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As some of you know every year our Church organises a Christmas Craft Event for children (and adults!) from the village. We have ten tables at which they can do various crafts, and I usually do something needlework-y. This time it's a felt Christmas tree ornament, I made the example today -- I draw the design on in gold gel pen, so that if they don't cover the line all that shows up is a bit of extra sparkle, then they use crochet cotton in running stitch to cover the lines, with red beads for holly berries. It is then cut out with pinking scissors, a ribbon is attached and the back covered with stitcky felt. The front is Royal Blue, the back Holly Green, the ribbon red (can't be too colourful !)
It's meant for the slightly older children who like a challenge -- and surprisingly I usually get a fair few boys as well as girls! Hope this will do as well as the previous ones

A nice simple design but very effective. I bet you will have a load of takers on this one!!!!!

Fabby! This should get lots of interest at the craft event.

You are very good at coming up with excellent little projects for such occasions Mabel. Brilliant

That's lovely! I might have to make a few of those myself for Xmas! I wish we had this kind of event near me.

A lovely design. I am sure it will generate a lot of interest.

Yay Mabel! You're inspiring future stitchers!!!!
Faith

The children always really enjoy it -- and so do the parents ! The challenge is to find something that stretches the older ones but doesn't take too long -- they're only there for a maximum of two hours and of course they want to do as many crafts as they can! My sewing ones usually take rather a long time anyway, so I needed to keep the comlpexity down a bit, but I thought with the beads and the bright colours (my yellow is a bit light but I'm using a darker yellow for the children) it still looked good enough to hang on the family tree

That's lovely, Mabel, I bet lots of people will want them. I'd be up for that myself if I lived anywhere near you. It looks really effective, but obviously simple to make.

Thats great Mabel, I bet there are a lot of takers.

Well, I've got the start of 30 kits -- they've all got the beads, coton a broder, sewing thread and ribbon, and tomorrow I will cut out 30 circles of holly green sticky felt, and draw 30 candles-with-holly-leaves on royal blue felt

I wrote some instructions so that those who want to take the kit home to finish (e.g. because they come to my table late in the afternoon) will have some idea of what to do. You can have a look at them here -- and yes, I know there is a t missing and one of the words says "hreads"... I've already put an extra t in 30 printed versions...

Mabel you are a gem!!!!!! So much work but the kids love this type of stuff. Great job!!!!

That's wonderful Mabel - I am sure they will love it

wish there was something like this near where i live would love to go look!

So here is the first of the kits I've put together (apologies for the blurry photo, with flash it looked really washed out so I had to turn the flash off) -- the drawing on the felt is done with gold gel pen so the bits of the lines they don't cover will still look festive . We'll lend them a hoop, needle & scissors, and I've got pinking scissors with me to cut out the circle before assembly. Wish me luck!

Looks great of course and I am sure you and they will have a fantastical time doing the stitching!!!!!

This looks wonderful, Mabel, you should sell these

ooo pretty

Mabel that is such a lovely idea - I'm sure the children will really enjoy this. Do let us know how it goes

Well, it's done for another year ! I'm just relaxing with a big mug of tea, bending over junior school sized tables all afternoon does take it out of you a bit, but it was great fun, lots of children, and they really enjoyed all the crafts; my table was furthest from the entry so it started a bit slow but soon I had 4 to 8 children at the table all the time, at one point I had seven, 5 of whom were boys!

Two of my regulars -- this is the third year they've come to do their sewing!



A whole family -- mother, grandmother and two daughters:



Some of them did really well, starting and finishing off threads themselves, and one of the older boys (about 12) decided to do the whole thing in backstitch because that way he didn't have the "gaps" you have in running stitch!