Hanging Stars for Christmas

... these stars are just the ticket for hanging in the windows at Christmas time. Completely, 100% my own design and technique.

My inspiration has come from our cold Christmases when in Germany and the gorgeous stars which were hung in the windows of the houses and shops. In Germany the stars had lights in them in the windows, but here in Australia with our long Summer daylight hours, the small lights are not necessary. So, without further ado - here are my Hanging Stars for Christmas, to hang in my Aussie windows...

Above is side one and below is side two. Completely reversible, it doesn't matter which way they face, the look good from inside and out. Love 'em!

And, here is a close up shot of the fussy cutting I did for each star. This sample is the smallest star.I can't wait for Christmas to hang these stars up.

Bag Lady?

Hopefully a tasteful lady with gorgeous bags! - vbg... I have been very productive the last week or so catching up on making bags.

The first one here is a pattern which I have made once before. Called The Original Scrap Bag it is a pattern from ScrapBags . Normally 4 x Fat Quarters are needed, but in this case, I used 2 x 50cm pieces as I had some gorgeous Japanese fabric in my sewing room. I have padded this particular bag with some very heavy duty stabilizer, so that when I put it down, it will stay standing up and not fall over. Big enough to hold A4 size books, but not so big to be bulky - make sense? I hope so.
The second bag to be presented to you in this post is called The X Bag from FourCornersDesigns . I made this one in a single afternoon. It was very, very easy to construct and required 1m of each fabric. Once again, I had some gorgeous Japanese fabric which was perfect. What you can't see in the photo is how the two panels of the bag cross over each other, so that there are 3 internal pockets. The middle one is the widest 'cos that's where you put the covered cardboard base and the outer two pockets are narrower, perfect for diary on one side and my hand-sewing in the other, making the centre pockect perfect for all of my everyday paraphenalia.

I am feeling quite chuffed - 2 finished projects that I can use immediately and a small amount of floor space in the sewing room is now cleared! :)