Sewing for the Christmas Bizaar

I wish I could say that I am such a calm, cool, and confident person that juggling three major things at once has no ill effect on me.  But as it turns out, that's just not true.


In addition to just finishing up the busiest time of year with my Day Job, I have been trying to prepare items to include in a Christmas Bizaar next week. I think I could have managed okay, except then my husband and I got a wild idea to try to buy a different house.  The offer was accepted, contingent on selling the one we're in of course. This was just enough to tip the scale out of balance to the "Oh My Gosh What Are We Doing" side.

Stress levels have hit the roof.  As many of you know when you have your home for sell, it needs to be in tip-top shape and ready to show at a moment's notice. And when it is shown, you have to vacate the premises. All understandable, but this all takes precious time away from my productivity.

For awhile, I was really downing the Tums, but now I have organized myself and am feeling much more calm about things. Whatever will get done, is what I will show. And all the yards of fabric I have left over can be used for next year.

So as a preview to what my booth will look like, here are some of the new items I have been creating.  But first of all, here is a great banner that I got from Vista Print - it was just $9!

  
I'm trying to hit up the festive, holiday time here in our resort community, so I have make a bunch of these classy wine bags.  They have squared bottoms, and I dressed them up with some great, sparkly rhinestone buckles that I found online at Lucy's Buckles. I have about 26 of these in assorted fabrics. If they don't sell well, I won't need to make cookies for my friends this year - they will get wine in these fantastic, reusable wine bags!

 
And then I decided that Christmas stockings are a staple at this time of year, but nice ones are really hard to find, at least in our stores. So, I made up two dozen of these. Most of them have really soft faux fur cuffs, and are lined with batting and a coordinating fabric. I even have some for the pet dogs!

 
To have different price points, I made up several sets of Christmas coasters. I tried FMQ them on my regular sewing machine, but found that after using my long arm, I can't get the hang of FMQ on my domestic machine. Drats. So, I decided not to quilt them and just let the great fabric pattern do the talking.

I also added some great new fabrics for my microwavable hot/cold rice/flax packs.

And to finish things off, I'm frantically trying to finish up about five Christmas table runners, two baby quilts (just binding them), and a large Summer Weight Quilt that is perfect to use at all the outdoor concerts we have here in the July and August.

 Whew. I thought there was more?  Oh, yes - a few mug rugs, just for good measure. They will look good displayed with a fancy Christmas cup and some cookies for Santa.

 
Thank goodness this is a two-day show.  It will be interesting to see if it is a worthwhile venture, and if I will repeat it next year.  If I do, one thing is for certain:  I will be making Christmas items in July, not in November!

Barb

P.S. Linking up to Quilting Lines: Christmas Stocking Hangout