A Crafty Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! I know in my last post I said I would post again on Christmas Day… well, my bad. But better late than never, right?!

My Sit and Sew group had our Christmas get-together a couple of weeks ago and it was a lovely and delicious time. We stuffed ourselves with steak, potatoes, casserole, and other delicious sides. There was lots of laughter and great conversation. We also exchanged our Secret Santa gifts!

I picked Rose, who is a very talented and crafty lady! She makes everything from jewelry to clothes for her daughter to personalizing everything with her Cricut machine. I’m impressed with her wide range of creativity – I can barely keep up with just sewing! So I wanted to make a little something to decorate her new crafting space…

You can’t go wrong with applique! I have a small piece of this cute “handmade with love” fabric from Joann’s that has all kinds of cute images on it – sewing machines, dress forms, scissors, buttons, etc. I cut out a few images to go with the words and I think it came out pretty spiffy. 🙂

I used a small zigzag stitch to applique the images. The gold fabric in the background is actually a scrap from some curtains I hemmed for my friend. I knew this beautiful fabric would come in handy someday!

I love the tiny sewing machine!

For the lettering, I chose a font on my computer and traced it. I then used the steps I took to make my Disney Plantain shirts to sew the words onto the fabric. If you’re thinking of doing the same, try to choose a font that connects each letter as things get a little tricky and tedious if they don’t.

I’m really happy with the way this turned out. It came out much better than originally envisioned in my head. 🙂 Rose liked it, too, so a win all around!

I got the hook-up this year with sewing and craft-related gifts. Check out my sweet haul:

The scarves underneath are from my Secret Santa, Diana. Thanks, Diana! They have already been worn multiple times each. They’re also my favorite colors – purple and teal… reminiscent of The Little Mermaid, perhaps?

On the left is a super cute pot holder from Sonya. She made everyone one – how generous! If you look closely, you can see a kiwi appliqued onto it! She took a trip to New Zealand in April and has been inspired since. So cute!

The little jewelry dish came from Rose. She made everyone one with their initials, too! Another generous Sit and Sew-er. 🙂 I love the font and the stars. This will be of good use since I usually just throw the earrings I wear almost daily into my bathroom drawer when I shower, so this will help keep them in place!

The McCall’s patterns are actually notebooks! The funny thing is, I got these for Rose as part of her gift but then my friend at work gave them to ME! I was seriously considering getting myself a pack, too, when I was shopping for Rose but now I’m all set. Score!

This Christmas turned out to be yet another nice one. I had taken a month off from sewing (yikes!) just from general busy-ness and exhaustion. I’m slowly getting back into the groove as I made a quick dress over the Christmas break and now I’m making a couple of tops for my mom for her upcoming birthday. I probably won’t be sharing pictures until after the new year, though. I’m still trying to kick myself out of general sluggish-ness but hope to have some energy soon!

Next I’ll be reminiscing on the past year’s makes as is appropriate for an end-of-year/beginning-of-year post! Until next time… I hope y’all are having a great holiday week!

-RED