Handmade Holidays 2013

I ended up not doing a whole lot of Christmas sewing this year (I had big plans, but didn't get to most of them), but there was a fair amount of knitting.  I just mailed out the last thing this week *sigh*, so I'm finally blogging about the gifts as well.

I made O's teacher some boot toppers and also gave her some coffee and coconut oil exfoliating scrub that apparently never got photographed.  It was brown and in cute jar, so just imagine that.  I was quite pleased with the boot toppers.  (Ravelry notes)  Someday I'd like to make myself a pair.  I looked on Ravelry a couple of days ago, and the last time I knitted myself anything was 2009!  I still wear that hat too.

E's teacher and para also got the scrub, along with some slippers.  I made her teacher Bea's Slippers (Ravelry notes) and loooooved how they turned out.  They took a lot longer to knit than I was expecting, though, so I had to find a quicker option for her para.

I ended up knitting double-stranded slippers for hers, and they were super quick and quite squishy.  (Ravelry notes)  She told me after the break that her kids kept swiping them from her.  Haha.

I also wanted to give a little some thing to the secretary at E's school, since I end up bugging her to sign in and out nearly every day at drop-off and pick-up time.  She had a bio up in the entrance at the beginning of the year that said she sewed, so I had that in the back of my head and decided to make her a jar pincushion and fill it with a few chocolates.  Honestly, she had one of the best reactions to a gift that I've given in a long time.  It made my day to see how happy she was that I had read her bio and remembered that she sews.

Here's my only actual sewn project!  Ray asked for a phone cozy for when he runs in the cold.  I took this tutorial and simplified it, since I knew he couldn't care less about the piecing.

O wanted to make E a blanket and decided a tie blanket would be the way to go.  He was right, she loves the fringe. He chose the fabric, I did the cutting and Ray and I both helped him tie it, but he did a significant part of it.

It looks like E's staring down that raccoon.

Back to knitting (I have no rhyme or reason to this post, I guess), my SIL requested an earflap hat for her younger son, so I made him this one.  (Ravelry notes)  This was my most shamefully late gift of this holiday season.  Winter doesn't seem to be ending anytime soon, though, so he will have plenty of opportunity to wear it still.  Hopefully it fits!

And last, but not least, the kids' annual Christmas ornaments.  (You can see 2011's here and 2012's here.)  O has been very into watching the Peanuts holiday specials, so I was inspired by this ornament on Etsy and made him Charlie Brown.  I wanted to use a glass ball like the original, but couldn't find any when I finally went shopping (I think Hobby Lobby has them, but it was a Sunday, so they were closed).  I settled for a paper mache one instead, so Charlie Brown is a little bumpier than I would have liked, but O didn't seem to care.

E's ornament was again based on her Halloween costume (as well as her on-going love of our cat).  It ended up being a huge pain to knit and then sew up this fun fur yarn, but I do like how it turned out.  (Ravelry notes)  I used scrapbooking stickers to put her name (blurred out, obviously) and the year on the ornament the cat is holding.  Stickers are the way to go.  Much less stressful than trying to paint the name and year with a shaky hand like I did on O's!

 

And that's it!  I felt really busy, but I guess I didn't really accomplish much.  Now I'm on to working on birthday gifts, since we have several in our family in February.  Winter KCW was this week, but I didn't even make an attempt this round.  I have been enjoying looking at what other people have been making, though! Have you been sewing along?

A Christmas Kyoko

I have a to-do list about a mile long, so now's the perfect time to ignore it and blog, right?  Just a quick post about E's Christmas dress, which she wore yesterday when Santa came to her class Christmas party.  It's the Modkid Kyoko in a 3 for width and 5 for height, which worked out perfectly, just like it did for last year's Sydney that she still wears.

I made my own bias tape again, because I'm a sucker for a perfect match, even though I find it annoying to make.  For a solid top, you could probably just get away with turning the hem under and topstitching it, but I wanted that little bit of extra detail.

I mostly followed the directions as written, other than taking the easy way out by applying the bias tape to the neckline and hem just by topstitching instead of doing it the "right" way.  I did do the sleeve binding as instructed and it was pretty slick.

 I made a self-fabric bow for the obi instead of using ribbon.

This is probably the most accurate color-wise.  It's a bit of a darker red.

