Brendan & Tiffany Sullivan » fall

Fabric Chain Garland Tutorial

tiffany — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:20:58 +0000

I’m getting really excited for Christmas. I’ve really been inspired to have a homemade Christmas and to make as many gifts and decorations as possible. As a child, my excitement in waiting for Christmas was always fed by a countdown of some sort. We had Grandpa Leibbrand’s daily countdown with gifts, sometimes there was an advent calendar with chocolates, and I always loved making a paper chains as decorations or with twenty-five links–one for tearing off each day.

As I was reminiscing about the paper chain, I thought about how I could translate it in a more grown-up way and still retain its simplistic charm.

I decided to make a fabric chain garland for our Christmas tree. I picked up a yard of Christmas fabric at Hobby Lobby. Brendan helped me pick out a cheerful red printed with white snowflakes. This is the result of my efforts:

Fabric Chain

(I’m sure it will look much better on our tree instead of our coat hooks.)

1. Cut fabric into strips of 2.5″ x 8.5″ (I also stiffened my lightweight cotton with interfacing)

2. Sew a 1/4″ seam with right sides together along the long edge of the rectangles.

steps 1 and 2

3. Turn the strips right-side-out

4. Iron the strips with the seam in the center (this way the seam will be on the inside of the links)

steps 3 and 4

5. Tuck one edge of the strip in like a little hem

step 5

6. Tuck the opposite end of strip into “hemmed” side and sew

step 6: tuck

step 6: tucked

step 6: sew

step 6: result

7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 sewing the links of the chain together

****You may either sew the entire chain or make it modifiable as I did:

*I sewed my chain in 7 sections of 9 sewn links. The 10th link is not sewn shut but buttons closed. This way I can always lengthen my chain in the future with more fabric and alternate the pattern (hope that makes sense) or shorten the chain depending on the size of my tree.

sewn link sections

*8. Tuck in the edges of the strips and sew

step 8

*9. Sew a buttonhole on one end of the strip

*10. On the opposite end of the strip, sew a button

steps 9 and 10

Your chain can now be lengthened!

Ta dah!

This project could easily be modified. You could use Velcro or snaps instead of buttons, ribbon instead of fabric, et cetera.

I hope this tutorial made sense. Feel free to ask me questions for clarity.

If anyone decides to do something similar, I’d love to hear/read about it and see pictures. Once I get my Christmas decorations out, I’ll add a picture of the fabric chain garland on the tree.

Love, Tiff

Brendan is silly

*Edit

I finally got the decorations out and put the garland on our little tabletop tree. It will definitely look better on a big tree. For now I used the garland on the doorway between the living room and the dining room.

garland on my tiny tree

fabric chain garland

Ornaments: fall leaves and shoes!

tiffany — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 02:27:08 +0000

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hobby Lobby has all of its fall items on clearance. I purchased some leaves and a few spools of ribbon. Viola! Ornaments that will remind me of my favorite season:

fall tree

I used a stick from the copse of trees near our apartment and one of my mason jars to display the ornaments for the pictures. I think they look quite pretty against my living room wall. Perfect blue “skies” for my leaves.

Orange Leaf

Green Leaf

The green guy might get lost in a green Christmas tree.

Red!

Not only was Hobby Lobby’s fall stuff on sale, but some Christmas things were too. Brendan said I audibly gasped when I saw the red one:

pretty Christmas ornaments!

silver mule

if only they were a size 9...

Two of my greatest loves: fall and shoes! I have the ornaments sitting on our coffee table so that I can see them and smile every time I walk through the living room.

I’m really excited to trim the tree this year!

Love, Tiff

Sunday Sugar Cookies

tiffany — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:31:52 +0000

I recently purchased some snowflake cookie cutters. Since then, I’ve been in the mood to bake cookies. I really wanted to start making Christmas cookies, but Brendan told me it was too early.

snowflake cookie cutters

While Brendan was out shooting this afternoon, I tried out the sugar cookie recipe in my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I always think of my sweet mother-in-law when I bake cookies thanks to the wonderful baking sheets she gave me at my bridal shower.

