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!]