I also thought it called for some fancy-schmancy hair clip of some kind, so I made a fabric flower like this with a fabric-covered button for the middle.

She wore the pantalets from her Raggedy Ann costume underneath for some added warmth.  The top comes down pretty low on her, so she wore a long-sleeved tee also.

Time to get cracking on my list!

A Visit from St. Nicholas

I seem to remember that after last year's sewing of the Christmas jammies from St. Nick, I decided it wasn't worth the time and effort to sew footie pajamas.  But then I found this super cute Charlie Brown Christmas fleece and couldn't pass up the opportunity for the kids to have matching PJs, so I found myself working on them at the last minute once again. 

I don't learn.

The Peek-a-Boo Classic Footed Pajamas pattern has been updated since last year, adding more sizes and a half-zip option.  The full-zip is easier with E, so I made that version again, but I think the half-zip would be much simpler.  I ripped out the part on the leg where the end of the zipper meets the inseam three times.  When my fourth attempt was still puckered, I decided that no one else would even notice, so I left it.

O's pants are also the same as last year, just a size bigger.  They're the large (size 10) pants from Kwik Sew's Sewing for children, with the side seam eliminated and the legs widened 3/4" on each side.  He's a huge fan of all the Charlie Brown specials, so he thought they were pretty cool -- as far as pajamas go.

Have you ever sewn footie pajamas?  Worth it or not? I find them kind of putzy to sew, but think they're just so cute when they're done, so I'm currently undecided.  I guess if I stick to just making them once a year, it's not so bad.  Ha.

Handmade Holidays: Ornaments

For the first time ever, I actually accomplished my goal of making at least one handmade gift for every person on my list!  We just won't talk about when I finished up my list.... Well, in all honestly, I still have one thing to make.  I gave my oldest nephew an IOU as part of his so I could consult with him a bit, but for all intents and purposes, I'm calling it a win.  Next year, though, I need to start much earlier!  (Every year I say, "Next year I'm going to ____!)

I'm continuing the tradition of making an ornament for each of the kids with something that was representative of their year.  E's was once again based on her Halloween costume. I used this tutorial to make her a Raggedy Ann ornament using the yarn from her wig and fabric from her costume dress.  I think my clothespin base must have been thinner than the original, because I had to change the proportions of several things, especially the arm length, which I shortened considerably.  I also sewed a tube for the sleeves instead of wrapping the pipe cleaner, in order to have finished edges.  Instead of the gingerbread button, I cut a heart out of felt and embroidered her name (blurred out in the pic) and the year on it.  It was a putzy project, and I think I may have glued the head on a bit crooked, but the finished product is pretty cute.

O is very into all things Egyptian, thanks to Rick Riordan's The Kane Chronicles, so I decided to go with that theme.  I made his from Fimo clay "engraved" with hieroglyphs from a generator that I found online but forgot to bookmark (this was late Christmas Eve, of course) and painted with a few coats of metallic acrylic paint.  His name and the year are written on the back with Sharpie.

I also made a golden snitch ornament for my oldest niece, a fellow Harry Potter geek.  I got the idea from this one on Etsy, which has much cooler wings.  It took me forever to find paired wing charms, but I did finally find some at Michael's.  The wings don't like to stay in place, but it is still pretty funny.

Handmade Holidays: This Year's Teacher Gifts

I'm always looking for teacher gift ideas, so I'm posting this even though:

A) it's probably too late to be helpful to anyone for this Christmas
B) there's very little crafting involved
C) it isn't overly original

We talked over a few different ideas and decided to go with a "movie night" gift basket, containing three classic movie theater candies, regular popcorn and kettle corn, a Redbox gift certificate, and two kinds of hot chocolate mix.  I'm not sure what hot chocolate has to do with movies (Do theaters sell it?  I'll pretend they do even if they don't.), but I wanted to include something homemade. They're tweaked versions of this salted caramel hot chocolate and this peppermint hot chocolate recipe.  I would recommend them both -- much tastier than other mixes I've made -- plus they have cute printable labels.

I wasn't sure what I was going to package them in, but then I saw these plastic popcorn tubs at Target as I was walking to the checkout.  Perfect.

We gave these to E's teacher and paraprofessional, and O will be giving his to his teacher tomorrow along with a card he made her.  We also gave a set of the hot chocolate mixes to each of  E's therapists.

