Countdown to Christmas!

Proper thinking about Christmas is still a few weeks away for me, but we’ve already started some of our Christmas workshops at myBearpaw studio.
Yesterday we did Christmas Angels and had a lovely day creating pretty handmade ‘dollies with wings’.
Here is the angel I made along with the rest of the class. Her name is Dolores (after one of my best blogging buddies). I think she looks pretty sophisticated with her ‘Botanics’ dress trimmed with vintage lace, and her amazing hair!

Here’s her hair from the back. I used Sirdar ‘Hush’, a lace weight yarn with glittery bits that is so soft and fine. It worked really well as hair, especially as it looks a little like she has highlights!

And here are all her angel pals!
From left we have the brunette angel I still had from last year (I sold the other two but am so pleased I held on to one so I had a class sample ready!), Emma’s blonde beauty, Sarah’s (my old colleague and bestie who came back to the studio for a day – so lovely to see her!) hippy chick, Dolores, Wendy’s ‘pretty in pink’ and lastly Eva’s very demure grey haired angel (not quite finished but very nearly).
I love how different they all are. What fun we had while making them and bringing them to life!!

The other Christmas class I have going on is a 5 week evening course to make this Advent Calendar Quilt. This is version number 2 (number 1 discussed here), of my Advent Tree Quilt. I made this one for the Blend Fabrics booth at Quilt Market, it’s all made with Cori Dantini’s Merry Stitches. I wonder if any readers saw it there?

Hopefully I will get a pattern produced for this next year (one of my New Year resolutions is to concentrate on producing patterns from some of my workshop projects).

The numbers on version 2 are executed differently from the earlier version, above. My class are working on the first version (and doing so well, they are actually ahead and are going to finish too soon if I’m not careful!) but I think version 2 would be easier for a pattern.

As for my own Christmas present making, that isn’t even on my radar yet. I am way too busy planning new classes for 2015, which get announced early December!