Christmasy Placemats & Napkins

Awhile back Sew, Mama, Sew had a placemat and napkin sew-along. I decided to make these for my mom for her birthday. She decorates the house in blues and silver for Christmas, but I threw in the green to tie together the one print with with green in it. She really likes these placemats. Although I don't think she'll ever use the napkins. I really like how these turned out and now have placemats on my ever growing list of things to make for our house.

When I was a kid we opened one gift on Christmas Eve after church and we are carrying on that tradition with our kids. Every Christmas Eve after church we go to one of my husband's sister's houses and have a bite to eat. After eating each child gets to open one gift. For the past 4 years or so I've made something for my kids Christmas Eve gift. Right now I'm working on those Christmas Eve gifts. I'm not sure how much longer this will last as it's getting harder every year to come up with something for the boys.

Great Teacher Christmas Gift Idea

My kids love to make gifts for their teachers. The boys made these snowman pins for their teachers with a little help from me. They picked out the buttons and ribbon from my stash. I glued the buttons together and glued the ribbon and felt hats to the snowman. Then I glued the snowman to broach pins. This was a quick gift to make and an excellent teacher gift.

Christmas Bag

Outside flap

Outside pocket under the flap

Awhile back I made a really cute patchwork flap messanger bag for a swap. My daughter loved it and said she would like a patchwork bag. Well I knew then what I'd be making her for Christmas Eve! I went to Country Quarter and bought a really cute charm pack. I can't remember now what the fabric is named but it's a Moda charm pack. Blue is her favourite colour right now and I chose a charm pack with lots of blue and blue-green as my starting point. The bottom left-hand charm is not part of the charm pack. That was from a fat quarter I picked up at Country Quarter. The middle charm is from a fat quarter I bought at Quilt n' Stitch. I had bought the stripe fabric in the summer from Fabricland but had no idea what I was going to make with it. I used a combination of tutorials I had seen on the internet to make this bag. She loves this bag! I think I need to make one for myself soon too.

Another Christmas Scarf

Once I knew I was making a scarf for my youngest son I knew I would have to make one for our oldest son too. Luckily I had quite a few blue (his favourite colour) fabrics in my stash. I found one really nice blue and gold star fabric from Country Quarter for his scarf and added a few remnants from Fabricland. He says he loves it - but he hasn't worn it that often yet.

Christmas Scarf

This cute scarf was for my youngest son for his Christmas Eve gift. Each child in our family gets to open one gift on Christmas Eve after church. He had requested a scarf about 3 months before Christmas and little did he know I was planning a scarf for him for Christmas Eve. He asked about every other week if I was working on his scarf. He requested orange (his favourite colour), green and brown. I had very few of these fabrics in my stash. I visited my local quilting shop - Country Quarter and got one of the orange fabrics. The rest are from the Fabricland remnant section. He love, love, love, love, loves this scarf.

Snow, snow, snow

I can't believe I forgot to share this snowflake ornament with you!

A few weeks after Christmas I was feeling like I needed to make a snowflake ornament - maybe it was because we haven't had much snow all winter. I had some plastic covered wire and was playing around with it and got out my buttons to try to see what would happen. This ornament took hours and my hands hurt by the time I was done threading the buttons onto the wire and bending the wire. I even borrowed my husband's pliers to help bent and pull the wire. I love this ornament and can't wait for next Christmas to hang it on the tree. I have to confess I still have it hanging on our buffet cabinet.

Christmas Eve Pillows

I can't believe it's taken me so long to post this! We had a wonderful Christmas and really enjoyed the Christmas break together. Usually my husband works during the break between Christmas and New Year's. This year he had the week off so we had lots of family time. We also have a birthday in our family early in the New Year (more on that in a different post). We went back to work/school/daycare on Monday but by Monday night 2 of us came down with the a tummy bug that has been going around. By the end of the week all 3 kids and I had had the bug. We are all back to normal now though.

Anyway, on Christmas Eve after we go to mass, we get together with my husband's family for some snacks and togetherness. After we have a snack each child is allowed to open one gift. For the past 3 years I've been making something for my kids for Christmas Eve. This year I made pillows with their names appliqued on them. Two of our kids have unusual names so they will hardly ever have anything with their names on them unless I make something for them.

I searched high and low for some reasonably priced pillows that would be the right size. I really didn't want to spend anywhere near $20 on a pillow that would be used as a pillow form. I got lucky and found 1 pillow at Wal-Mart on clearance for $6 early in December. Then I spent the next 2 weeks searching for 2 more cheap pillows. I finally found some at Sears on clearance for $7 - which is still at least $3 cheaper than the small pillow forms you can buy at Fabricland (I think they are more than $10 but I can't remember). I measured the pillows to determine the size of the pillow cover I wanted and included a zipper in the bottom so the cover can be washed seperately from the pillow. Two kids love blue and one loves orange. I couldn't find any sturdy solid orange fabric so I had to settle for blue for him too - which worked out perfectly anyway since the boys share blue room. I used a cotton canvas since I wanted something very strong and sturdy for the base of the pillow. I thought this would help to secure and support the applique as well.

For my daughter - Caelen (I know the n looks like an r in this picture but the pillow is really full).

For my oldest son - Tyler.
For the youngest - Rhett.

They love these pillows and sleep with them every night.

