Project: Chrismons

As an adult and a mother of precious boy/girl twins, I want to bring Christ back to Christmas. I want my children to understand their Christian history and God's saving Grace.  Chrismons are symbols used by early Christians as a symbol of faith as well as representing biblical and theological concepts.
Last Christmas, the twins were 22 months, we decided to decorate a small, artificial evergreen tree on top of our bar. This way we could keep the children from pulling the decorations off the tree and we could have some decorations in the house.  We added non-breakable decorations to the tree including a silver star Emma and Nathaniel made in the church nursery.  This silver star was the start of our Chrismon project.
This year we are going to have felt Chrismons on a bigger tree hopefully in our dining room. We might have to hide the wrapped gifts in another part of the house- I suspect twins would rip through the paper as soon as the boxes go under the tree -

Last night, I started cutting out my pieces from a pattern I found at Sunday School Kids.  I'm going to make mine three dimensional, by adding stuffing to the patterns and gold glitter glue where appropriate. The Jerusalem star will be designed using gold glittery felt.

Grams Christmas Gift

Last weekend my mother took me to The Old Craft Store on the Historic Downtown Carrollton Square  She thought I would enjoy having a new place to be inspired by sewing. I had picked up some cute Halloween Owls fabric at Hobby Lobby in late September, thinking I would make Emma a cute jumper  - if I start now perhaps I could have it ready for Halloween 2013 -
While I was there I saw a Memory Quilt. Since I don't quilt, I inquired about having one made.  I was told I would have to make an appointment over the phone with the manager. I was introduced to the manager and given a business card so I could make an appointment for a consultation. Couldn't I have just made the appointment when I introduced to the manager?  I thought, too much trouble for a mom of twins who doesn't get much time off.  I'll make it myself.  Aside from this bit of trouble and the throbbing migraine I was experiencing I got to walk around inspiration and fabric fairy land. Gorgeous quilting fabrics unlike what can be found at the big box craft stores. Vintage inspired fabric, Halloween/  Christmas fabrics, toille - a sewers dream!  And patterns that I have only seen on the internet were available for purchase. I wandered into  a large work room filled with friendly quilters.  If I can find the time, I would enjoy coming back for workshops/lessons and fabric, fabric, fabric!   

This is going to be one of my Christmas projects, making a memory quilt for Gram. Since she is house bound, I'm going to make a lap quilt for her. With the help of my children, I've picked out the fabric and washed it last night. Tonight I'll be lay out the squares and start the fun part, designing the quilt!. It's my husbands job to choose the pictures for the quilt. Raggedy Ann and Andy are going to be on the back of the quilt. I plan to do the sewing on my Singer. Will this be a good introduction to what my machine is capable of doing. I've had it for about 5 years and have only used it once. Too busy raising twins and designing jewelry, but getting to a place where I might have more time to enjoy sewing again. Will I pull my hair out over this project? Or enjoy it so much, that I make a memory quilt for my own mother? Check back to see my progress...