Hello busy quilters, have you a minute? It’s the newsletter time of the week again, hope it finds you well.

I’m starting to get busy getting my Christmas presents ready for my quilting groups and friends. I belong to five groups at present, so this means five Secret Santa presents to create. Over the years I’ve created a collection of not-too-expensive gifts for Quilters and I thought I might share them with you over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. One of the Secret Santa gifts for quilters that works extremely well I find, is a gift I call Handy Candy.

Handy Candy

• You’ll need a small box with a lid. Any sort of box will do. It needs to be about 3” high, 3” wide and 2½” deep. These boxes can usually be purchased from craft stores and $2 stores. You may want to paint the box, or glue buttons or fabric to decorate. Decorate the way you want to!

• You’ll need 10 x 6” x 6” squares of patchwork fabric. You can focus on one genre for fabrics, such as Brights, floral, cats, dogs etc. Have them trimmed to the same uniform size, as you want to make them all look the same.

• Fold each square of fabric into half and make a crease line (but don’t iron as you want this fabric to bulk up. Open out the square and fold each half into the centre crease line. Do likewise with the other half. Then fold these halves together. You have now created a strip of fabric that is approximately 2” wide.

• You’ll need to source some wrapping paper that looks like foiled candy wrapper. There are all kinds of paper available these days. I look for thin foiled paper which I buy from the stationery shop. The main requirement is that the paper wrap is strong enough not to tear and fine enough to twist and remain twisted. Cut this paper into 3” x 3” squares.

• Tightly roll the 2” strip of fabric into a very tight roll. Then wrap the “candy roll” in some candy wrapper. You may need to use an elastic band to keep the roll together.

• Roll up the candy roll with paper, and then twist the ends, to make it look just like a candy.

• Put the “candy” into your box and finish the box off with pretty ribbons.


I’m sure you have some great inexpensive ideas for making Secret Santa gifts for quilters. Would you mind sharing them with a few others? Please go to the Forum site and add to the list of great ideas. Here’s the link:
http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=43


My most recent article on the BellaOnline Quilting website, addresses the question of whether to belong to a quilt group or go it alone. I’ve had some interesting feedback via my email address – thanks to those quilters who have made a comment. Here's the link to my latest article from the Quilting site at BellaOnline.com. http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art797.asp

I’m going to post this subject onto the forums, to allow any quilters the chance to share their comments. Check out the forum site won’t you.

Please visit Quilting.bellaonline.com for even more great articles and content about Quilting.

I guess that’s all from me this week, looking forward to hearing from you on the forum site. So till next time have fun quilting!
Cheerio for now

Judie Bellingham
Editor, Quilting, BellaOnline