I was looking for a fun little token gift for E's four classmates too.  When I saw these cute glittery red wooden letters on clearance at Michael's for 29 cents, I picked up one for each kid.  A little ribbon and some hot glue and we had an inexpensive personalized ornament for her to give her friends.

Have you seen or given any unique teacher gifts lately? 

Pajamas from St. Nick

The kids always get Christmas pajamas from St. Nick, and this year I decided to help him out a little by sewing up some coordinating fleece jammies.

O's are medium pants from Kwik Sew Sewing for Children.  I widened the legs by 3/4" at both edges and eliminated the side seam.  You really can't go wrong with the basics from Kwik Sew.

I was more ambitious with E's and went for footie pajamas.  I picked up the Peek-a-Boo Classic Footed Pajamas pattern on sale a bit ago with these PJs in mind.  The description says, "New to sewing?  No problem", but I would suggest that you not attempt these until you're pretty comfortable with clothing construction.  There are some pieces that are a bit awkward to put together, and the most potentially confusing part of the zipper installation doesn't have a picture or diagram in the instructions.

They went together fairly smoothly, although they did take longer than I'd hoped.  I was pretty crabby about them for a while yesterday, but now that they're done and I saw them with O's, I'm pretty pleased.  I cut a 4T width and 5 for length.  She hasn't tried them on yet, but they seem similarly sized to RTW pajamas.

Do you celebrate St. Nick's Day where you live?  In the U.S, it seems to be limited to very specific geographic areas.  It wasn't a thing people did in my hometown, but here on the other side of Wisconsin it's very common.

Christmas & Chanukah Cables : Legwarmers & a Slouchy Hat

The final handmade holiday gifts: knitwear!

For my nine-year-old niece, cabled legwarmers.  I used this Japanese chart (link is to the PDF) and Red Heart Super Tweed in Landshark, so they'd be easy-care.  The chart was easy to follow and memorize.  I was very happy with how relatively quickly they knitted up, since I was working on them at the last minute -- as always.

The child's size fit her perfectly, even with boot-cut jeans stuffed into them.  I was afraid the yarn might not have been a girly enough choice for her, since she's much more into glam and glitter than I am, but she told me she was never going to take them off.  That's the way to a knitting auntie's heart for sure!

And for a friend, a Star Crossed Slouchy Beret.  I've knit this before, two years ago when I made red hats for whole family for our annual photo shoot.  In a weekend.  A long weekend, but still, that was insane.

KS Photography

I used a 10.5 for the main body of mine, which wasn't overly slouchy, so I went with the pattern's suggested 11 this time, in Mir Atlantis Periwinkle Peace Fleece.  It looked a little thin as I was knitting it up, but it bloomed nicely after a wash and blocking.

Fleece Socks & Infinity Scarf

Why, yes, it is January 19th and I am still posting about holiday gifts....  I just mailed the last one on Tuesday, so there's one more post coming when I know it has arrived at its recipient's house.

My oldest nephew is 15, and we usually give him a gift card of some kind, but I like to have some "thing" for him to open as well.  Since I couldn't find him a unicycle, despite my obsessive stalking of Craig's List (if you're a local reader and see one for sale somewhere, please let me know), I figured fleece socks were the way to go.  These are the Green Pepper Polar Socks in the calf-high version, men's size 12.  I  made the regular/narrow width, but I think if I made the men's socks again, I'd use the regular/wide instead.  They looked a bit too narrow, although maybe it was just compared to the length of the sock.

Fleece socks are such a fun, quick, and useful gift. I still have two pairs that my sister made for me back when I was in college!

Then, for my friend who told me she wanted to start wear scarves, but was worried she'd look like someone from Designing Women, a ruffled infinity scarf.  I figured that was the least Designing Women-ish scarf style there is.

I used 7" wide strips of soft, thin jersey and did a lettuce edge on the serger instead of a zig-zag like in the original tutorial.  I think my fabric must've had some lycra in it, though, because it didn't ruffle nearly as much as other lettuce hems I've done.  Bummer.  Or maybe it was that it was two layers?  

I also constructed mine differently.  Since you're sewing it wrong sides together anyway, I sewed the short ends together first, pressed the seam allowances open and then sewed the long edges.  It seemed like a neater construction method.

