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.

Style Arc Rosie Elevenses Top

This top was sewn a wee while ago and posted to England in plenty of time for Christmas.  Now Christmas is well and truly past I can share the top.

I know, it wasn't very sensible to make a short sleeved top in Liberty Tana Lawn for an English winter. In my defence when I first saw the fabric I thought "Cath" so I ignored the seasonal incongruity and forged ahead.

The finished garment

Dorothy had to be pressed into service as the stand in for Cath.  I really hope it fits better in real life than in does on Dorothy.

I was trying to be artistic taking the photo amongst the rhododendrons completely ignoring the shadows cast by the flowers. Luckily the pink one flowers a bit later than the white one so provided a better backdrop.

The fabric

Another great Liberty Tana Lawn from The Fabric Store. The design is Elevenses in colourway dusky blue.  The Japanese feel, cups of tea and in this colourway seemed just perfect for Cath.

The sewing pattern

The Rosie top is described as a great top for all occasions.  The slight cap sleeve is very flattering and the back inverted pleat gives this top a point of difference.

If you are looking for a sewing pattern that doesn't take much fabric I can recommend this one.  For the size 10 (as is without alteration) it uses less than 1 metre of fabric.

I am glad I bought this as a PDF, even though I hate taping them together, because I can use the size 10 for Cath and the size 12 for me.

The pattern alterations

I made the size 10 without any alterations. I did omit the button closure in the back and cut the back piece on the fold.   The neck opening was big enough to get the top over your head without needing the button.

If I made this top for myself it would need: a full bust adjustment; lengthening in the body; and a forward shoulder adjustment.

The sewing

As this was a gift I was extra careful with the sewing.  French seams were used throughout but still only with a 3/8' seam allowance.  This gave me 1/8" for the wrong sides together seam and 1/4" for the final right sides together seam.  This gives a much nicer finish in my opinion than having a 5/8" seam allowance for such a fine fabric.  For a thicker fabric I do use a 5/8" seam allowance for a French seam - 1/4" for wrong sides together and then trimmed down, 1/4" for right sides together and 1/8" to allow for turn of cloth.

The inside of a garment always looks as good as the outside with French seams.

For the armholes / side seam StyleArc have you sew a narrow hem around the armholes then sew the side seam. Apart from the worry that your side seams won't match up under the arms this is a really neat (tidy) idea. Luckily my side seams did match up.

There were some strange folds as you can see in the picture above around the armhole / princess seam. Also I got a strange puffy bump along the shoulder seam which can clearly be seen in the picture below but it didn't appear an odd shape when flat.

I worked on the premise that these are just because Dorothy is the wrong size and they won't appear when Cath is wearing the top.

I stay-stitched 1/4" away from the neck edge then used this as a guide for a double fold to get a really narrow hem. Once the neck edge was sewn I removed the stay-stitching. For the sleeve and garment hems I used the same method but with the stay stitching 3/8" away from the edge. I just love using 3/8" because it is the width of a standard modern presser foot from the needle, so you can just whizz round keeping the edge of the fabric at the edge of the foot. I say modern presser foot because my Singer Featherweight is only 1/8" from the needle to the edge of the foot.

So there it is another successful StyleArc pattern that one day I may sew for myself.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Oh wait that was last weekend, now it is feeling a lot more like new year.

This year Christmas day was really hot in the mid 30s °C. Not the sort of weather for roast turkey and all the trimmings. Instead we had a lovely baked salmon a much appreciated Christmas present from a fisherman friend. For the first time in ages we had Christmas pudding served with fancy custard (creme anglais).

Anyhow here are a few bits and bobs of Christmas nonsense. Or keeping in the spirit of song titles - a long and winding road to nowhere.

Christmas Chocolate Sock 2017

For 2017 it was a hexagonal Christmas bauble - this wasn't my original plan but I needed something quick.  I felt that production was way down on last year with only 114 baubles and ten snowmen made. (The snowmen were already half done - drawn on the fabric last year just never sewn together.) But when I checked the numbers are about the same with 130 snowmen made in 2016.

The production run was smooth and easy but did involve cutting out 228 hexagons from the outer Christmas fabrics and the same number from the lining fabric, together with 114 little rectangles of grey felt for the bauble hanger and 114 pieces of ribbon so they can be hung on the tree. Then they were chain pieced along the opening edge - one outer fabric matched to one lining fabric.  Half of them had the grey felt and ribbon inserted along this seam. Next the two hexagons are opened out and a pair with the grey felt and ribbon are matched to a pair without, right sides together. The two sets of hexagons are then sewn together with a 1/4" seam  - leaving a small opening in the lining.  Lastly (for the hexagon part) they are turned right side out through the small gap left in the lining fabric all ready to have the chocolates added.

The other part of production is to machine embroider everyone's name onto felt, cut it out using pinking shears and sew it to the bauble.

As I spend most of my week in Wellington these days and driving around Christchurch city centre is an exercise in raised blood pressure, due to the continuing post earthquake reconstruction, the chocolates this year came from Schoc.  These chocolates not only taste good but look amazing. The staff at Shoc in central Wellington made up my little cellophane bags of chocolates during their quieter moments.

