floss and needles here so all I had to do was figure out how to make them!

A bit of trial and error taught me that using a fusable backing for the little shapes would minimize fraying and keep them in place for sewing. I cut each piece free-hand so no two were alike (mostly because I had no pattern and besides, part of their charm is their 'rough' look). I cut 4 inch by 4 inch squares of linen and ironed on the bitty shapes then headed for my Curvy (aka sewing machine). Never having used a machine for free-form/curved sewing I wasn't sure what I'd end up with but it turned out to be easy enough (and the small size made pulling out wonky stitches and trying again easy too!). Next, I fitted the linen piece into the hoop all nice and snug and hand stitched the details. I added little snow flakes to the backgrounds (but they didn't show up too well).  I cut circles from scrapbook paper for a backing, tied a pretty bow around the tension screw and added a silver thread hanger. Then I did it all 11 more times!

I made 6 with happy little trees..

And 6 with happy little snowmen...

And packaged them up up to share!

 I'm already thinking about next year!