Santa Quilt

Around the time I first started making quilts, I shopped at a holiday craft fair held at the school where I taught. I bought there a very large and loosely constructed quilted Santa wall hanging. For several years afterwards, when I saw a Santa wall hanging pattern for sale, I would buy it. Now I have several quilted Santas. This one is small and simple. Santa doesn't even have a face; I like the way the plaid on the boot fabric conspired to make them seem more real.

Holiday Workshop

It's festive and congested in my sewing room. I'm busy working on pouches for the upcoming Lincoln Square Holiday Market as well as little presents for R, N and K. Maybe this is what Santa's place looks like as December gathers steam. Bits and pieces are all around in various states of completion. There's still plenty of possibility in the raw materials, yet you can see where the project is headed.

Felt Santa

Many of my Christmas decorations are copies of decorations my mother made and I remember from childhood. This felt Santa is one. I simply traced the original Santa’s silhouette on paper for a pattern and then cut out bits of red and white felt. To my eyes this Santa is clearly a copy. It reminds me of the original, but it isn’t a full replacement. My own kids don’t see him that way, though.

Plates

Christmas brings out the craft side of everyone, and it makes me want to try new project media. I can’t draw or paint, so I imitate instead. This painted tree plate is my version of a Spode design. It’s not nearly as cute at the one my husband made on the same day, but when we cover them with gingerbread cookies no one can tell.

Amaryllis

This two foot by 3 foot amaryllis wall hanging is based on a picture I saw in a catalog. I tried to quilt Christmas motifs on the plant pots, then filled in the rest with stars. Paper piecing kept the project accurate, but I could still add long skinny triangles with impunity.

Advent Crafts

It’s December 1st and the Advent calendars are up. The Christmas season is so full of crafting possibilities, it seems quite doable to generate a holiday craft project blog to count down the days until Christmas.
Here’s the first entry in my handmade holiday advent catalog. It’s a folk art cross-stitch Santa bound with a tea towel border. It hangs at the base of the stairs, ready to be advanced each morning of December when my husband comes down to make the morning coffee. There was a time I worked on many cross-stitch projects, even adding beads to cross-stitched Christmas trees to serve as my Christmas cards one year.

Fiddling Around

At the Lincoln Square Holiday Market two weeks ago several shoppers commented that the zippered pouch I made to hold pencils or markers would serve nicely for knitting needles if it were longer. I now have a pro-type design for such a pouch. The outside is a cotton canvas, and its extra thickness and weight should hold a pouch shape well, especially stabilized for even more rigidity. I don't knit myself, so a casual survey of those who do knit suggested a common length for knitting needles--14 inches. This pouch will hold 14 inch knitting needles, a small pair of scissors, stitch counters and likely a pencil to mark your place in a cute sweater pattern.

Dressing the Turkey

Since I don't cook with much confidence, dressing the turkey refers to a simple dress I made for K. She is the perfect age for fun prints; this one is flowers in fall colors on a soft corduroy. K is also the perfect age for striking a bargain. In this case, she would let me take her picture if she could act silly in it. What a turkey!

To Market Again

I'm booked for this Saturday's Lincoln Square Holiday Market. Bags and pouches are finished and arranged. Since this summer and the last market I attended I've:

-changed the clutch purse closure from a loop and button to a magnetic snap

-added zippered pouches with silk-screened words on them ("mad money", "gadgets", "misc.")

-devised a zippered pencil pouch

Otherwise, it's more of the same. I know my smaller pouches fit gift cards for holiday gift giving. I know, having been a teacher myself, that fabric pouches would make a welcome teacher gift. I've been to the Holiday Market to double-check that no one else is making small fabric items. I'm set. Maybe I'll see you there.

Bag for G

My friend G requested a messenger bag in black canvas with a Japanese floral lid. It was a good exercise on two fronts. I have now scoped out the best in-town source for colored canvas fabric, and new supply sources are always interesting. I also devised a new method for neatly attaching binding. A little strip of steam-a-seam tape along the back side of the binding tacks the piece in place, so even when I sew it from the front side of the purse lid, I don't miss catching any binding. Try it!

I Love Scooter Fabric

I broke down and bought the only color combination I was missing in my stash of Japanese linen scooter fabric. Technically, it's not the most expensive fabric I own, but it's close. I have no particular plan for the fabric, but something will present itself. Until then, I'm enjoying it as quirky possibility. Whoever designed this fabric has my number; they could only better their design success by printing the fabric in more color combinations.

Smaller Messenger

I find I enjoy making the same thing over and over. Sometimes I like the soothing, repetitive assembly-line nature of working through many of the same item. Other times I get a kick out of considering how to improve the efficiency of the steps to make something. I made another messenger bag, but this time it is smaller. The 12 by 12 1/2 inch bag still has a magnetic snap closure and an interior zippered pocket. I pieced a 2 inch-wide strip of fabric into the back panel so there's something to see "on the wrong side". There's still plenty of room to showcase a pretty piece of fabric on the lid. Maybe next time I'll use strips of fabric on the purse lid.