Christmas decorations in February?

Although I haven't posted any photos of quilting progress lately, I have been working on my Pantone Quilt Challenge quilt. The top is finished and I'm currently hand quilting it with Perle 8. It has to be finished by the deadline of March 21, so I'll just keep it under wraps until then.

In the evenings I've been working on these lovely Christmas designs from Laura J Perin. I made a couple of her canvas work designs last year and I really enjoyed stitching them. Back at the start of January, while I was still in the Christmas spirit, I decided I'd like to make her Holiday Ornaments Series 2 (below), and her new Holiday Wreath. My aim is to have them both ready well before Christmas 2014.

I had some white canvas in the cupboard and rather than painting it, I decided to dye it with tea. I left it in the laundry sink overnight and it turned tea coloured. The canvas won't be visible when the designs are finished, because I'll be turning them into individual ornaments, but even so, I didn't want any white canvas peeking through.

I used cotton to mark the centre of each of the four designs, and then put the canvas onto the roller bars and wound the threads onto cardboard. This is how much I got done on the first night:

After another night or two it looked like this:

and within a week the first ornament was finished!

They're turning out slightly bigger than I expected - 4.5 x 4.5 inches. They'll look great on a big tree, but I might just cut down the designs and make smaller versions too, to give as gifts to people with smaller trees.  I'll keep the centre designs the same, but bring the outside borders in. Canvas work is great because you make lots of progress quite quickly.

I'll be linking up with Needle n thread Thursday and Esther's WOW. and Confessions of a fabric addict.