While Rachel is best known for her dramatic and unique garments, she also puts her creative juices and quilting superpowers to work designing necklaces, accessories and other decorative items. On this fifth day of Rachel's 12 Days of Christmas, we are featuring two necklaces, two collars and a festive wrapper for her favorite beverage, Champagne.
Starlight Peppermint Necklace
Rachel wanted to keep these peppermint candy themed necklaces simple so she included only a couple of different reds in addition to the starlight peppermint beads’ white swirl. She wears them both for Christmas and Valentine’s Day. The two necklaces are slightly different lengths so they can be worn individually or nested together for an extra spicy look.
Charm Necklace
Charm bracelets were the inspiration behind this necklace. Rachel had made a few charm necklaces and was experimenting with using longer loops to show off the centerpiece beads.
The centerpiece beads in this necklace were mostly from Rachel’s ‘Santa' bead collection. As you might expect, Rachel has a lot of collections. Her collections will usually start with an idea and grow - related buttons, beads and other things that Rachel makes up as she goes. In the case of Santa beads, Rachel had plenty to choose from, as you can see looking at the necklace.
And who else would have a watermelon charm for Christmas?
Blue Christmas Tree Collar
Rachel has been making collars for many years and in the early 2000s decided to make herself some Christmas collars. The Christmas tree collar is a forest of Christmas trees set on blue fabric and hand quilted. The trees are foundation pieced green, brown and Christmas fabric. The collar can can be worn with the button in front or back – Rachel wears it both ways depending on what other Christmas clothes she’s wearing.
Red Christmas Collar
This collar is a combination of African fabric and Christmas fabric. The Christmas fabric is strip pieced using wedges sewn onto a base. Rachel covered the base with bright, bold African Fabric. The collar can open at the front or the back but
Rachel usually wears it open at the back with a Santa pin sitting on her shoulder.
That way he can keep an eye on kids and note who is being naughty and who is being nice!
Merrymaking Champagne Gift Bag
Christmas with Rachel is not complete without a few glasses of the bubbly. She showed students in a recent edition of her Gift Making Class how to make their own gift bags. Here is her take on wrapping up Champagne for Christmas.
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