Thursday, January 3, 2013

It's a flurry! (of gifts)

Hello and welcome to 2013!
I finished sewing the various gifts I was making a couple hours before we left on our 11-day grand holiday tour. (Okay, that makes it sound more glamorous that it is...we celebrate Christmas with both my husband's and my family around the holidays, so what the "tour" really means is packing one large suitcase and one carry-on suitcase and taking a plane ride to North Carolina and back, and then a drive to Wisconsin and back. But totally worth it for all the family time!)

I photographed everything I finished before we left with honest intentions of posting from the road rather than dropping off the face of blogdom for 2 weeks. But...there were big nephews to play board games with, little nephews to snuggle, dumplings to make for paprikash, sledding hills, and dart games that just kept calling my name instead of blogging. So here we are!

I finished:
Duffle Bag #2 
(These were given to my almost 7 and 4 year old nieces as travel duffles; they left Grandma and Grandpa's house filled--pretty sure they were a hit!)

 Love that end zipper pocket!

Here's the first one, so you can see the two together. Here is the original post about the duffle.

A Lovey
My quilt guild's December meeting consists of a potluck dinner and the giving of the loveys. Each year the guild selects a few local charities to receive stuffed animal/quilt pairings. Guild members buy a stuffed animal and make a quilt to go with it. This year, over 300 loveys were made. Here is my quilt/stuffed bunny combination.


And here's the quilt itself. I used my old stand-by for baby quilts, "X" and "O" blocks. In the scrap fabrics I used, the pattern is pretty subtle (hint: the light blue makes "X" blocks and light green makes "O" blocks). At the dinner, I mentioned to another lady that I had made my quilt from start to finish in the last 24 hours. I expected her to be a little impressed; as it turned out, she had made hers just that day, so on an even tighter timeline!


Patchwork Hand Towels
I decided a couple weeks before Christmas that my stocking stuffer for my sisters-in-law would be embellished dish towels to coordinate with their kitchens. I got them done in the nick of time!



A Toy Bin
My sister-in-law suggested that a good gift idea for her youngest (who has 4 older siblings and lots of hand-me-downs!) would be a fabric toy bin. Here's the first one; I still owe him a second! This came from a tutorial over at Film in the Fridge; I added two side handles myself.

An Owl
And last but not least, stitched Friday morning before we left town, a cute little stuffed owl for a friend who needed a little extra cheer.

I saw this pattern in the fall issue of Simple Quilts & Sewing and loved it. It was fun; I'd like to make a few more. My belly fabric wasn't a great choice for allowing the beak to show up, but oh well...

And my nephew's stocking, which I posted the tutorial for here.


I also finished one of my charity quilt tops, but I'll save that for another post!

What's that? You're wondering about my kids' stockings, part of that bet I lost with my husband? Um...they're not done yet. My kids are 3.5 and 1.5. Between that and spending the holidays at both sets of grandparents' houses rather than at our house, the kids didn't even realize they didn't have stockings. However, I am NOT letting them sit until next December, only to end up on the back burner instead. They are next on the to-do list, my first planned finish for January! Really.



p.s. Linking to Confessions of a Fabric Addict's "Can I get a whoop whoop?" to show off my holiday finishes.
 And ready to jump back on the sewing bandwagon...

6 comments:

  1. Some lovely goodies there, I bet every recipient was happy! I love your guild's lovey donation idea. Well done all of you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I really like the duffle bag, I need to get a pattern for one, by sister would really like one too...

    ReplyDelete
  3. That duffle bag is so cute! I need to make one for myself for my three day weekends taking my dad to his cabin.
    That owl is adorable! You make such neat things!

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a wonderful array of goodies! Love them all, but especially that little owl. I've got a niece who would kill for that! Whoop whoop!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. These are great. The duffel bags are awesome. My daughter would love it. I bought the same magazine for the owl pattern but haven't made it. I love all your gifts. You were busy. Your lovee is adorable!

    ReplyDelete