What A Great Idea

So I needed to whip up about 30 stockings to give away on Christmas eve at my church. The plan is to put crayons and a bit of paper to color in it and be happy. So my friend Google helped me find a great idea from Here... oopicircus.blogspot.com 
Unfortunately OOPI doesn't seem to be posting much to their blog, but this idea made it all worth while!
I'm thinking this is a brilliant idea! Look at that cute drawstring stocking!!
Here's mine. So I serged off the tops of the stockings, and then here's the life changing part...thanks to OOPI's idea!!

 See you fold over the corner on the top of the back  side of the stocking, just a little bit in a triangle way.

 Then just serge the seam all the way around, leaving the top open in a little V shape.

 See when you're done it's like this. The side seam is complete and you have a little notch V shape at the top.

 Now fold over the top of the stocking to form a casing. And look at the place where you made the little triangle V shape!!

 See it makes a completed casing! No raw edges are hanging out, you can tuck in the serged thread ends and it looks so nice when you sew the casing down,

 See how that looks? Now you just run your ribbon through the casing and you;re done! None of that silly leave an opening stuff to make a good looking casing. This idea is awesome!

 That is a casing to be proud of! Look at that! The little bit you fold over makes it so fast and easy to form the casing opening!

 I used red ribbon-thanks DD!

 And I only took pictures of the stocking before I threaded the ribbon through, but it was bunny fast to get through those casings!

SO I whipped up these 30 stockings pretty darn fast!  Now on to more things!

Standing in Line

SO, my paper shredder dies. We had been best friends for YEARS! All the sudden while I'm shredding a pile of stuff, he just up and stops shredding. SO I did some on line "research" and found the best deal was at best Buy. SO I traveled over to my neighborhood best Buy.  Now I hate to rant too much, but....this is one full week BEFORE Black Friday, and there was ONE check out stand open at Best Buy. YES ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!! What are you people thinking??!!After about a 7 minute wait...yes I know seven minutes doesn't seem like much, but when the kid in front of you is waiting to spend his birthday money on a new Skylander figure, and the guy behind you is trying to get back to work on time, well seven minutes is a LONG time. At long last another cashier comes along.  Phew-paper shredder purchase COMPLETE!

 I stepped over to Target next, see what's in my cart? Yeah, not anything fun or festive at all.

 But here's something fun! gas over at Costco was only $2.64!! Now that was a cheery thing to see!

 Then I went to JoAnn's because I needed some thread for the quilt I'm in working on...yes I went to JoAnn's and I only bought two spools of thread. The line at the cutting table made me avert my eyes from any fabric at all.Again standing in a long line to check out, and this is a full week before Black Friday...what are these retailers thinking??!

 I had to relax after standing in line everywhere I went, so when I got home I whipped up some sample stockings. We're planning to hand out stockings with crayons and a coloring page in them for the kids on Christmas eve at church. I'm so proud I thought to get started on this before December 23rd.

I googled fast Christmas stocking and found several ideas, so I had to try them and see which was actually the fastest. They're all pretty fast I have to say. More to come on stockings!

Done, Done and Done

So I finished table runners for my church's tables...

Don't those look nice!?
I used a tutorial called The 10 Minute Tablerunner, well they might be 10 minute for folks who don't choose a one way print fabric and make a cutting error...well it might have been a 20 minute table runnerX8. Anyways here's the link I used.

 

I'm pretty sure you could make it in 10 minutes if you do it like the directions say...but what kind of fun is that?

I also finished a couple of these

Cute huh? These will be for the bazaar coming up on November 17. Maybe I'll get a few more of them done before then. Here's the link for the tutorials on how to make these..Christmas Stocking Fun

And lastly, I was on a mission to find some dollhouse furniture for a handmade dollhouse that was built for Our Church  Auction. SO if you haven't priced doll house furniture lately, it's pretty pricy. But I got a little bit and it will be enough to get some lucky little person inspired. Dang I guess I didn't take a picture of the whole house, anyways it's huge and heavy and will last a long time!
Here's a link to our Supper, bazaar and auction information too! Come and bid on the doll house!
Oxford United Methodist Church Auction, Supper & Bazaar

 

Things Are Coming Along...

Well with a little bit of help from Bob...NOT!

I've moved on from cat pressed pattern pieces to cut out pattern pieces...

To about half a kangaroo costume.Check out that tail! It's pretty funny.
I've also got a Christmas stocking worked out from this tutorial over at Nebraska Views

I saw Lynn's blog last year and loved the stockings she made of recycled jeans. SO I am giving it a try too!

I'm hoping to get a few of these cranked out for the church bazaar...I'm so thrilled with how my Singer sews through the denim seams like BUTTER!!