Make Homemade Pinwheel Christmas Tree Ornaments - Day 293 of 365, Tutorial Tuesday

A week of firsts and lasts.

For over 20 years I had taken my husband to work every single day. When I started with my multiple surgeries he started getting a ride from our neighbor across the street who works in the same building. She's been sick these last couple days so I've had to take him to school for the first time in almost two years. (Personally I think his favorite part of getting a ride to school from me is that he gets a goodbye kiss before he gets out of the car.)

Today is the last day of school for both of us until January. Hooray for Christmas Break! This week we're taking the bus to Jackpot for the day. Another first - it'll be the first time in years and years and years we're going together.

But another one of my firsts is one I wish didn't happen. Last night was the first night I've taken pain medication since March. I've held out for a long time but after barely being able to move at work yesterday I caved in. Just half a pill, but my long-standing streak of consecutive days without pain medication ended.

Today the last of my Christmas cookies are heading out the door, I got the last of my charity quilts mailed out yesterday, and today's tutorial is the last homemade Christmas ornament of the year.

For this project you will need:

• fabric 
• paper backed fusible web like HeatnBond Ultra Hold
• button
• ribbon
• hot glue
• marking pencil
• iron and ironing surface
• scissors or rotary cutter, cutting ruler, and cutting mat
• printable pinwheel template from the pattern
• optional pinking shears or pinking blade

Disclosure: Deb's Days is a participant in affiliate advertising programs designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to affiliated sites. This means that, at no additional cost to you, I will earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Your purchase helps support my work in bringing you new sewing and crafting content.

Now available in my Etsy shop as a digital download with step by step written directions, color photos, and the printable template. Click to find out more!

If you want a pattern using fusible fleece instead, it's also a no-sew project and it's available in my shop, too. Click to find out more!

Looking for something else? 

Check out some of my other Christmas sewing and crafting projects!

You can find the step-by-step how to tutorial for the homemade fabric pinwheel Christmas tree sewing project right here:

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Day 292 of 365

Every thing is a trade off.

You go away for the weekend and you wish you had stayed home. You stay home and wish you had gone away. You dust before vacuuming and then the vacuum kicks up more dust. You vacuum before dusting and then when you dust it winds up falling to the carpet. You spend your time making quilts for charity and wish you had spent time working on your daughter's quilt. You take pain medication to deal with the pain and it makes you feel ill. You don't take pain medication and you feel ill.

You decorate sugar cookies and they're cute. You try and be even cuter and put sparkly sugars on them and then they're too sweet.

After decorating last night with a follow up 5 a.m. decorating session this morning my new snowman cookies are kind of cute. I attempted to replicate what Bakerella did but I didn't have blue tic tacs, orange chocolate-covered sunflower seeds, or snowflake candies. So I used what I had - icing and colored sugars. I've never used sparkly sugars before and now I know why. They make the cookie just too darn sweet! Granted, it was 7 in the morning when I taste tested but it stopped me from eating any more for sure.

Anyone eating one of these on tomorrow's treat day will be guaranteed a major sugar rush.

Day 291 of 365

Ever since we were first married, I longed for a baking center. In every rental apartment and house we've lived in I've attempted to create one. A place to keep all my ingredients. A place to keep my mixer without having to take it out every time I've needed it.

When we moved into this house years ago, I was able to officially set up that baking center. It's just a kitchen cabinet next to the refrigerator, but it's brimming with all those necessities for baking. My KitchenAid mixer is housed on the counter right below. As I'm mixing up something in the mixer all I have to do is pull the ingredient out of the cabinet, measure it, and put it right back. Super easy clean up.

I'm so appreciative to have that cabinet. It's a time saver and a kitchen clean-up helper. I'm also so appreciate of my mixer, especially at this time of year.

