Category Archives: Sewing

Hand Made Gifts

Posted on by
4

Here’s my Thread Tales column for the July newsletter for Austin chapter of the American Sewing Guild.

Hand Made Gifts

I make no secret about how much I like – love – fabric.  It’s beautiful in its natural state.  I also love making gifts for my family and friends.  When I give my gifts, the recipients know that someone spent time actually thinking about them.  I like that, too.

I have a long list of items that I can make as gifts.  These items are on the small side, so that I have a chance at actually making them in time for the upcoming occasion.  No heirloom quilts or wedding dresses for my family and friends, at least not from me.

While cleaning off my computer desk top — looking for something else, of course — I found my master gift list.  I counted 37 items on my gifts-to-make list.  I already have all the fabric, patterns, thread and other notions to make any of them at a moment’s notice. I’m just not sure when that “moment’s notice” might be because I have made only eight of these items, and none in recent memory.

Everyone’s birthday is recorded on my smart phone’s calendar.  And I know when Christmas is, of course, but it sneaks up on me each year anyway.  (It’s the end of May as I write this and I’m almost ready for last Christmas.)  Maybe I’m calendar challenged.  But that still leaves me with good intentions and zero results.

I looked at the calendar. My best friend’s birthday is coming up.  I looked at the pattern and fabric I bought for her future gift.  I looked at the calendar again.  Wasn’t going to happen.

A gift bag with fabric and pattern for a quilt

A hand made gift, just waiting to happen

But there it was, fabric and pattern all kitted up.  All it needed was for someone to take the time to turn it into a handmade gift.  But, if not me, then who?  That’s when it hit me!  Judy can turn it into a handmade gift!  All I had to do was put the kit in a gift bag and voilà!  Happy Birthday, Judy!  

 (This is so much faster than actually making a gift.  However, I don’t recommend it for those of you who have promised someone to make an heirloom quilt or wedding dress for them.  Handing over a sports equipment-sized bag of fabric, notions and a pattern instead of the finished product might not go over so well in those situations.  The gift bag I used was store bought, of course, or else I’d be late in giving my almost-handmade gift.  Yes, it is always something.)

Weekly Photo Challenge: Create

Posted on by
Reply

What a coincidence! I finished Session 3 of my Longhorn appliqué wall hanging and WordPress chose “Create” as this week’s photo challenge. And here he is, Dippity-Do after Session 3, where I finished the Longhorn body. I see that I need to tweak one of his back legs, where it looks like a pirate’s peg leg.

The body of an applique, a Texas Longhorn

The headless Longhorn

I still have to arrange the grass, sky and clouds. The pattern is by Susan Cranshaw.

The Longhorn applique, all pieces shown together

Now he has a head and horns!

Weekly Photo Challenge: Create

Shelly’s Fabric Bowl

Posted on by
Reply

This is my gift to Shelly for her birthday: I sewed a fabric bowl in her favorite colors (red, black and white). Once I have a gift ready, I’m in a hurry to give to the recipient, so she got it a couple of weeks early. Shelly and I were Muddy Buddy buddies in 2008 and a few days ago I posted a photo of us after we crossed the finish line/mud pit.

Shelly's birthday present: a fabric bowl in red, white and black fabrics

Shelly’s birthday present

Shelly's fabric bowl with bananas to show size

Yes, we have bananas!

Shelly's fabric bowl wrapped in fabric as a gift

All wrapped up!

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Here are some bananas in the bowl, so you can get a sense of its size.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

I always use fabric as the wrapping for Shelly’s gift and that becomes part of the gift. I put a paper towel roll (not bananas) standing up in the bowl, to disguise the shape until she unwrapped it.

Rope Basket

Posted on by
Reply

Recently I took a class at Sew Much More in north Austin. It was the Rope Basket Class. I’d had the It’s A Wrap book for years (literally), but hadn’t done anything more than read through it several times. I was happy when I saw they were offering a rope basket class.

Fabric bowl and lid

Fabric bowl and lid

So here’s my rope basket and lid from the class. I used a little bit less than a yard of fabric and about 50 feet of cotton clothesline cording. The sewing time in class was just under two hours. Our pre-class homework task was to wrap the cotton cording with the fabric. That took me five hours. I kid you not. Thank goodness baseball season had started so I had something to distract me during the five long hours of fabric wrapping. And the Cubs won, so that was a bonus.

Fabric bowl and lid, to the side

Open for business

.

The next day I had a definite pain in the back of my shoulder. I was sure it came from me holding my left hand and shoulder in pretty much the same position for that five-hour period, holding up the cord while I wrapped it with fabric using my right hand. As I knew where the pain originated, I didn’t overreact and think I was nearing the end of my sewing days so soon.

Bananas in fabric bowl

Yes, we have bananas!

Next, Next Christmas

Posted on by
Reply

I took an appliqué class recently. The morning of the class, I had my sewing machine, class supplies and lunch all loaded up. I looked as if I was going off to camp for a week instead of a one-day class.

I had seen the wall-hanging appliqué quilt at the quilt show and I thought, “That’s really nice. I bet hubby would like that.” I bought the pattern, the fabrics and the thread. I was ready to go to class. When I bought the pattern, my goal was to have it ready for hubby’s birthday, in September. After a few hours in the class, I updated that time frame to Christmas. By the end of the class, I changed it to Christmas 2013.

The pattern I bought, the longhorn, probably wasn’t the best choice for someone who has never done any appliqué. The longhorn head alone has almost 50 pieces. I managed to cut out five pieces in class. Five. Now that I think about it, Christmas 2013 may be just a wee bit optimistic.