Chain piecing Christmas baubles in the hotel room

Christmas baubles ready to start their overseas journey

Snowmen adorning a friend's Christmas tree - can you spot all four?

Bath robe alterations

The offcuts

Wouldn't it be nice to have a new bath robe for Christmas given the one currently used has been in existence for our entire relationship (26 years). It took ages to find a towelling one in an inoffensive colour. Grey is too drab and none of the fancy modern fabrics used for bath robes are acceptable - this was discovered as a result of extensive research earlier in the year. Anyway mission accomplished only it is too long and the sleeves are too wide - sigh. Post Christmas alterations: to remove 7" from the bottom and top stitch every 3/8 inch to get the same looking hem as the original; narrow the sleeves by 2" at the cuff and blend back in to the original at the underarm. The sleeves are also a little bit too long but because of the top stitched cuff I would have to remove the length at the armhole edge - not going to happen. Well not unless he complains very long and loudly, after the trauma of new clothes has worn off.  And I bought a bath robe when I can sew because?!

Oh and just in case I get bored there are three pairs of trousers to shorten and maybe taper the leg.  Will have to wait and see how wide they look when they are the right length.

Car cover undone

In a Christmas fit of sew-it-yourself enthusiasm I decided to make a car cover for my beloved's toy car.  So called because it spends most of its life in the garage being tinkered with. It is not a big car so how hard could it be - well after measuring the car roughly (5.5 metres long x 3.7 metres wide allowing a metre drop on both sides) it is a lot bigger than I thought. Which has meant that instead of it being a surprise present I am awaiting the convenience of my beloved to help me make the car cover pattern. He is much better at measurements and dimensional things than I am.  But I have bought the fabric, all 21 metres of it, plus a feature fabric to create a racing stripe down the middle!  Think I will need 17 metres but decided to buy the whole roll to allow a bit of room for error.

Christmas Advent calendar...the beginning

There is something about the Christmas holidays that gets me working on projects for Christmas future. This year I purchased a whisky advent calendar (24 x 30ml bottles of Scotch) and we have kept the bottles.  This encouraged me to think about actually making the advent stockings which have been carefully maturing in the stash for a couple of years.

Stocking outer front and back, plus lining waiting to be sewn

I even found a pattern for an advent Christmas tree by Anni Downs of Hatched and Patched.  Mine will be a lot more Scandinavian than country Christmas - starting by replacing the round baubles with my advent stockings...and it will be finished in time for next Christmas. Hmm wonder if that will in fact be true.

Machine embroidery for Lee Magentic Needle Box

The original much loved magnetic needle box 

My friend Cath many years ago gave me a magnetic needle box and it is a wonderful thing.  It has journeyed many miles around the world and is starting to resemble a life well lived. It has also started leaving tiny bits of red pleather on the clothes in my overnight bag. So I have been thinking about making myself a new one. I just wasn't sure how I was going to replicate the magnetic lid and base.

A magazine article fortuitously brought to my attention the leather magnetic needle box by Lee, which Father Christmas kindly left under the tree for me. It has a small hole in the lid for personalisation, with the insertion of a 3" round piece of needlepoint. I decided to do a machine embroidered initial on green mulberry paper vliesofixed to cotton duck for extra strength.

This picture is the truest colour representation

My new needle box is slightly larger than the old so should be very useful and we will hopefully travel many miles together.  I have to confess Cath that I have now thrown away the red one you gave me.  I nearly kept it for sentimental reasons but don't want to become one of those hoarders featured on television!!

I have read a review for the Lee Magnetic Needle Box and it was pretty ho hum about the product, with the reviewer feeling the finished item would be of limited use but good for decorative purposes.  She also found it difficult to insert her needlepoint.  Now I have to confess that I didn't remove the paper covering the sticky circle so my initial does move slightly in the lid and my insert is probably not as thick as a piece of needlepoint but I had no trouble inserting my initial (and taking it out again when I realised it was upside down).  I am still debating putting a circle of fusible quilt batting on the back to raise the embroidery slightly.

If I ever finish my tiny houses hussif it will match the colours of my new needle box perfectly. These paper pieced tiny houses will be appliqued onto a piece of linen, and combined somehow with two fabrics from the Road 15 range by Sweetwater Fabrics for Moda.

Tiny houses in progress (since 2014)

Road 15 by Sweetwater Fabrics for Moda c.2013

And rather aptly there endeth the long and winding road to nowhere. And lucky me these two songs are now running around in my head having supplanted the beginning Christmas tune.

Mousse on the Move.....getting into the festive spirit

The festive celebration at work is always a do-it-yourself affair from a sausage sizzle in the park to fancy dress to creating themed festive rooms in our basement car park.  They are generally fun (apart from the fancy dress) with varying numbers of us involved and in the party spirit.

The 2015 theme was a Masterchef type competition to provide dessert.  Having just delivered a major project we were feeling relaxed and creative enough to enter a team, called Mousse on the Move.  This was a play on our mousse dessert and the name of the organisation's transformation (restructure) project. We were obviously feeling very creative because our dessert name was Take a Shot.

