Handmade Holidays: Quilted Challah Cover

As soon as I saw the challah cover tutorial on Sew, Mama, Sew! back in August, I knew I wanted to make it for a friend for Chrismukkah. (I'm highly amused that there's an O.C. wiki, although I don't know why I'm surprised.)  Of course, good intentions of having it done in time for Chanukah rarely work out unless you actually start the project ahead of time.  So it got there on Christmas Eve, I think, cementing the whole Chrismukkah thing.

I used orange, because it's one of my friend's favorite colors, and paired it with one of my favorite shades of blue.  The paper piecing practice I'd just done really came in handy. The whole thing went surprisingly well, especially considering I'd never machine quilted and bound anything before.  I made my first three nieces and nephews each a baby quilt when I was in high school and college, but they were all sewn pillowcase-style and tied instead of quilted. 

I was excessively worried that I'd screw up the letters for "Shabbat" and somehow write something offensive instead -- kind of like those stories you hear about tattoos in Chinese that don't say what the person thought. (Full disclosure: I have a Kanji tattoo that means laugh.  I verified it from many, many sources before getting it done!)  So I checked the tutorial about a billion times, and also Googled it just to make sure it was correct. 

I used this no pins, no hand-sewing tutorial for the binding, which was right up my alley.  Two of my least favorite things eliminated!  I used 2.5" strips, but wish I'd risked it and gone with the 2.25" binding instead.  As you can see, I wasn't very close to the edge on the back.

I decided to just go with wavy lines for the quilting, since it was the least likely to make me crazy with my anal tendencies.  I also don't have a quilting or darning foot, so I couldn't try free-motion quilting.  This worked well with my walking foot, and I like how it turned out.  It's a little stiff even though I washed it after I was done, so I'm hoping it'll loosen up with use.

 

I *think* I may have the guts to try an actual quilt one of these days now. 

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? 

Handmade Holidays: Another Drawstring Lace Cowl

My aunt and I had our monthly coffee date yesterday, so I was able to give my first gift of the season to her in person.  The first drawstring lace cowl that I made was for her daughter-in-law, and she really liked it, so I filed it away somewhere in my brain and am quite pleased that I remembered to knit her one in time for Christmas.  I used Vickie Howell's Sheep(ish) again, but in Plum(ish) this time.

The pom-poms are my favorite part, but I told my aunt to cut them off if they weren't "her."  It's still quite cute on even without the drawstring at all.

Crafting for Newtown

I have seen a couple of crafting drives set up for the families in Newtown and wanted to share them. 

A Connecticut quilt shop is collecting homemade pillowcases.  You can find more information on Facebook or the Quilter's Corner website. 

Knitters and crocheters, if you are on Ravelry, there is a group collecting huggable stuffed monsters. 

Image courtesy of nuchylee / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you have heard of any other crafty endeavors, please comment with the information or a link.

Snap-a-who? Snapazoo!

I made this little guy last week from the KAM Snaps tutorial for a two-year-old's birthday present.  I think he's pretty funny.

I used two layers of anti-pill fleece, but it took me way longer than the woman on the Kam site who made hers in fifteen minutes.  I finished in about an hour.

I ran out of time to try to decipher many more of the teeny-tiny instructions, but did manage the above bear and this pig.  He was my favorite.  O. thought he looked like a cow, which I can also see.  Either way, his little face amuses me.  I don't think this will be my last Snapazoo!

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.