Somestime You Just Gotta Play . . .

I know that there are times when you just have to do something besides clean, cook, pay bills, etc.  I know that I NEED to create something everyday to keep me balanced.  It might be quilting, painting, knitting, cross-stitching, weaving, who knows, I just NEED to be creative.  At the moment my husband and I are busy working on a float for our local Christmas parade.  This float was a wee bit challenging in that it is for a political campaign for our oldest son who is running for Sheriff in our county.  The theme of the parade is "A White Christmas in Watkinsville".  I cannot begin to tell you just how creative we need to get to be able to achieve both Christmas and campaign on our float.  We will try.  After the parade I'll post a picture of our finished product.  I'm sure you'll get a kick out of it.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share with you something that I made for Christmas last year.  It was inspired by a glittery placemat found at a local discount store and from there I came up with a poinsettia applique to finish it off.  I drew off 15 petal shapes for the outer two rows and 8 smaller petals fors the center.  When fusing, I just offset them.  I drew a circle on a scrap of a glitzy gold fabric and cut it out with pinking shears.  I drew off a leaf pattern (mine really look more like holly leaves) and cut out 8.  I used three different reds and accented each row with stitching.  The outer petals I used a straight stitch and sewed around and inside the petals with a red thread.  For the middle row I satin stitched the petals with a red thread also.  For the inside petals I straight stitched them down with a gold metallic thread both on the outside and on the inside giving some texture.  For the center I free- motion stitched with gold thread and painted over the entire circle with gold glitter glue.  I also used the same glitter glue and made random dots on the inner petals.  For the leaves I blanket stitched them down and then used a straight stitch for the veins.  I used red glitter glue for the red berries on the leaves.  For the little vines I used a green thread and did a really small zig zag stitch and at the ends I sewed on red beads.  This was so much fun to create!  I'm thinking about doing a pink and a white poinsettia next.  I will frame this one to hang at Christmas.  I must say that I am so fortunate to have a sweet husband who will special make my frames for me.  All I have to do is paint them. 

This is one of those projects where you just go with your imagination and don't worry about 1/4" seams, reading the pattern, etc.  Just use your Steam 2 Seam and draw your petals and leaves, pick out your fabrics, fuse, and sew.  How easy can that be.  Remember, have FUN!!!