Inspiring Bernina Christmas Stars

Making a Christmas themed decoration to hold chocolate treats has been an annual event since 2007. Quite a few of the chocolatiers in New Zealand make a Christmas themed chocolate and they are an ideal little Christmas thank you to friends and family far and wide.

Mere Kirihimete me nga mihi o te tau hou ki a koutou katoa
Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you all

I have blogged about this little escapade of mine twice before in 2016 and 2017. No sweetie stockings were made in 2018 and 2019 as life got in the way. I thought the same thing would happen in 2020 until I saw the pattern for the stars - just the inspiration I was needing for the sewing machine to rev into high gear. The big difference this year is very few (five to be exact) travelled overseas due to the postal challenges that 2020 and its little virus have brought. I still managed to make 95 - four to the United States, 1 to Canada and 90 for friends and family around New Zealand.

It must be making the extra 28 for UK friends and family that tip me over the edge as the making this year was surprisingly relaxed and achieved on the weekends at home. No mammoth sewing hours in my hotel room in Wellington this year.

The finished item

Metallic pleather is hard to photograph and Christmas stars are even more elusive as they are given away before I remember to take a picture. The fabric from my 2019 Christmas dress made an ideal photographic back drop for the few that hadn't found a new home when I remembered the need for blog pictures.

This year the chocolate of choice was a Van H small Christmas pudding. It is a dark chocolate with a Bailey's cream centre and decorated with white, green and red to resemble a traditional Christmas pudding (but much nicer!)

Photo courtesy of Van Heiningen Chocolates

Van H are a local Christchurch chocolatier that have been making European styled chocolates since 1985.

The fabric

I thought it would be difficult to find metallic pleather suitable for star making and was wondering about making them in glittery felt. I did a bit of online research and found metallic pleather at Spotlight so off I set on my fabric buying adventure. Before heading off to Spotlight I needed some real fabric for a clothes sewing project and popped into The Fabric Store. Lo and behold they also had the most amazing soft supple metallic pleather in two different colours a pale gold and a silver. The sewing fairies were really helping me along with this project, especially as it meant I didn't need to go to Spotlight (the Australia/New Zealand equivalent of JoAnn).

In these two pictures it is hard to tell them apart. The top picture is the silver and the bottom the pale gold. The silver pleather was purportedly a Marc Jacobs fabric but I am sure he didn't make little Christmas stars with it.

Not knowing quite how many stars I would be making I only bought 0.5 metre of each of the two fabrics which was enough for just over 60 stars. This turned out to be not enough and I went back for some more. The pale gold was still available but the silver had sold out. Instead I found some silver rainwear fabric which didn't fray so seemed an ideal substitute. Unfortunately there is no picture of the silver rainwear fabric or the stars made from it. 

The pattern

In a departure from previous years the stars are made from a commercial pattern. Normally I take a clip art image of a shape that inspires me and enlarge to the size I want, creating a front and a back, with the decorations essentially being 2D.

The 2020 stars came from issue 75 (Autumn/Winter 2019) of the Bernina Inspiration magazine. I have been collecting issues of this magazine for at least ten years and this is the first pattern I have ever used from it. There have been patterns of interest in the past but like many things they never saw the light of day. This issue of the magazine is still available to purchase here if anyone is keen to make 2021 a star year!

Bernina describes pattern 7536 Lucky Stars as "a beautiful decoration idea for New Year's Eve and at the same time a small gift for guests. In the stars the gift recipient will find a nice motto or a wish for the New Year."

I thought they were ideal for housing little Christmas chocolate treats.

There are two parts to the Bernina star (pattern pieces 81 and 82). Using only pattern piece 82 suited my needs, photocopied and glued to a piece of cardboard. I save a few cereal packets to be used for this type of project, as they are just sturdy enough to make a good pattern template.

The pattern alterations

Aside from just using pattern piece 82 my stars are essentially the same as the original. The difference is in how I chose to sew them.

The sewing

Before starting to sew the stars I made:

• embroidered name tags on cream felt with gold polyester embroidery thread using the Bernina 830 embroidery module, cutting them out with a pinking rotary cutting blade.
• several metres of hanging loop cord using the rolled hem setting on the overlocker and three threads. The cord for the silver stars was two cream Metler Metrosene sewing threads and a Madeira Supertwist pearl metallic thread. For the pale gold stars there was one cream and one ochre Metler Metrosene sewing thread with a Madeira Supertwist golden linen metallic thread.

The stars were cut out and sewn production line fashion, in batches of 30.   

Step 1 - for each star the opening on one side was sewn closed (wrong sides together) and the opening on the other side sewn closed at the outer edge for roughly ⅝". 

Step 2 - for both sides clip into the seam allowance of the V. For the opening side glue down the seam allowance on each side of the opening. For the rainwear fabric the glue didn't work and I ended up ironing ¼" Steam a Seam 2 tape (cut in half) to the seam allowance. This was especially tricky because the rainwear fabric didn't take kindly to being ironed (I tested a piece first before ironing a star) but with my Clover mini iron and silk organza pressing cloth no stars were injured in the process.

Step 3 - sew the two halves of the star wrong sides together using the pattern cutting line as the stitching line. The hanging loop was sandwiched between the two halves at the opening star point.

Step 4 - trim the seam allowances and clip into the V at the base of each star point; then turn each star right way out using the Clover point turner for the star points.

Step 5 - sew on the name tag.

A pile of stars on the kitchen bench after chocolate stuffing

Step 6 - stuff with the chocolate treat!

Another sweet treat

And because it is Christmas we indulged in a delicious Christmas themed cake from Sweet Soul Patisserie.

There were many spectacular creations to choose from but I decided to stick with the Christmas theme with the Pinecone (made of milk chocolate mousse, roasted pine nuts & almonds, caramel and chocolate caramel sponge cake) and the mini Croquembouche Christmas tree (choux pastries filled with Orange blossom cream and raspberry with a shortcrust base).

They were quite difficult to photograph and get the full spectacular impact so above is the picture of the pinecone from the Sweet Soul Patisserie website. If you are in Christchurch I thoroughly recommend this as an afternoon tea venue.

The cakes really are as delicious as they look.