Handmade Christmas Challenge - September

This month, I have been working on improving my curved piecing. It has been a challenge for me - I usually avoid curves - but in poking around for tips, I ran across a tutorial for making beaded stilettos (a helpful thing to have when piecing curves.) They are my September entry for Sew Cal Gal's  "A Handmade Christmas Challenge".

I took a pledge in January on Sew Cal Gal's web site to make handmade gifts and decorations for Christmas. Those of us who took the pledge post them then link them up and get a chance to win a prize via a random drawing at the end of the year. I didn't enter for the prizes, but because I really like the idea of making some nice things for Christmas, either as decorations or for giving. I usually don't think of doing something like this until Thanksgiving, and then it's too late and I'm too busy. So I decided to take the challenge! (The prizes are really pretty cool, though, so you might want to take the pledge as well. Never to late to get started on those Christmas gifts!)

Mary's Stilettos

I first saw these stilettos and a link to the tutorial on The Quilt Show. (I do love this website and the videos and tutorials. Ricky Tims and Alex Anderson have great guests and learning the new techniques are so much fun! In any case, the tutorial is by a quilter by the name of Mary Tosch, but the actual tutorial is posted on Bonnie Hunter's Quiltville website. The link is here.

This is a really easy thing to make; useful as well as beautiful, so I just had to make some for my sewing friends. Basically, you glue the beads to a turkey lacer that is slightly modified. The tutorial directions are clear and easy to follow. I didn't have the glue she specified, but I did have glue for jewelry making (another hobby I enjoy) that would hold glass to metal. It's called Dazzle Tac..

The only other change I had to make was because I didn't have any clothes pins, at least that I could find. So instead I cut some slits in the bottom of an egg carton just big enough to hold the loops to keep the stilettos upright while the glue cured. I left them alone for 48 hours for maximum strength.

These are the final results. Pretty cool, don't you think? I hope my friends think so, too.

Don't forget to check out the other Challenge entries. There's always something inspiring at SewCalGal.