Baby Quilting

My husband's brother and sister-in-law are pregnant, so you know what that means: I get to craft them something! Their nursery is going to have a birdie theme, so at first I was considering this mobile, but it needs to be ship-able, so I decided to make a quilt. The quilt is going to have 12 birds, in red, yellow, and green prints, with a blue print for the sashing to match their nursery.

I hope they like it; you always take a chance when you give a handcrafted gift, because some recipients don't value such things, but I always try and hope for the best. I like to give handcrafted gifts because those are the kind that mean the most to me.

What kinds of gifts have you handcrafted recently, and any suggestions for cute handmake-able baby items?

Fini!

I decided to add some flowers to the ends of the green tendrils, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Overall, a very enjoyable first crewel experience; I was anxious to do more.

So I did. Just a little sweet bud on some fingerless gloves destined to be a Christmas present.


Now, I must make other things worthy of embellishment.

Dusty Vintage

This could refer to my house at the moment, but instead it's the name I chose for the latest handbag. My SIL's birthday is coming up and I wanted to craft her something special. Since I'm trying to use mostly materials that I have in my stash, I came up with this repurposed felted purse. My first knitted sweater ever, when I was about 14, was a really pretty teal blue/green color; the color was great, the design and my execution were not. So I felted the sweater, made up a pattern, and cut my pieces out of the thick resulting wool.



The embellishments are made from bits of scrap yarn and buttons, and I just happened to have a leather purse handle and magnetic closure left over from another project. The only new material I used was the fabric lining. I hope she likes it!

On another handcrafted gifting kind of note, I found this interesting website, Buynothingchristmas, put together by Canadian Mennonites to refocus the meaning of Christmas. Kind of interesting, and it has lots of good ideas on saving money with handcrafted gifts.

I was spoiled...

These are the beautiful gifts I received from The Great Knitted Purse Swap, my first swap, on Ravelry. Look at the gorgeous color and design of this purse knit by carolannb! And she so sweetly packaged everything and filled my bag with all kinds of goodies, including something for January Baby. You spoiled me, carolannb!

Christmas Progress

Saturday I finished these, the last three of my four remaining Christmas present projects. They are leather bound picture albums, with decorative paper accenting the covers and endpapers.

Every year we go back and forth on how to handle Christmas presents in the family: there are no grandchildren yet (the first, ours, is due in January), so we haven't been able to use the no presents for adults rule yet. For ourselves, we are trying to keep gifts to a miminum and be very intentional and thoughtful about what we give. This year, I'm hand-making all the gifts except one, and to me, that makes a gift very special. I hope our family recipients agree!

How do you handle gifts between the adults in your family?

Don't forget to sign up for my giveaway a couple posts below!

Crafting Fool

Last week, I had two major projects due for my Masters program, so of course, all I wanted to do was craft. But, I restrained myself, and waited until the weekend when I was surprisingly productive. First, I made the Sketchbook Wraps for the shop shown in the last post.

Then, I tackled my first project for Baby; a Five-Hour Baby Sweater.



I think it turned out really cute, perhaps a bit too large for a newborn though. Now I just need to hunt down some sweet vintage buttons. Since we're going to be surprised and wait to find out whether it's a girl or boy, I'm going to bring a pink and blue sweater to the hospital.

And lastly, I made the pile of cloth napkins above as a wedding present for a friend of mine. She registered for red, yellow, green, and blue Fiesta Ware for her everyday china, and I though some re-usable napkins in complementary colors would be nice. They're really bright and cheery, I hope she likes them!
All in all, I'm pretty proud of my productivity (how's that for alliteration!)!

I love these flowers

I've been working on a little gift for a friend recently: a felted rose. It's large enough to make into a pin for a jacket, or to sew onto a bag. The designer of this pattern, Nora Bellows, has a line of felted bag and flower patterns (Noni Bags) which are GORGEOUS! I made a beautiful spring baguette style bag with two of these felted roses in light pink and hot pink. Her new line for spring is awesome, with felted tulips and hydrangea flowers

I'm going to package the rose in a clear cello sleeve with two colors of green felt cut with pinking shears for a background. So cute!