Today's total: 
*Three loaves of zucchini bread from our garden's zucchini. (I had shredded and frozen it.)
*Four loaves of pumpkin bread from our garden's pumpkin. (I had cooked up the pumpkin and froze it, too.)
*A couple more dozen Christmas cookies. Tuesday is treat day at work and I'm making a version of those snowman cookies I made on Day 286. But thanks to how Bakerella decorated her snowmen my  new batch should be a hipper, cooler looking version. (I hope.)
*A few snowglobe cookies. My plan was to use them to make the tutorial for this upcoming week, but I ran out of time. I need to perfect them a little more, anyway. (I need to find better snowman than the ones I found at the craft store. I added a bit of black food coloring for eyes on one of them, but why would they make sugar snowman without eyes?)

Day 290 of 365

On TV they have been doing year-end wrap ups. Televisions shows and movies of the year, highest paid actors, biggest news stories. Just a few days ago even Barbara Walters did a year-end list with her Most Fascinating People of 2011.

Although the year isn't quite over, I'm doing a 2011 wrap up of sorts. I'm getting ready to close a chapter in the quilting-for-charity category - just until after the first of the year, that is.

In looking back at 2011, I've done more sewing this year than all the other years of my life combined. Here's a recap of the non-charity project days:

• Days 1 and 195: Pincushions
• Day 8: Fabric Memory Game
• Day 14: Camera bag 
• Day 20: T-shirt grocery bags
• Day 29: Clothespin bag
• Day 34: Potholders
• Day 35: Makeup bag for my daughter
• Days 38 and 188 : Breadbasket liners
• Days 41 and 153: Fabric covered buttons and magnets
• Day 167: Pocket tissue holder
• Day 244: Gift card holder
• Day 251: Fabric covered clipboard
• Day 258: Drawstring bags
• Christmas Tree ornaments on Days 272, 276, 279
• Day 265 : Fabric covered bookmarks
• Day 287: Fabric covered bulletin board

But here is the most important list of all. The list of items I've made for charity.

• Day 3: Flag quilt top
• Day 11: Baby quilt for Calling All Angels
• Day 17: Presentation Cases for Quilts of Valor
• Day 27: more Presentation Cases for Quilts of Valor
• Quilts for the Quilts for Kids organization on Days 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 101, 107, 120, 121, 122, 164, 176, 179, 236, 238, 243
• Day 234: Baby quilt top
• Day 86:  Spinning Star quilt top
• Turtle Pillows for the Painted Turtle Hole-in-the Wall Camp on Days 132, 144, 150, 152, 154
• Stockings for Soldiers on Days 214, 215, 219, 221, 222, 237
• Pillows for Operation Kid Comfort on Days 233, 277  
• Quilts for Operation Kid Comfort on Days 196, 198, 203, 245, 246, 253, 254, 280, and today.

Today I can add two more quilts to the Operation Kid Comfort quilt list. Here on Day 290 another two quilts are finished and ready to head out the door. Being that a couple of my pictures (including today's) have more than one quilt in the picture, I think that makes 30+ kids quilts for charity this year.

Here's today's picture, but keep looking. I have all my charity work pictures for 2011 compiled together right below.

I always hear about how one person can make a difference. I hope I'm getting close to being one of those "ones".

 

Day 289 of 365

My fortune cookie last night read Your hard work is about to pay off.

That's great, but I want to know more. My hard work on what? At work? On my quilts? On the children's book I'm getting ready to work on again? On my decluttering?

I know it's not about my health. After spending a couple hours Christmas and grocery shopping with my husband last night I almost didn't want to go out to dinner because I was hurting so bad. If I wasn't the one driving, I just might have taken a pain pill at dinner. When I got home, it took everything I had to kick off my shoes and go lie down for a bit. Many times when I am really hurting I can go to bed knowing things might be better in the morning. Sometimes they are. Today they weren't.