The week before the party we stopped being relaxed and got competitive.  We had to have a team identity and fabulous table decorations.  I was given the role of creative director so of course sewing had to be involved somewhere.

Plain cheap red aprons were purchased for the five of us and I embroidered them with our logo (the reindeer from the Embroidery Online machine embroidery collection called Elegance Entwined), our names, team name and date. This was a relatively easy sew because the machine embroidery unit takes over once I have designed the layout in the embroidery software and I limited the design to two colours for speed. The embroidery was also carefully sized so that it fit into my Bernina 830 jumbo hoop (400 x 260 mm).  I didn't hoop the apron but used sticky back stabiliser which was hooped then the apron was carefully laid on top so that the centre of the design was positioned where I had marked the design centre on the apron (above the pocket).  It was still relatively stressful because I had to get all five embroideries finished on Sunday before I flew back to work on Monday.

The aprons were a big hit and we looked like the winning team!! Here we are at the awards ceremony with our box of Roses chocolates (we got one each!).  Heads chopped off to protect the innocent.

Now about those table decorations we decided they had to be edible (we did have some glass berries scattered amongst the goodies but we had to remove them as people kept trying to eat them).

The mousse (our official dessert) carefully portioned in a disposable shot cup was delicious and easy to make using the Annabel Langbein Three-ingredient Chocolate Mousse recipe.  The hardest part was chopping the marshmallows which stick to the knife. Melting the chocolate and folding in the cream was child's play. The mousse was made the night before so all we had to do on the day was add a dob of cream on the top with a raspberry.

Then we had the Strawberry Santas, made on the day, we didn't use the icing sugar just the whipped cream, strawberries and chocolate chips.

Chocolate dipped candy cane Reindeer (obviously Rudolf with the red nose), made the night before, involved more Whittakers Dark Ghana chocolate, white Jelly Beans and Jaffas. A black icing pen provided the pupils for all of our reindeer eyes and melted chocolate was used as the glue.

The chocolate reindeer biscuits, also made the night before, used chocolate Florentines as the base with white Jelly Bean eyes, a Jaffa nose and pretzels for the antler. You could use Mallowpuffs or Choco-ade biscuits for the base or try this recipe (a bit more involved than ours). I couldn't find the actual recipe we used which involved mini Reese peanut butter cups for the nose with a Jaffa on top. The peanut butter cups ran out before the Florentines so we just stuck the Jaffa directly onto the remaining biscuits.

Everything we made was pretty easy and would suit cooking with kids. There was no real cooking as we used the catering kitchen at work which is geared more towards serving and tidying up than preparing an actual meal.

Once we started looking for simple to do festive treats it was amazing just how many ideas there were from a quick internet search.

If you think the quality of these photographs is higher than the normal blog standard that is because most of them are the official photographs used for our intranet.  It was quite difficult to get photographs because the masses were eating our desserts before the starting gun had fired.

It's Christmas

For some this evokes thoughts of turkey, cold weather and playing in the snow but here in the southern hemisphere it is sunshine and Christmas stocking production time.  For a northern hemisphere girl, who re-located way down south, December 25th will never have that Christmas feeling - the essential ingredients of grey and freezing cold are missing.

So I turn to Christmas stocking production something I started in 2007 so that I could send a little something to friends and family at this sharing time of year.  Production has gradually increased over the years and now 130 sweetie holders are produced, travelling far and wide to the UK, USA and around New Zealand.

For 2016 it was a snowman, with the pretty Van H chocolate insert expertly packed by the staff in Ballantynes pantry department.

For some the 2015 snowman

And for everyone the 2016 snowman

The staff in Ballantynes expect me now and are not phased by the strange request for four chocolates carefully packed in cellophane to fit into the sweetie holder. They even offer creative advice and suggestions for next years sweetie holder. This is very helpful because after nine years the ideas are starting to run thin.  Well not the ideas exactly just ideas which can be produced en masse in a reasonable amount of time (about 4 weeks of weekends and during the week too if panic sets in).

The 2016 snowman was produced in a number of places around New Zealand...

At home on the Bernina 830

At the hotel in Wellington on the Bernina 210

Away for the weekend with Dorrie the Singer Featherweight

The view whilst sewing on Dorrie

The names were embroidered on the large at home machine.  Even this takes more time than you plan for. Although it does have the advantage of continuing by itself whilst you are doing other things (apart from when the thread breaks).

And sweetie holders from years past...

Elf stocking 2008

Santa boot 2012

Christmas present 2013

Santa sock 2014

The 2007 Christmas stocking was slightly different: (i) it was produced on my embroidery machine using the sock outline and technique from The Patchwork Stocking by Jim Suzio; (ii) some were personalised with embroidered initials; (iii) I only made 42 for those in NZ; (iv) I made two for us.

Our 2007 stockings - reused every year

If you wondered what you could do with 9-years of Christmas sweetie holders here is a festive display created by one of the recipients.

Now what shall I do for the 2017 design - answers on a postcard please.