Craft Junkie: Quilted Christmas Balls

Let’s make Quilted Christmas Balls

While visiting friends in Georgia a few years ago, I admired a basket of quilted Christmas balls in her living room… and was offered one. I was thrilled! She said that she always keeps a basket of them to give away to anyone interested… how sweet. When you’re a crafter, you really appreciate a crafted item given to you… as you know what goes into making items.

She quickly began telling me, “Oh they’re easy to make, you just cut fabric squares, 2 1/2 by 2 1/2, fold and pin them on the ball.” As hers were all perfectly pinned and even… it didn’t look so easy to me, although I knew I could make it… but it’d take me some time to stop procrastinating and finally watch a tutorial. After spending time on You-Tube, doing just that… I headed to the fabric store for Christmas fabric, searched out my styrofoam balls I already had, and found pins. You need a 3 inch ball, which seems to be hard to find… they advertise them as a 3 inch, but when you measure, you come up with various sizes from 2.5 to 3 inches… I don’t know what ruler they use! In as you need over 100 pins for each ball… I turned to Amazon in searching out larger quantities and ordered 4000. They only lasted me just over a week, and I now have a sore thumb from all that pinning… I strongly suggest you don’t push them all in with your thumb and finger! I keep a magnetic wand nearby that I found at my mothers… and it’s been very useful in tapping in many of the pins, plus gathering up the many pins I drop!

Starting to cut my 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inch squares. The Jelly Roll I bought made it much easier!

Working on a few fall themed balls!

As we were in the fall season when I began, I decided to use some of my fall fabrics and make a few designs to go along with all the pumpkins I crafted last year…. yes I forgot to post them. I made fabric pumpkins out of old sweaters and flannel shirts. One of the fall balls for my daughter-in-law, I crafted to look like a sunflower and the last one I actually embroidered “french knots” on the top to look like a brown center. That idea came to me as I was laying in bed one night… luckily I remembered the next morning and quickly wrote the idea down to try later in the day. Some of my best ideas come to me as I lay in bed… trying to sleep… and wishing that I could write that idea down, but as hubby is also trying to sleep… I’m usually hoping that I’ll remember; sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t! I told Alexa the other night to remind me on something in the morning… but she forgot also!

There’s several crafty girls on Youtube to watch… from The Ornament Girl to Shabby Fabrics, but the list goes on and on. I watched many tutorials before I felt confident enough to jump in. If you’re anything like me, you hunt out several “how to’s” before getting your groove on!

My work box of tools…

After setting up a box to work out of…. I found it helped to keep all my “things” in one spot… and the sewing clips were perfect to keep my squares together in a pile. Nothing like being organized!

I’m not giving directions on how to make as there’s just too many over on YouTube. Some vary with their cutting size, as Ornamental Girl cuts hers (2×3) a different size, but the 2 1 /2 x 2 1/2 has worked just fine, so far, in following her directions.

Only one shopping trip to Joanne’s!

It wasn’t long before my “holding” box of fabric multiplied like gremlins… and I’ve taken a break to let my thumb stop feeling so numb and sore before I finish with bows. I always have other projects to go to… especially near Christmas as I seem to wait till November to start. I’ll be posting soon on my knitted “nurse-mate” mini dolls for my 2020 ornament.

I now have my own basket of Quilted Christmas Balls…

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