Christmas: our house
When I was making snowflake ornaments, I thought a bit about the spiderweb ornament tradition. We have two small ones, and I thought Alice might like a bigger one because she likes Shelob from Lord of the Rings.
Alice likes a lot of the bad guys in Lord of the Rings, for whatever reason, and I had joked to her that we could have an Eye of Sauron tree topper. And then I made one out of paper as a surprise when she was out with Bill.
And not LotR related: Alice was upset that the cats' stocking didn't have their names on it when the other three stockings for her, me, and Bill had our names on them. So I made a new stocking for the cats. (Then she got mad that I put their faces on it, not just their names, because she's three.)
Christmas gifts: little stuff
A glasses case.. I added little paper glasses to make its use a little more apparent to the recipient.
An embellished case for a mix CD.
My generic gift this year was snowflake ornaments. They're free motion machine embroidered over polyester tulle using various metallic and nonmetallic threads.
Christmas gifts: clothes!
A short sleeve Alabama Chanin cardigan for my mom, in the Peony color from Alison Glass Knits. Patch from CatCoven on etsy.
A long sleeve Alabama Chanin cardigan for my sister-in-law, in the Indigo color from Alison Glass Knits. Patch cut from a piece of Cotton + Steel fabric.
Maxi-length Alabama Chanin wrap skirt for my cousin's oldest daughter. The fabric is a slightly sparkly solid from the Doodles line at Jo-Ann.
It's so good that I enjoy all this hand sewing. These pushed my garment count for the year up to nineteen.
Christmas gifts: Nine pillowcases!
It seemed like a good idea at the time! Fast and easy.
My dad collects antique and vintage toys, so he got the Dick & Jane pedal car print and the Cotton + Steel viewmaster reels.
Four Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and two Star Wars for some kids.
Long fitted dress (again)
But this time, it wasn't for me.
Normally every fall I'm like, "OH I MUST MAKE ELEVENTY BILLION CHRISTMAS GIFTS," but well.. This time I knew I was going to have some trouble with that. Sure, I have no regular day job. But this year, I did two craft shows in November, and then in December I flew to LA to be on Jeopardy. So first I had to spend time on inventory items, and then I lost a week to traveling.
Before I committed to making the tote bag for my cousin, I asked my sister-in-law if she'd like me to make her a dress. She decided on the long dress and the color. Ta-da.
It's a size medium, so I had to cut out a new copy of the pattern. I ordered fabric before my trip to LA, and it arrived when I got back. Then I started sewing, and I ran out of thread. I went to Jo-Ann, only to discover that Coats has discontinued the burgundy button & craft thread, so you can't buy it anywhere anymore, except it's still in stock on the Alabama Chanin site. I panic-ordered eight spools, and they shipped priority two day, so I should have gotten the package with plenty of time to sew the rest of the dress.
Then the package disappeared for a while. It should have been delivered on Thursday the 18th, but it wasn't, and no update scans had been done. It arrived on the 22nd instead. And somehow I managed to finish the whole dress fairly early on the 24th and didn't have to stay up too late to do it. PHEW!
Quilted tote
Every year for Christmas my cousins draw names for gifts, and we're not supposed to spend more than $20.. Well this was more than $20 of effort, but less than $20 in materials. Works for me.
I contacted the cousin whose name I got and asked if I could make her a bag, and what her favorite color was. She said yellow. I'm not super great at color picking when it comes to nonrepresentational use, and I've always had a hard time with yellow. I have a few yellow dyes but they don't really go together very well? So I decided to do a greyscale to make the one shade of yellow really pop. ("Make it pop," oh the color cliches!)
This bag is based on the Linus bag I made for myself in the fall, but it's bigger and sturdier thanks to the addition of some canvas in between the layers.
All of the fabrics are dyed by me, except the pink piping and the black bias tape around the top.
After doing this whole thing I realized I should have made really long yellow handles and just sewed them on top of the sides, rather than piecing the yellow vertical stripe and trying to match the handle ends. Duh. I made a few small mistakes, but 85% of a good job is good enough.
Christmas gifts 2013: potholders
We got my grandmother a new cast iron frying pan, and I was like "I'll make her some potholders!" and then it turned into me making six scrap bin potholders (do not have picture, but they were very pink and purple) and six christmassy potholders and giving them out to my aunts and uncles (along with chocolate-dipped chocolate chip shortbread cookies).
Christmas gifts 2013: Hayley portrait quilt
For my brother and sister-in-law, I decided to make another quilt like the Linus one and the horse-vulture.. small portrait, framed by objects, and with an irregular edge. Hayley is surrounded by her favorite ball with feet, foster kittens, rawhide bones, and tennis balls. My FIL's questions ("is it a patch for a jacket? is it a placemat?") made me give in and mount it on a subtly-painted 18x18" canvas.
Christmas gifts 2013: Linus stuffie
I realized I had already made gifts for five other kids, but not even thought about my own kid. I have a really simple go-to cat stuffie that I like to make, so I just added an enormous Linus face to it.. I think this thing is pretty hilarious. (Linus does not.)
Christmas gifts 2013: Car carriers
I followed the Take and Play Car Carrier tutorial from Sisters, Sisters to make these. They're for a couple of little boys who I hope will be able to take them out and go VROOM!