Bonnie
Handmade Christmas – A Trio of Stockings
Just finished up these stockings for Morgan and her fiance, Chad, and his little guy, Austin. I used my own Stocking Tutorial which you can find here. I’m excited to give them these to enjoy on their first Christmas as a family!
Handmade Christmas: Birdies for Little Hands
My idea for decorating the bottom of the tree with something safe for little hands is . . . stuffed fabric birds! I love these! They take a tiny bit of fabric and only a few minutes of time to sew. The pattern is from Laura over at Spool. You can find the pdf pattern here: Bird Pattern. I sewed up a total of eight to group around the bottom of our tree.
You can add a ribbon or a loop of some sort to hang the birds, but since I want Charlie to be able to pull these off and play with them, I just nestled them between the branches. My friend, Ann, makes these as baby shower gifts because they’re the perfect size for little hands and make great chew toys. Even if you don’t have little ones playing around your tree, though, they’re a great way to show off some favorite fabrics in your decorating!
Handmade Christmas: Fabric Garland Tutorial
Looking for a simple project to add some handmade beauty to your holiday decorating? I was really tired of our old tinsel garland, and we’ve been working towards decorating with mostly handmade Christmas decorations. I played around with a few different ideas for making a garland and this one is the one that turned out the best for the least amount of work. (I am really short on decorating time this year because, in case you haven’t heard, my daughter is getting married in just over TWO weeks!) This project took me an evening of cutting plus an afternoon of gluing with my two middle schoolers.
Here’s our tree all decorated with our new garland and mostly handmade ornaments.
It’s definitely not department-store perfect, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. I love all the memories that all of those ornaments bring back . . . our children when they were tiny, our former homes, all the foster children that we loved years ago when we were fostering, our past pets, our old neighbors . . . I try to steal a few quiet moments during the Christmas season to sit in the rocking chair with a hot cup of tea and admire the tree while enjoying those sweet memories.
Oh, you noticed that the tree ornaments almost disappear about 2/3 of the way down, huh? That would be because of this little tree-admirer:
I’m working on a project right now that I think will decorate that area very nicely while still keeping the tree safe for our little guy.
Oh, I almost forgot, the link to the tutorial: Fabric Christmas Garland Tutorial. If you make one, I’d love to see it!
Home, again, grown-up pattern and a peek at some holiday decor
We’re home from our whirlwind trip! Thank you all for your prayers for our travels and speaking engagements. It went very well!
We enjoyed a lovely, quiet Thanksgiving dinner at home. Now we’re excited about getting our home ready for Christmas and our oldest daughter’s holiday wedding. Our younger children are working on a little project with me that I’m planning to post as a tutorial tomorrow. The strips above are a little sneak-peek.
AND, the Charlie Tee in Adult and Teen Sizes is available in my store now! I finished it up just before we left on our trip, but held off on releasing it until I was home and able to ship it right away. This is my first adult pattern, and I can’t wait to hear how you like it!
A Little Blog Vacation
Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers on our trip!
I had great plans for blogging about our trip and sharing as we went along, but, as I’m sure you already know, life does not always go as planned. I need to take a bit of a break from blogging for the rest of our trip to focus on family and ministry. I’ll still be taking pattern orders (and sending off pdfs, if you request them), and I’ll be available by email if you have any questions.
I’m looking forward to catching up after Thanksgiving!
Treat Bags and a Tutorial
I just did not have time to sew costumes for my children this year, but I think I made up for it a bit with these fun treat bags. They are really fast to put together, and, unlike most costumes, we can put them up to use again next year!
The design allows them to sit open like this when you pull the handles apart so that you can see the goodies inside:
But when you pick the bag up and pull the handles together, the bag closes up like this to keep treats safe and sound inside. Pretty cool, huh?
Ready to make one or two or a dozen? You can find the tutorial right here: Treat Bag Tutorial. If you sew up any, please be sure to share pictures. I would love to see!
The Inside or Out Pocket Pants Pattern is available now!
You can find it here: The Inside or Out Pocket Pants Pattern. I hope you all enjoy it! I can’t wait to see all the fun pants that you make for your little ones!
Super Style Bag Swap
One of my favorite blogs, Sew Mama Sew, is hosting the Super Style Bag Swap. I was partnered with Carla from With Needle & Thread. Carla should have received her bag yesterday. I can’t wait to hear what she thinks!
Carla’s experienced at bag swapping, and she suggested that rather than trying to figure out what fabrics to purchase for each other, we choose a selection of favorites at an online fabric store. Then we shared our favorite lists and chose from those. Now why hadn’t I thought of that before? These musical fabrics are the ones that I chose for Carla from her list of favorites. Aren’t they fun?
I made this pattern up as I went along, so a bit of ripping and re-sewing was involved until I had the bag just the way I wanted it. On the outside front there are three pockets: the two angled ones and one long one right behind those.
Carla asked for a zipper, so I put in this double-opening receased zipper. I’m not sure yet whether I like the recease or not. It makes it a little harder to access the inside than a zipper just sewn to the top. It does look really nice when it’s all zipped up, though.
Inside, there are two pockets . . .
. . . and a divider.
I also threw in a couple of things just for fun: a key chain that matches the bag, chocolate (Chocolate is a requirement for swap packages, right?) and a copy of my Emmy pattern for Carla to sew for her granddaughter.
Testing . . . 1 . . . 2 . . . testing . . .
The testing for the Inside or Out Pocket Pants is wrapping up. I just have few final touches to make to the pattern. I’m planning to have it ready to release by Monday! I thought I’d show off some of my testers’ pictures. The one above was sewn by Ann, and I love the way her gold topstitching make these look like “real” jeans! Ann also made the cords in the picture below:
Jill made these from her favorite team polyester fleece:
Carissa and Monique did an amazing job of creating a totally feminine look with the pattern:
The Adult/Teen sizes of the Charlie Tee are still in the testing/modifying stage. It will likely be next week before I have it finished up.
Our Visit to the State Fair
Remember our Texas State Fair submissions from a few months ago? You can see them here. We got to spend a great day at the fair last week. Charlie, above, and Jamie, below, had a blast pretending to be farmers for the day.
“I have five peaches, Momma!”
Samantha and Allen enjoyed a few rides.
Then we checked out the Creative Arts Building. Allen was sad that his Lego exhibit didn’t place–there were a lot of entries in that category this year–but he enjoyed helping us find our other submissions anyway.
Samantha was so excited to find her beret and its red SECOND place ribbon! (And, she taught herself to knit, less than six months ago!)
My Texas Applique Charlie Tee received a fourth place honorable mention ribbon in the children’s apparel category, and . . .
. . . my Giddy-Up Jamie Jumper won FIRST place in the infant apparel category! I’m so excited that I get to find a place to display that pretty blue ribbon in my sewing room.