Modeled here with my Jalie 2806

Crayon Organizer

I'm getting lazier and lazier with post titles as I try to catch up on blogging Christmas gifts.  Not feeling overly clever at the moment. 

For my four-year-old Curious George-loving nephew, a crayon holder.  O. had a serious George phase of his own, so I still have quite a bit of CG fabric in the stash. 

I made a few of these as gifts about three years ago or so.  It's a self-drafted pattern with a velcro closure and a pocket for a pad of paper and stickers.  I used fusible fleece to line the body.  The one thing I did differently this year was to make the crayon pockets 1" wide instead of 3/4". I think this helped limit pulling on the cover side.  On O's, which has been used and abused, you can see where each pocket is from the outside.

Gifts for the Runner

Well, we're both runners, but the husband is much, much faster.  Much.

I rarely make him gifts, so I was quite excited to have not one, but two ideas for him for Christmas!  See, there's been a pile of race bibs and medals getting shuffled around the sewing room/office for a couple of years, and I was 
a) concerned they'd get lost amidst the rubble, er craft supplies
b) irritated every time I had to relocate them
c) ready to cut the pile in half

So when I saw these medal holders, I thought, "Hey, I can make one of those!"  I got a long wooden plaque from Hobby Lobby and ventured to the hardware store to buy hooks and those picture hanging things that look like jaggedy teeth. I assume they have an actual name, but I can't remember what it was.  

I sanded the board, not nearly enough, which I didn't realize at the time, and added a few coats of white acrylic paint.  While I was waiting for it to dry, the following conversation occurred with the husband in the room: 

O. (whispering loudly): We need to get a hammer for those H-O-O-K-S for Dad's present.
Me: You know Dad can spell, right?

The next step was to paint the words.  I tried to come up with something clever, but failed and went for stating the obvious instead.  I used this nifty trick (oh, thank you, Pinterest!) to help, but still needed to make a Christmas Eve Day run to Hobby Lobby for a smaller brush.  I'm not sure why I thought one of O's paint brushes would be adequate??

Lettering done, I spent a ridiculous amount of time marking where the hooks should go, only to realize after the first one splintered the wood, that I'd need to use the drill, which I only sort of knew how to do.  So, back upstairs I ran to ask the husband for instructions as vaguely as possible.  I think I was unsuccessful, but the drill helped tremendously. 

I really love how it turned out.  The husband keeps talking about how I need one too, now (although my medals are all finisher's medals; he actually has placed in his age group a few times!).  It has yet to be made clear which one of us will be making said medal holder.  Honestly, if I had a do-over, I might just buy one from the original seller instead of making my own -- painting the letters took a loooong time -- but now I would like them both to match.  Hmmm...

The other part of his present was a scrapbook for the race bibs.  I know I saw the suggestion to use an 8x8 scrapbook for this on a blog somewhere, sometime, but I'm not sure where anymore.  I spent some quality time with the internet, looking up race results, and then even more quality time with Photoshop trying to make the results look pretty.  This was one of my favorite gifts that I gave this year.  I may even have emerged from the sewing room/office when it was done and proclaimed that I had just won Christmas...

Hey, if I can't be competitive pace-wise, why not be competitive about gift-giving?  ;)

More Ornaments

The only gifts for my kids that I made this Christmas were felt ornaments. E. got her own owl ornament.  O. asked for one too, but I told him I'd seen something else he'd like even better.  I was right; he was thrilled.  I mean, really, what says Christmas joy like Darth Vader??

I also embroidered their names and the year on the backs.

O. had a playdate with one of his buddies a few days after Christmas and wanted to make him a gift also, so we made another book ornament.  This time, the book of choice was the Harry Potter Lego book, which was O's "something to read" this year (We do the "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read" thing, plus a gift from Santa and stockings).  His friend had brought it to school earlier, so we knew he was a fan as well.

Continuing with the Harry Potter theme, which seems to be a constant in our house, I made the older of my nieces a Weasley sweater ornament.  Not just a Weasley sweater, though, but one for Draco!  I'd asked my brother which character he thought she'd choose, and that was what he said.  O. was befuddled.  Ha.  She later told me that it was probably more Tom Felton that she liked than Draco.  ;)

I had the pattern from Charmed Knits, but was looking for something in the round, so when I found someone's top-down raglan modifications on Ravelry, I was sold.  Done and done.  I can see many more of these in my future.