This is a static export of a blog I put on ice many years ago, that still has personally relevant content. No promises can be made around linkrot, styles, or working functionality.
Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is already 2012. 2011 went by so quickly. We’re en route back to New York today, but I have one more Christmas reveal—an eyeglasses case that I made for Mom (to go with reading glasses I purchased), who claimed she only wanted to see us for Christmas, but constantly comments on Facebook that she doesn’t have her reading glasses, so she couldn’t really see everything well. Now she has glasses to see the small-scale of this glasses case!
I initially wrote up a tutorial, but then when I tried to follow my own tutorial, it just didn’t make a lot of sense, so I’ll simply have to leave you with a few photos. I promise to fix up the tutorial sometime this month!
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were the last of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
The two youngest nieces were a bit of a challenge for me. I made a bag for the older one (four) for her birthday a few months ago, so didn’t want to duplicate it, and the youngest isn’t yet two, so I wanted something else appropriate for them.
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were the second of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
Boys are hard to sew for. I never know what to make. It seems like 90% of the projects out there that are age appropriate (6–10y.o.) are also very girly. But, when I came across Chez Beeper Bebe’s Nature Explorer Bag, I knew I’d found my project. In the right colors and fabrics, it’s perfectly boyish, but still useful. It’s also relatively quick and painless, which was awesome, because at Thanksgiving, Carl’s sister announced that she’s engaged and he has two boys of his own, so that upped the number of these bags to five!
Welcome back to another Vacation Christmas reveal. I was far busier over the past two months than you might have guessed based on the frequency of my posts here. Now that we’re traveling to Missouri and delivering gifts, I can show you what I’ve been working on. These were one of three types of gifts I made for the 10 nieces and nephews Carl and I have between our two families.
Over the summer, I saw the Summer Reading Bag posted on Sew Mama Sew and knew it would be a great gift. It was quick to make, simple to put together and overall seems to be a great hit. I made these bags for the five oldest nieces, who range from 4–13.
This has been a pretty big year for changes—we adopted Moof back in March and now we have our new house, complete with an actual mantle in the living room! So, of course, Moof needs his own stocking to hang.
I don’t know which of us actually came up with the idea, but Carl and I were joking a few weeks ago about how Moof chews on pretty much anything, so if we got him a stocking, it’d probably be chewed up. We thought it would be funny if he had a pre-“chewed” stocking with child-like lettering.
Most of my gifts are going into basic paper gift bags (yes, I’m too lazy to gift wrap soft stuff or box, then wrap, it all), especially since I already made the gifts themselves, but there is one present I’m excited about that I decided to whip up a quick gift bag for.
The gift
A young friend is getting her first sewing machine for Christmas, so in addition to advising the giver on basic sewing tool kit stuff, I thought it would be great to give a quick first project for her to work on (she does have a bit of experience from whatever they call home ec class these days).
So, I bought a pajama pants pattern (which also comes with the pattern to make a dog sweatshirt—how cute!), two spools of thread (hey, it was bogo, why not?), the elastic for the waistband, and the fabric for the pants. In other words, everything she needs to make the pattern, that isn’t in her sewing kit.
I’ve seen a few gift card holder projects popping up lately (for instance, Julie from Jaybird Quilts has one in Quilting Arts Magazine). Well, once again, I missed a niece’s birthday, and another is coming up in a week and a half (sisters), and since I have plans to make crafty things for them for Christmas, I thought I’d go with my fall-back gift card plan for now. And, I was inspired to whip up a fabric holder for them.
So, with the help of three charms from various charm packs I had on hand, a bit of flannel (or interfacing, if you prefer, for stiffness), 4″ of ribbon and a button each:
I made two different holders to add to their cards.
I’ve been abandoning the Farmer for a few weeks… hopefully I’ll get back to it soon, but I just haven’t been feeling it. This week, during the time I’d normally spend on those blocks, I decided to whip up a bag for my youngest niece’s birthday, which is tomorrow. (My cards are never on time. Bad Aunt Rachael.)
I’d like to say I have a tutorial in the works, but inspiration hit, I started working and an hour and a half or so later (plus time to bandage a knuckle—my brand new 28mm rotary cutter does not have the safety features I take for granted on my larger one!), I had a finished purse.
As part of the housewarming gift I recently made, I created printed fabric gift tags. If you use store-bought printable fabric sheets or handwrite your own messages, they are quick and simple to make.
Thank you to everyone who entered my first giveaway. I’ve enjoyed seeing some new names and new blogs to take a look at. So, without further ado, the winner according to random.org is…
