What are you going to make with that fabric?

What should I do with this fabric and my other precious (It's quite a collection!) Christmas fabrics?


Well, I made these little
 6 inch Friendship exchange squares!
Click on the image to see details...

 Our sewing group makes 6 inch quilts with a theme about twice a year. This time it was Winter/Christmas

I knew I wanted to do snowglobes this year, and got the idea from SewMamaSew. I didn't use her pattern but she has one.

I started with fabric motifs, and cut them with this circle template and my new fave turning cutting mat, and great care not to slice off a finger.

on this one in particular, I cut out the Santa, fused him to snowy fabric and cut that into a circle...

using this mat.


I considered using plastic to cover the globe, but didn't want to work with it, so I used gossamer thin but shiny organza...

See? I cut it out with the same template which was hard as it's hard to see slippery and hard to control.
I didn't want to fuse it down to the globe shape as I wanted it to stand out a bit and reflect the light.
I started with a 6 inch square of peltex stabilizer, background fabric, globe fabric. Then held the organza on as I satin stitched around it with hologram Sulky mylar thread.

Then put on a backing, free cut out a base, either satin or buttonhole stitched around it in the quilting, quilted more on the piece and started with the embellishments.

 Just let me say, my studio looks like this after making 18 of these!!!

Toward the end, I was working on a 12 inch open space!

Anyway, I added binding, either fused (see my tutorial page for my technique (click)
or single turned binding pulled to the front and buttonhole stitched into place.



 I also paper pieced teapots fussy cutting motifs, that I printed from my sewprecise software, sizing to 4 inches. I also did winter tree's with the same software, sizing them to 4 inches, and let me tell you, by the end of making the first one, I was SURE I wasn't doing 12 of these to share. The angles were annoying, but led me to develop a terrific technique for dealing with paper piecing angles. I'll share that another time...

After they were quilted and bound, it was time for embellishments! 

I stamped snowflakes on most of them, stitching over them with halogram silver mylar thread, and putting on crystals in the center. I added other crystals, including some hearts. They were already sparkly with metallic threads sparkling over them. I cut out some words printed on ribbon for the globes and stitched them on. One teapot has some of the gold mesh. Others received specialty stitches. 

The exchange was yesterday and I'll show you what I received later. For now, I made extras for you!!

I love to know you are out there, sharing my creative journey and reading my words. I love your comments on my adventures. I want to celebrate my connections with you with another giveaway.

Please leave a comment and a way to contact you, if you would like one of my friendship squares to prop up on your shelf. Tell me what your perfect globe would hold! Tell me merry Christmas! Let's celebrate friendship!
 I will hold open the giveaway til Dec 21 (Sunday)
Tomorrow I will be doing a Dog Globe post and another giveaway for those with pet blogs.Here is the link to that giveaway
**A winner was chosen by drawing and it's KC!! Congrats, contact me! ****