Christmas Art Quiltie

I am hosting a Winter/Christmas themed Art Quiltie Swap in November on By Hand and finished my quiltie last night!! I received some fabric scraps from my daughter a while back and found some wonderful Christmas fabrics among them.  One of them is an all over pattern of this nativity scene.  I love that it is bright and includes the animals, stable and the star.  Unfortunately, because we are doing 4"x4" I had to sacrifice the star so I could keep the manger scene. To keep as much of the image as possible I also chose to construct the quiltie with my sewing machine.  I used an off white fabric with gold stars for the back and sandwiched some batting in between.  After turning it over I sewed a seam close to the edge to give the quiltie some definition.  I added seed beads to the stars on the back and added french knots in yellow in between to create a beautiful starry sky and stamped NOEL(Quietfire) in red which makes it really stand out near the bottom edge.
I started outlining the details on the front in running stitch with embroidery thread.  It gives the individual elements more definition and creates some texture.  I wanted to add a 3D element but was reticent to cover up too much of the image.  After auditioning a wide variety of options from my stash I decided to create a little shrink plastic charm that I could sew on.  I stamped JOY (Quietfire) in red on an oval of rough and ready shrink plastic, punched a couple of holes on either sides and heated it until flat.  I love the way it turned out though I should have used a larger punch for my holes because I ended up having to drill them out to a larger size so I could get my needle through them.  I sewed my little charm on the lower right hand side just by the sheep.  I created a little shrink plastic charm with my swap info as well and sewed it on the back over my starry night.
I am very happy with my little quiltie!!  It will be packaged and sent off to my partner in the next day or so.

Therese