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.

Handmade Christmas - Part 5

This is the last of the Handmade Christmas posts.

Below is a picture of the bag I made for my daughter's BFF.

The rainboots fabric is from Hancock's of Paduca, purchased on clearance a year and a half ago. The stripe fabric on the handles is also the lining of the bag and came from Hancock's of Paduca as well. The pink dots fabric on the inside of the handles was also used for the inside pockets and is left over from a top made for my daughter in the spring.

I received two amazing gifts this year. The first is a photo album my daughter made for me with pictures of the kids, friends, family. She worked really hard on it and is very proud of herself. At one point she didn't know if she would get it finished in time, but she made it! This is a gift I will treasure for a lifetime.

The other amazing gift I received was a Serger (Janome 660D). I had looked at it the beginning of December and it was on sale for half price. I talked to my husband about buying it, but decided to wait, as I really didn't have to have it. Well I was surprised to open the box on Christmas morning! Even though we agreed to handmade gifts this year, I think I can over look the rule breaking, given that I can use the serger to make gifts - right? I do feel badly though because I stuck to the handmade rule and didn't spend that much money, but did put a lot of myself, time and effort into the gifts made for him.

Handmade Christmas - Part 5

These are the pjs my daughter made for her brothers.

For the youngest.

For the oldest.

The tool fabric was purchased from Joanne's Fabrics. She sewed the pants together on her own, and I did the hem and the elastic casing as she is still nervous about having her stitching showing on the outside of garments. We were running out of time so the shirts were purchased at Wal-Mart and she made a freezer paper stencil to get the hammer and saw shape and used fabric paint to get the image on the shirt. We did the freezer paper stencil on t-shirts for her birthday party last spring and it was a hit with her friends. She kept this idea in mind for Christmas gifts. She did a great job and I think I've convinced her to really take the chance on doing the hemming and elastic casing for the next pair of pj pants she makes.

She also sewed 2 other pairs of pj pants for her cousins, but I forgot to take a picture.

Handmade Christmas - Part 4

The boys made each other these tractors for hanging on their bedroom wall. The tractors were purchased as a felt kit at Michael's for $1.50 each. I thought we would have to glue the tractors together, but they came as one piece which we glued onto a foam rectangle with a hot-glue gun for the background. The boys then cut around the glued on tractor. This was a very age (4 and 2) appropriate project. The boys told me where to put the glue and I used the glue gun given that the glue was very hot. They really enjoyed spending the one-on-one time with Mommy for this. My husband spent one-on-one time with the other boy so what they received from each other remained a surprise until Christmas morning. We used double sided foam stickies to stick the tractors to their bedroom walls after the gift opening on Christmas morning.

Our 4-year-old boy made this bulletin board for his sister.

The stripe fabric came from Fabricland. I think I picked it up in June on sale and didn't have a plan for it. The ribbons were purchased at Michael's for 60% off and there is still some leftover. I had a bulletin board kicking around here and used it. We hot-glue gunned batting on the top of the bulletin board, cut the fabric down to fit the bulletin board with a little extra overhang to keep the stripes straight. We then stretched the fabric around the bulletin board and staple-gunned the fabric in place. Then we determined the placement of the ribbons and staple-gunned those in place. This project didn't take very long and the 4-year-old was quite happy to use the staple-gun (closely supervised of course).

Our 2-year-old boy made this picture frame for his sister.

We glued the guitars on the top corners of the picture frame, then glued the buttons on. He chose the buttons and helped glue the buttons in place. I put a picture of the two boys in the frame for her. I erased the boys out of the picture before posting the picture of the picture frame as I don't want pictures of my kids on the internet.

I think there will be one or two more days of Handmade Christmas gifts to come.

Handmade Christmas - Part 3

These are the handmade things made for my daughter.

The guitar bag was opened on Christmas Eve. My daughter has been taking guitar lessons for 3 years and loves this bag. There is a tutorial for this bag on http://boredandcrafty.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/my-own-guitar-bag-oh-yeah-happy-2008/. The pink is a canvas from Fabricland. I bought it full price (which I almost never do), but only needed .5 metre. The black is broadcloth. The strap is made from webbing and is adjustable. The silver-gray circles are all handsewn. Any one who knows me knows how much I hate to handsew and will try anyway to machine sew. These circles were so small I knew there was no way I could machine sew them. It took about 2 hours to do all of the handsewing, including sewing on the buttons. I would imagine that if I did any handsewing at all it probably would have taken considerably less time to do.

The turtle is from Bend-the-Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. The flower fabric is scrap fabric left over from pj pants. I used the same cordory remnant as I did for the boys' turtles. I also made one of these turtles for my niece.

Last February my daughter chose this yarn for a scarf. I tucked it away and worked on the scarf for about an hour a couple of nights each in September and had it completed by the end of September. It was the first handmade Christmas item that I made for this Christmas.

Still to come - handmade items made by the boys and by the girl for each other. Also the very thoughtful gift made for me.

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?