Twisted

Six weeks until Christmas! How do I know? It was the last day to send packages to England by slow boat and guarantee delivery (it takes 4-6 weeks). And I did it! I feel so relaxed, I don't know what to do now.

Thanks for the complemens on the ornaments. Leah wants to know how I attached the trim. I'm a very visual learner, and if you are too, I would recommend Marcia Brown's article in Fine Lines from Fall 1998 (I did find some for sale via google).

I will do my best to describe it.

1. Insert the trim into a small hole you have left in your ornament for this purpose (sounds self-evident, but I have a bag of stuffed and completely sewn-up--and trimless--ornaments)
2. Working from the back, yes, from the back
3. And using a thread that matches the backing fabric
4. Sew the twisted cord on. You will take your stitch about halfway down the "fat part" of the cording. Pick up a little bit of the fabric. Pull through, making sure the thread lands in the ditch. You should be burying your between stitch threads in the ditch, groove, twist, whatever you want to call it, of the twisted cord.
5. What I found was corners tend to roll back, so I tried to stitch those on pretty loosely.

Brown recommends starting near the bottom corner, and I did on the Peace Tree. On the "Three ships" ornament, I started from the top, because I wanted to have a smooth point at the bottom. But I started the tasselled ornament in the bottom middle because I wanted the tassel to cover the place the trim ends form a joint--you want to sort of cross them inside the ornament.

Oh, you don't want to knot the trim (too bulky) so put scotch (cello) tape around the place you will have to cut and cut through the tape. It will prevent it from ravelling and give you a smoother back.

Clear as mud, right?