Christmas makings

Now that Christmas is over and the gifts have been given I can share some of the hand made gifts I gave this year.

For my son and daughter in law I wanted to make a tree ornament that said something special about 2008. So what better than to remember the campaign and election of Barak Obama? I snagged a photo of the Obama symbol from the campaign web site and proceeded to copy the shape for a round ornament. It was fun to do and turned out pretty nice. Andrew and Sarah really enjoyed receiving it and agreed that it will be a good remembrance of 2008.

For my each of my two sons I wanted to make a boxy shaped bag with a zipper. I followed the tutorial here, well I tried to anyway. The first time I got the width and length of the body transposed and ended up with a rectangle instead of a box.
It was amazing to me that I got almost all the way done before I realized that this object was not short and wide but long and narrow. Oh well. Andrew liked it and does feel he has a use for it. It actually is a good size for tools.











For my musician son I wanted to make a boxy bag that would hold CD's. This time I carefully thought out what the dimensions needed to be and actually measured a CD case. (how clever) I used a piece of fabric that Nathan had given me quite awhile ago, something that spoke to him while visiting JoAnn's with a girlfriend. I did not get a sewing room photo, so here you can see Nathan with it on our sunny Christmas afternoon.












Last but not least, the big ta da. I decided about 2 weeks before Christmas to make a quilt for Andrew and Sarah. My husband is making them a very nice blanket chest/coffee table and it occurred to me that a lap size quilt for the inside would be very useful. I selected a pattern with very large pieces and enlarged the lap size so that it is basically almost twin size. I went with a black and white colorway so that it will not show the dog hair of their black dog too badly. Needless to say I did not finish this before Christmas. It is pieced and pinned together, and that's how it was wrapped and given to them. They really liked it, here they are holding it up for a work in process photo. Since I knew they would not be going home with the quilt, I did whip up a set of 6 cloth coasters out of the black and white fabrics. No photo of those, sorry.









One more item to share. While Andrew and Sarah were visiting Sarah mentioned that she wanted to make a dog bed for their dog out of an old egg shell mattress pad, folded to a 36 x 46ish size. So, we went to Joann and found a really nice piece of purplish fur on sale. Sarah also wanted to line the bed with mylar insulated batting so that it would feel nice and warm to the dog. Sarah and I worked on this yesterday. We had to add a strip of black duck so that the piece was wide enough, since the edge of the fur had a very loosely woven selvedge. Here you can see Sirius quite contented with the results.

Getting ready

Just a quick post to show one more wristlet, on its way now to a certain little girl who likes pink.

Also, some gifts for David under the tree, wrapped in fabric gift bags.


That's all I can share now. A surprise is in the making...

Fabric gift bags and wabi sabi

I like the idea of using fabric to create gift bags, I only managed to do a couple this year. My son's girlfriend is a beginning sewer so I got a copy of Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol for her. This gift seemed to really call out for a cloth wrapper. So, I made a crazy quilted bag for her gift. I wasn't sure how to close off the top, I didn't want to cinch it as you would lose the view of the quilt and a flap over would also cover the quilt. So I placed 3 sets of ribbons on either side of the top edge. Tie off the ribbons and you have a nicely decorated top edge.




I also made a gift bag for a gift exchange with my circle sisters. The gift was to be a wabi sabi one. Wabi sabi is from the Japanese aesthetic that emphasizes the value and beauty of simple things. A wabi sabi gift is one that would have a humble grace, not necessarily new, but loved. I found my wabi sabi gift at a local thrift store, it is a brass item which probably had candles in it (it had a lot of wax on it). I made a little circle of cloth for the bottom and put in this gift bag.

I was casting about for a good link to help explain wabi sabi and found this site. It is a non profit organization in Moab, Utah that helps people in the community by running a thrift shop, recycling building materials, and other activities that truly exemplify application of wabi sabi. Their definition of wabi sabi: "beauty lies in the imperfection that surrounds us, that new is not necessarily nicer, and that our discards could very well be our salvation."

Elvis Christmas stocking

Last year when my local Hancocks Fabric was going out of business I purchased some Elvis Christmas fabric. The print was set up to make a very large Christmas stocking. One side has Elvis with his guitar and a red background, the other side has Elvis just looking cool with a green background. Who better to make this for than my DJ musician son? What fun this was. I layered it with white cotton quilt batting and lined it with a solid white. I did some free motion sewing around the poinsettias and Elvis' profile and the topped it off with red and white polka dot bias. There was a small print of a stocking shape on the fabric, about 6 inches long, so I made that up to match the uber stocking.
Nathan loved it, we all shared quite a laugh. As you can see it even can be "worn" on both feet for a warmer.

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a Merry Christmas, In what ever way you celebrate this time of year, may it be joyful.

We had a visit with my son and daughter in law last weekend. Here is a photo of the table napkins, bread basket cloth and dog Christmas tree ornament that I made for them. 2007 is the year they adopted Sirius, so the commemorative ornament honors her this year.