December Day Four

About this time last year I bought some cute little 'kiwi' flavoured Christmas stitcheries (shown *here*).

Me being me, I stitched them up but did nothing else with them.

The other day I pulled this one out —

There aren't many NZ/summer themed Christmas designs so of course I had to have it. This Christmas kiwi is sitting under our beautiful Pohutakawa, which flowers at this time of the year. I took these photos a few years ago; I haven't seen any blooms yet this year but they aren't too far away.

I selected a few fabrics and decided to border the stitchery with narrow strips. I sewed them on quilt-as-you-go style i.e. as I attached the strips to the stitchery block I sewed through the batting and backing as well (forgot to take photos). The one thing I don't like about this technique is that the back often has messy looking lines that stop and start seemingly in the middle of nowhere. However I used a busy (Pohutakawa) backing and they don't show too much!

I used a single fold binding which seemed to be all it needed. I cut the binding at 1¼". You sew it on the same way as standard binding, you just don't double the binding strip before attaching it —

I sewed corner triangles into the binding to insert a piece of dowel for hanging.

And here is the finished piece. It didn't take me long once I started it, so I'm pleased I tackled it!

Now I just have the rest of this set of stitcheries to deal with as well (and I've just discovered there is a new design in this series out now too)!

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn