Early Christmas

We had early Christmas with the Caterino/Cook/Berman families last night as I had to leave this morning for Iowa. Megan and Anne loved their bags and are going to be extraordinary beetle collectors with their satchels and pooters. Although, Anne might skip the bug stuff and make a career out of modeling...

Sewing Machine Cover

Every time I go back to sew, I notice how dusty my machine is and think I should do something about that. Well, today I did. I made a cover for it in no time. Basically took two 13 x 20 pieces of fabric, sewed them together on all sides except one of the long sides, squared the corners and hemmed the bottom. Piece of cake. Then, for fun and decoration, I decided to embroider a beetle on it :) When I have more time I'm planning on going over it a few more times to make it thicker. It could use a good ironing, but this is the first thing I've made for myself and I like it!

Grab Bag

I like making bags! I found another neat pattern for a grab bag. One handle is shorter than the other, so to carry it, you put the long handle through the short one and hang it around your wrist or just grab it. The first photo in line is the outside of the bag. The second one is the inside and I drew in some lines so you can see that there are three little pockets along each side of the bag. Then the third picture is what the bag looks like when you carry it. It is a quilted bag so it has some batting between the layers, which makes it pretty cushiony! It's another one of those gifts I made and I want to keep for myself, but I made this for Heather (HEP). I am going to see her in a few weeks while I'm at the ESA meeting in Indianapolis. I'm excited to see her and thought this would make a neat Christmas present. I'll have to find a little something to put in it because her birthday is just a few days after Christmas.

Pouches for Megan and Anne's Bags

I had a bunch of material left over from Megan and Anne's bags, so I decided to make a little zippered pouch for each of them. This was my first attempt sewing a zipper and it turned out to be really easy. Good to know for future use. Here is a photo of the bags and pouches together -- makes a cute set.

More Napkins

This is a set of napkins I made this weekend as a Christmas gift for Mike's sister Tina and her husband Myles. They are in the process of remodeling their kitchen so they probably won't match whatever color scheme they decide on, but I am really proud of these napkins. I think they turned out incredibly nice. They might even be sellable quality. Anyway, instead of hemming them like I did with the cow napkins, I made my own bias tape and sewed it around the edges. I think they turned out more square doing it this way and they also look a little more refined. This is my best work so far.

UPDATE 12/23: We ended up not giving these to Tina and Myles because they have red and white plates...these definitely don't match! We'll find someone else to give them to or use them ourselves.

Cow Print Napkins

Yet another Christmas gift! Mike and I are going to make some persimmon jam this weekend and I was tryng to think of something to go with it as a gift for my godparents (Aunt Cindy and Uncle Yog). I found this napkin idea on this really cool website: http://modernquiltlove.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/easy-cloth-napkin-tutorial/. Since my Aunt Cindy LOVES cows, I thought black and spotted cow fabric would be the perfect contrasting fabrics for these napkins. I definitely need more practice at making perfect squares, but overall they turned out pretty well.

Shoulder Bags

I found a really cute messenger bag pattern on http://mmmcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/06/basic-messenger-bag.html and thought it would be neat to make these for Mike's nieces as a Christmas gift. It took us some time to find fabrics that we liked and that matched Megan and Anne's favorite colors. But we eventually found some nice duck cloth, which was stiff enough to make a bag out of, and some really festive cotton batik to match. I appliqued a little animal on each bag, which was by far the most difficult part of the whole bag. The lizard was especially hard since it had so many curves and small toes!! It was a good learning experience and as long as I don't look at the sewing too closely, I am happy with them.

We ended up getting a turquoise color for Megan

and green for Anne. Mike came up with the clever theme of water and land. So Megan got a sea turtle on her bag and Anne got a lizard. I hope they like them!!

Here is Megan's bag:

And Anne's bag:

First Kreation

Mom and Dad got me a sewing machine for my birthday back in September. I've really been enjoying it and making some cute things with it. My first lesson in quilting was when Mom and Dad were here visiting back in September. Mom helped me make a couple of place mats. It was fun learning from her (Mike enjoyed hearing our giggles) and I think they turned out nice. Mike and I have enjoyed eating off them since.