Monday 8 November 2021

Headstart On Christmas

Firstly, thank you everyone, for your love, kind words and prayers. They mean so much to us at this difficult time.

I spent Saturday working at the sewing machine - that's a "Happy Place", a coping mechanism. I can lose myself in needlework and creating things. I was making nativity headpieces for "Little Acorns", our church toddler group. I did this for Miriam at UCF a few years back, and you can find the tutorial here.

This time, I made angel haloes, 'peasant head cloths' and crowns. The haloes are loops of tinsel - a 2m length makes three loops. It cost me £1.98 to make six, and all the rest of the stuff came from the Great Stash.

The head cloths for Mary. Joseph and shepherds were rectangles of fabric with overlocked edges [ 45x 65cm is a good size, or 50 x 50 - for toddlers. For older children/adults, I'd go 60x 60 or larger]

Last time I made turbans, this time I did crowns

I had some stiffened peach fabric [the trimmings from my bathroom blind, see here] and some heavy green blackout curtain trimmings. Both non-fray fabric. I cut strips 20cm x 55cm and folded them in half and pressed them.

Then I sewed lengths of Christmas ribbon along the fold, and along the top - thus making a channel. I drew a 'pointy' pattern and stitched that with a wide zigzag stitch. This held the two layers together and I cut out the points. 

Then I threaded the ends of a 7cm piece of elastic into the ends of the channel and sewed then down. This kept the edges of the crown together, but the elastication helps it stay on a child's head.

Plus a small instruction sheet- and that's all gone off to Amanda and Ann who run the group. One job ticked off on my Xmas list [I really must make my cake soon!]



10 comments:

  1. The head dresses are excellent!

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  2. Wow, those look brilliant. It's good to keep busy isn't it and accomplishing something that really needs doing makes it even better.

    Take care. xx

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    1. Keeping busy is what keeps me going, sometimes

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  3. It's marvellous what you can accomplish with oddments from a stash, and so much easier than planning and going out and buying fabric, etc. I think the creativity just flows when bits and pieces are available. Those toddlers will wear their headdresses with joy!

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    1. Despite my HUGE purge of fabric [giving away more than 200lbs of stuff!!] befpre we moved, there's still a surprising amount left for projects like this

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  4. Angela, you continue to astound me with your skills and tenacity. I am so proud to be your friend. Another win/win is you distracting yourself from worry AND producing something useful and beautiful.

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    1. Thank you Jan - I'm truly grateful for your friendship too

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  5. Those headpieces are great! And how wonderful that you were able to make most of them with fabric in your stash! I'm glad you had this project to keep you in your Happy Place and busy. :)

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  6. To bury ourselves in work - be it in craft, or writing, or in cleaning the stove - seems to me to be a good strategy. These last few months I have done much of this and not to escape, but to (counter intuitively) find head-space by focusing on something different and all absorbing, if only for a while.
    Take care, in every sense.

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  7. Thank you - it's a strategy that works for me, and I'm grateful to have that time and spacd

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