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Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Only 11 Months Til Christmas!

Today is the 25th of the month and in my email I got a reminder to think about preparing for Christmas 2011. There are those of you out there who will scoff at the idea, but yes, I do work on Christmas preparation all through the year.

This month I actually finished up a project begun in early December. Hopes were high to have it on the tree before Christmas, but other things took priority and it got put away – not forgotten, just put away.

On Bradley’s most recent weekend away for visitation, I got out all the little pieces and spent most of Sunday putting this together. I wish I’d kept the link to the web site from whence the inspiration for this fabric chain came, but alas, I did not.

Here is my finished project, a chain made from Christmas fabric and decorated with old buttons. I used some large scraps of fabric leftovers from a Christmas ornament I made a few years ago for a swap, and sandwiched some Wonder Under between. After ironing and fusing the fabric  layers together, I cut strips using pinking shears, so there’s no worry about fraying.

The original blog post I saw used Velcro to put each link of the chain on, and that way it could all be taken apart and stored flat, and you could adjust the length easily if desired. I considered that, but Velcro is expensive, and I was trying to use what I already had at home, and that was Fabri-Tak fabric glue. I glued several single links, clipped each with a clothespin, and left them to dry for an hour or so. Then I came back and sewed a button on the seam of each. When I put the chain together, I put every other link with a button. The joining links are button-less.

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The buttons came from a collection I picked up at a garage sale many years ago. I’ve added to it over the years, so some of the buttons are old, some notsomuch.

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Since this chain will most likely go to Jessica’s house, I put a good dab of glue under many of the buttons, just to reinforce the attachment to the link.

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It seems like it should be lots longer than it is, but it’ll work for a small Christmas tree. The great part is that I still have some fabric scraps and can always make more links to add length if needed.

Okay, there is my January project for Christmas 2011. Who else is preparing already?

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