Christmas Apron

I signed up for a great swap on Swap Bot awhile back. My swap partner received her package so I can share what I made for her now. For this swap we had to make a half apron and the inspiration was peppermint candies – you know those red and white candy mints you get sometimes at restaurants. As soon as I signed up I knew that I could use some of the Christmas fabric I had left over from the Christmas apron I made for a swap awhile ago since it was red and white. It has snowflakes on it and every time I have one of those candy mints I think of snowflakes. I needed to find a striped fabric to go with it for the ruffle and waistband/ties. I looked at a few stores, but just couldn’t find the right stripe. I finally found this one – it reminds me of candycanes. With the narrow green stripe through the fabric I thought this added some richness to it.

I couldn’t find a tutorial on the web for exactly the apron I wanted to make and I didn't have a pattern so I winged it. I knew I wanted the ruffle to be full. Without pictures to show how I made this apron, directions would be little wordy. Of course I didn't even think to take pictures as I went along until I was almost done the apron. I may just have to come up with a tutorial in the New Year - I don't have time before Christmas.


Are you still working on your Christmas gifts too? I still have a pile of sewing to do, a few more gifts to purchase and everything to wrap. Oh and I haven't done any Christmas baking yet either!

Is it too early for Christmas posts?

04I've been doing some swaps on Swap-Bot. One of the swaps was Chirstmas in July. These are some of the ornaments I made for this swap. I love felt ornaments.

The sewing thread spool is Santa's list. I put names on a piece of paper and hot glue gunned the list to the thread spool. Then I tied a Christmasy ribbon around the spool. I have a few more ornament swaps coming up and I've been thinking about what I want to do for these. One is for an angel and the other is for a snowman ornament.

Handmade Christmas - Part 2

These are the gifts we gave our boys for Christmas.

Bean bags - well actually rice bags. The fabrics are from Joanne's.

Turtles - made from the Bend-the-Rules sewing book by Amy Karol. The John Deere fabric is from my scraps stash, leftover from pj pants I made a few years ago, the beige cordory is a remnant picked up at Fabricland when they had remnants marked down 50% off.
Capes - these were opened on Christmas Eve. We let each of our kids open a gift on Christmas Eve after church. The fabric is broadcloth from Fabricland I got for $1/metre. The appliqued initials are from scraps leftover from some beachbags made for last Christmas. You can't see it in the picture but there is red bias tape around the top part of the cape, purchased at Value Village - 8 packages bagged together with some pink velvet ribbon for $1. The capes are secured around the boys' necks with velcro. I thought this would be easier for them to put on and take off the capes on their own.
I also made a cape and a turtle for my nephew, given that he is a year younger than our oldest and a year older than our youngest.

The capes were a hit and had to be worn right away. The turtles were put in their beds on Christmas night and have been carried around the house ever since. The bean (rice) bags haven't really been played with yet, but we do have one sick boy, who hasn't really felt much up to playing and the other boy is kind of lost without his older brother to lead in the playing.

Handmade Christmas - Part 1

This was our family's first Handmade Christmas. I think everyone liked what they received and more importantly liked making something for each other. I'll be breaking down the list and will try to post once a day until all of our handmade items have been posted.

For my husband I made a fleece camo pullover (see picture below). He is into hunting, so I thought this would be perfect. He seems to like it and has already used it a few times, so I would call that a success! The fabric was on sale at http://www.wazoodle.com/ two summers ago and I think it was around $4/yard. The pattern is Simplicity 3651. I plan on doing a pattern review of this pattern in January, so check back for that if you are interested.

Also I knitted a simple scarf for my husband for hunting.

It was made short to go under his coat. The yarn came from a yarn store in downtown Kingston, Ontario. They have a fabulous selection of yarns and the owner is extremely helpful. I will definitely be going back there again. This is the 4th knitting project I've done, all scarves. I think I might be ready to start trying other knitting projects, but have no idea what to try next. Obviously it will need to be relatively simple, since I've only done the straight knit stitch for all 4 scarves. Any suggestions on what my next project should be?

Holiday Traditions Exchange - package received

I received my Holiday Traditions Exchange package from Tamara on Monday. Tamara is extremely talented and makes these fabulous gift tags.

The package I received from Tamara included a gorgeous handmade necklace, beautiful hand beaded tree ornaments, a recipe for shortbread, Merry Christmas stickers and ribbons for our handmade Christmas and Tamara's holiday tradition. I hung the hand beaded tree ornaments on my Christmas tree right away. They look absolutely beautiful on my tree.

Holiday Traditions Exchange

Tamara (http://www.inkredible.typepad.com/), my swap partner for the Holiday Traditions Exchange received her package, so I can now post my pictures of the Christmas decorations I made for her. All 3 ornaments are made from felt. The snowman ornament is just freehand drew and sewed some beads on for the eyes, nose, mouth and buttons. The ribbon is some scrap ribbon I had left over from some other project years ago. The mitten ornament is based on mitten ornament I saw on http://www.bhg.com/ only mine isn't stuffed and it's bigger. I left the top open so she can stick a candycane or little treat in there for her daughter. There are beads crazy glued on under the ribbon trim. For the snowflake I traced around 2 snowflake cookie cutters and cut them out. Any one who knows me knows how much I hate to handsew, but I do think the blanket stitch around the outside of these ornaments adds a little more craftiness to them.

Also included in the package was a recipe for chocolate cookies that I add crushed candycanes on top of, and some recipe cards. I also shared one of our family's Christmas traditions with her.

This swap was a lot of fun and I couldn't wait for her to receive her package. My package is in the mail now and I'll share when I receive it.