Christmas Tree Banner & Stocking

While decorating my main Christmas Tree this year, I chose to go red and natural...



Natural by adding Quail



A twig Star



And I made this cloth banner...






On a trip to Kansas City, we stopped by Nell Hill's, a fabulous decor and furniture store like no other! The prices are great too! I picked up a yard of this fabric...

Not knowing what I was going to do with it, I put it away until today. I decided that I would make a banner for my Christmas Tree with some of it.

I cut stacks of these two designs out of the fabric. Using my pinking roller blade made it go fast. I then used some red stripe twine and used my hot glue gun to connect the banner to the twine. I used painters tape on the tabletop as my measurement guide for spacing.

It's subtle, but so cute...

As I was making the banner, I realized that I could also use it in my decorating for Valentine's Day!

Guess that's called, Killing two birds with one stone!
Also, upon shopping local antique stores, I found an old linen piece that has the Monogram of 'S' and had some great tatting on it. I am partial to monograms, old linens and tatting, so I bought it thinking of my girlfriend Gail because her last name begins with 'S'.

Initially I thought of making a pillow out of it for her but she has a lot of pillows and with this being linen, it wrinkles easily. So using my creative mind, I settled on using some scrap chenille Antique buttons and cute ball trim and turned the old linen into a Christmas stocking representing Gail and her hubby.

My Great-Great Grandmother grew flax and then wove it into linen in Germany. When they came to the US, it was brought along and my Great Grandmother used it to make table cloths and runners. She tatted the edges and this is just something that I grew up having around and came to appreciate as I got older. So when I see these old linens, I think of my heritage. I think of someone else that did the same because that was taught and tradition...

And by making it into something useful for today's living, it keeps the tradition alive in a way.
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