The knees were killing me enough all day today that I made an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon's office. Not to get that other knee replaced (I'm delaying that one as long as possible), but to get an injection in my knee. I used to get cortisone injections in it, but the pain and damage in my knee is beyond what that kind of shot can do. The injection I'm needing is a synovial fluid replacement injection. They take a big ole needle of synthetic synovial fluid, mark a spot on my knee and, well, you can guess the rest. It's not really that I'm wanting an injection - it's a much more painful injection than cortisone - but it has provided me some relief twice before.

Knowing I can't Christmas shop or grocery shop is pretty depressing. At least I got a positive fortune and got to see this sight across the street from the Chinese restaurant.

Day 288 of 365

There are those pivotal moments in people's lives that change things forever. As I was sitting in a meeting this week, it became clear the leave of absence I took from work was one of those pivotal moments.

The past few years before the leave, my job required me to know the reading program we used at the elementary inside and out. I lived and breathed reading. Phonics, vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing. I taught lessons to teachers and kids. I trained teachers in other districts. I could walk into a room, pick up the teacher's manual and teach the lesson without any preparation. Any question about teaching reading I could answer right then and there, on the spot. For six years I was an expert at it.

But as I was sitting at a meeting this week I noticed a shift has happened. Taking a year off from work really has changed me. While the conversation at the meeting was around teaching reading, it seemed like so long ago since I was a part of it. Even though it was a little over a year ago since I was engaged in the teaching-kids-to-read process it seemed like a lifetime ago. I know my knowledge must be buried somewhere in my brain but it wasn't bursting to come out. Even the excitement has waned. I imagine it could be interpreted as a good thing or bad thing.

I think it's a good thing. My passion for teaching reading has been replaced with a passion for doing other things for kids. I did my thing as a teacher (and loved it at the time but not anymore), as a reading "coach" (loved it at the time but not anymore), as a trainer (and loved it too but not anymore). If it weren't for being off of work for a year, I would never have found the next thing I love - sewing things for others, particularly kids.

And I would never have yet another couple quilt tops ready to quilt for Operation Kid Comfort.

Day 287 of 365

My great-grandfather used to have a collection of postcards he kept in a desk drawer in his living room. As a little kid I used to go through those post cards whenever I visited.

When I visited my grandmother who lived next door to us, I used to go through something in a drawer of hers, too. Something of great interest to me. In her kitchen one of her drawers was a designated junk drawer. Pens, pencils, matches, screws, magnets, papers, and lots of other little things were in that drawer. For a girl who liked to organize (me), sorting through the junk drawer was quite fun.

We have our own junk drawer here at home, too. Typically the bulk of the drawer is made up of screwdrivers, pliers, a hammer, nails, screws, glues, candles, and such. We haven't cleaned it out in a long time so if you were to open the drawer today you'd also find a pair of gloves, some weatherstripping, a school bus candle holder, razor blades, washers, a sprinkler repair tool, garden labels, a flashlight, a watermelon plaque, and dozens of other little bits of pieces of things. It's in desperate need of some organization. I made three trips to that drawer today but not to organize it.

I intended to put together what should have been a quick and easy project today. When my daughter was home last week, I had her help me put a cork bulletin board in my sewing room. It used to be her board through high school and college and had bits and pieces of stickers around the frame.

My first trip to the junk drawer was to fetch the Goo Gone, which turned out to not be in there. Sometimes I use it in my sewing room, but after checking there I came up empty. (I think I probably took it to school and forgot to bring it back.) The second trip to the junk drawer was to get the paint scraper to help get the stickers off.

With a clean frame, I used some fabric to cover the bulletin board. Sprayed some basting spray on the cork board and applied the fabric. After some wrangling and re-cutting and re-piecing I was able to use up every available inch of the fabric piece to get it to fit on every available inch of the board. Then I began to staple the fabric down around the edges.

On my first press of the stapler, my stapler broke. I grabbed another stapler (not like we don't have others around), but this particular stapler wouldn't go all the way into the cork. Hence, the next trip to the junk drawer to get the hammer so I could slowly tap, tap, tap the staples in.

The bulletin board is finished and my junk drawer is still a mess.