What I Made for Christmas Gifts

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 Ho ho ho! I wanted to share some of the fun handmade gifts from this Christmas, now that all the recipients have them. There were supposed to be several more, but our basement remodel locked me out of my sewing room for two weeks unexpectedly, then we all passed around the stomach flu, and then during my last minute weekend dash… my sewing machine broke down. I gave up! I ordered off Etsy and Amazon and called it good.

In no particular order, some of my handmades from this Christmas:

For my 9 year old twin nieces:

For my pre-tween nieces, I already showed you the Sewing School mouse pincushion I made them (and book review)!

I also made two ‘tween sized’ snuggies, although they fit me just fine except for the sleeve length. My wonderful Mom was kind enough to model for a picture; using a little under 2.5 yards of fleece made these inexpensive gifts. I followed this tutorial from This Mama Makes Stuff for a rough guide. See the first one here, on me.

Upcycled wool! Regular readers know that I love upcycling more than anything. One of my friends loves wool more than anything, so it’s a great fit. On the left are appliqued wool soakers, which are used over cloth diapers (using this free Katrina soaker pattern).

At the top is a wool balaclava lined with knit, made with the same pattern I used for my son’s ewok hood and astronaut helmet. Then below it are some heart-shaped hand warmers (with envelope backs for washing sans rice packets).

At the bottom right, sweater socks! I used this free pattern Google dug up, added 1/4″ seam allowance so I could serge instead of sew, and made two sock bodies, turning one inside out and nesting it in with the sock binding flipped down so there are zero exposed seams. Not very attractive, but super cozy with cashmere on the inside and wool on the outside.

This isn’t entirely handmade, but I bundled together an adorable Fiesta Cat embroidery kit (made by Kiriki Press, purchased at Domestica in Des Moines) with a little needle-book, hoop, and an ‘art pouch’.

I was pretty excited to use my snarky labels, pictured above in the pouch’s interior.

Last set! I live in stretchy headbands but embarrassingly, have never sewn any even though they’re very simple. I tried three different styles, altering the lengths a bit so they could be wore as a turban or a headband.  If you’re sewing some yourself, please don’t forget the importance of stretch direction (make sure the greatest stretch is going length-wise, around your head) and that you need to use ballpoint needles and stretch stitches if you want them to last.

Top two are based off of Twisted Headband – Do It Yourself Divas (I added a band to cover the seam), middle two are from the Gathered Head Wrap Tutorial – Mind Body & Sew (who has since gone offline; I asked permission to upload the PDF since it was free but haven’t heard back. Here is a similar tutorial), bottom two are modified narrow versions of the Ruched Head Wrap – Delia Creates.

Middle picture is a toddler ring-sling for holding dolls! I used a tutorial from Jan of Sleeping Baby Productions which was simple, but it took me a few seam rips to get the shoulder pleating looking decent. Fabrics used are Birch Organics.

Lastly, a few funsies from my own free patterns. A toy cape and two Christmas trees!

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What did you make this year? Are you pledging to start working on gifts in January for 2015, like me?

 

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