Since it’s too early for my snowflake cookie cutters, I went with my fall leaves and acorn set. I really like using them with gingerbread cookies, but I didn’t have all the necessary ingredients on hand.

Brendan likes his sugar cookies with sprinkles. This afternoon, I was also reminiscing about the first time I made sugar cookies as a married woman. Brendan walked into the kitchen to see me with a pan of baked sugar cookies without any sugar sprinkles on top. He looked very confused and asked me what I was doing.

“Baking sugar cookies,” I said, equally confused.

“Where are the sprinkles?” he asked.

“Oh, I’m going to put frosting on them.”

Brendan then set me straight: sugar cookies need sprinkles. He stayed in the kitchen for the rest of the batch and put himself in charge of brushing the cookies with egg whites and adding sprinkles before allowing me to put them in the oven.

I grew up putting frosting on sugar cookies, and Brendan grew up putting sprinkles on them. I’m always fascinated to learn how different we are.

I didn’t have any fall-colored sprinkles and had to use pink, purple, and blue. I think they look very pretty and quite festive.

They are best served with hot chocolate this chilly evening.

Love, Tiff

xkcd – Fall Foliage

brendan — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:38:28 +0000

One of my favorite web comics, xkcd, did a very applicable comic to our drive from this past weekend. The coincidence is amazing. Anyhow, it’s good stuff.

xkcd – A Webcomic – Fall Foliage.

The mouse “hover text” says “And I could replace you with older pictures of you, from back when you looked happy”

An amazing fall drive on Cherohala Skyway

brendan — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:53:37 +0000

Today, Tiffany and I took a drive on a loop that we haven’t done in a long time. Cherohala Skyway goes through two national parks, Cherokee National Forest and Nantahala National Forest, thus “Chero-hala”. All but the last 10 miles or so of the road are in North Carolina, and the eastern end of Cherohala meets US Route 129 just south of the infamous Tail of the Dragon. We decided Friday night that we wanted to see if the leaves had started changing at all. A friend, Raymond Hawkins, came with us to hopefully enjoy the views. Leaving the Louisville/Greenback area, we weren’t too hopeful we would find many leaves changed, but as we started gaining altitude, we started seeing signs of color.

Cherohala Fall Leaves

A great variety of color

Finally we started seeing just vast amounts of changing leaves. The slopes we could see from the road reminded me of the grand finale at a 4th of July fireworks display. Just crazy amounts of colors, but still enough evergreens and “late” changing trees that the yellows, reds, and oranges were all the more vibrant. There was thankfully almost no traffic to speak of, so we took our time and stopped at a few pull-offs to get some photos outside of the car and stretch our legs. At one pull-off we saw a group of motorcyclists, two of them with my favorite motorcycles ever… BMWs.

R1100RS and R75 on Cherohala

After 50 miles or so of beautiful views, we got to the end of Cherohala Skyway and took a short detour to see Fontana Dam near Fontana, NC, which Ray had never seen before. The size of the water control gates is mind-blowing. The TVA did an excellent job of creating a nice little park and museum around the top of the dam. I forgot to take any pictures of that today, but here are a couple from a previous trip Tiff and I took out there. For a frame of reference, those chain link fences above the water gate are about 5′ high.

View from the road across Fontana Dam

Water Control mechanism for Fontana Dam (1 of 2)

Description of Water Control System at Fontana Dam

At last we headed home, and stopped at Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort for “lunch” (it was almost 4:00 pm). They have awesome Pulled Pork sandwiches. Tiff and Ray had Cheeseburgers which were reportedly also amazing. Really, if you ever visit this area, you owe it to yourself whether you’re a motorcyclist or not, to visit Deal’s Gap. It’s an awesome road, and the staff at Deal’s Gap Motorcycle Resort is always great, and their food is excellent and reasonably priced. $21 bought sandwiches, fries, and drinks for 3 of us. We found out they recently have installed a “bar” as well where they have a few domestic brews on tap.

Drove the Dragon back into Maryville, really wishing I’d installed my new Eagle GT tires before this drive. Oh well, maybe next time. I miss that road. I don’t drive it near as much since we sold the Miatas.