A Jolly Christmas Quiltie for Alphastamps

I 've made another Xmas piece in my capacity as member of the Alphastamps Design Team. I was not sure if I wanted to go down the Red/Green Xmas road but in the end I compromised by using a green frame for a mainly red/gold piece.

The background was made first by using an 8.5 x 8.5" piece of green velvet and layering it with wadding (batting in US speak) and a green backing fabric. This was then machine stitched using one of the decorative stitches on my Bernina sewing machine. I then cut it to an 8 x 8" finished size. Put this apart and work on the centre piece.

This was cut from one of my fabric/paper collages, where I collage on a background of calico (muslin in US) with a variety of vintage paper text and images, tissue paper and paper serviettes (napkins in US), mixed together with watered down PVA glue. As a finishing touch I added Art Glitter in green while the collage was still wet. I cut out a 6 x6 piece which I really liked and layered it with white craft felt by stitching around the edges. Onto this I added an image from Alphastamps Santa's Workshop vellum sheet from which I cut the Santa figure on his horse with his gift bag. I stitched it on using gold metallic thread on my machine. I added a lovely child with dog image from Alphastamps Snug in their beds paper sheet. Finally I added the vellum text A Jolly Christmas and hand stitched (using backstitch) the capital letters in red and blue.

I added this to the centre of the green background piece by satin stitching around the edges with gold metallic thread. I added gold beads around the edge of the centerpiece by hand.

Finally the edges of the green background were finished with a red transparent ribbon and machine stitching and a green star sequin was added to all the corners, held down with a gold bead.