Another Tote, a few days before Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve is just a couple of days away! I was so excited when I woke up the other morning to 4 inches of snow, thinking that we might get a white Christmas after all but last nights rain took it all away.... :-(

I won't complain too much because it will be much safer for all the people who have to travel this time of year! Safe driving!

Well, this is part of our snowless yard. It would look much better with snow for sure! We have a few very large fields behind us. I have no idea how many acres a large field might be so I will guess that the fields behind us might be a few hundred acres. North, beyond the fields, a mile or two, is the Gulf of St. Lawrence not too far from the Atlantic Ocean. In the winter when the winds blow from the north, it is so cold and we can get hit with some whopper snow storms! This is what it looks like now.

And this is what our backyard can look like after just one storm. There was hardly any snow on the ground before this storm came blowing in a few years ago!!! This is the back of our house!

We had to get our snowshoes on and climb the mountain of snow and pull the clothesline out of the snow before it broke!

Anyways, I had another busy couple of days. I decided to make a tote for my next door neighbour! She's a lovely lady and a wonderful neighbour!

This is an Art to Heart project from their Easy Does it for Winter books. I love their stuff and have a few of their books. I tried to cover all seasons.

The one problem I had was that they suggested you use your sewing machine to do a blanket stitch around the edge of the snowman and the mittens, glove, birds, etc. but my machine does not do that stitch. I tried an alternate similar stitch but it looked horrible so I just stuck to a normal straight stitch and was pleased with the results.

I ironed a light fusible web to the back of all the fabric used in the making of the snowman, glove, etc., cut out the snowman, glove, bird, etc., and then ironed it all onto the plaid fabric. I then machine stitched it. I used black thread for everything except the scarf, which was done using red thread.

This is the back of the tote.

Plaid cottons are extremely hard to come by on the island for some reason so I used another fabric for the back that wasn't too Christmassy so the tote can be used at all winter.

It is only a few days before Christmas but my family also celebrates the January or "Old Christmas". I hope to make another gift or two in time to send them along before the big day. So I better go and get to work!

Merry Christmas everyone and Blessings in the New Year!