the perfect little gift

Last month I made a cute little Valentine's Day gift for Thing 1's college apartment - a fabric box filled with chocolate candies! I used this well-written tutorial found on the Seaside Stitches blog. You could make one of these quick-sew gifts for almost any occasion.

Per the tutorial, you'll need two coordinating fabric squares and one thin batting square each measuring between 8" and 12". I used 12" squares to make this box and the thinnest cotton batting I had on hand - Quilter's Dream Request in white.  Stitch all three layers right sides together using a 1/4" seam and leave a 4" opening for turning.  After you've clipped the corners and turned it right sides out, topstitch around the outer edges and then quilt as you like.  I segmented this square into triangles by marking the corner to corner diagonal lines, and then stitched a concentric triangle in each segment using the edge of the presser foot as my guide for spacing.

Here's a shot of the completed quilting lines on what will become the box interior.  The edges are a tad wavy from all the quilting lines, but don't worry if yours ends up like this too - it will all turn out just fine in the end :)

Since I started with 12" squares to make a larger box, I marked and sewed 2.5" triangles in each corner rather than the 2" triangles indicated in the tutorial.  This adjustment makes the finished box a little bit taller on the sides.

After sewing the corners and turning the box right side out you'll need to fold and press the outer flaps down on the box exterior.  You may also want to tack the inside corner flaps down with a bit of hand stitching.

Add some cute buttons to the points on the exterior flaps...

And you're done.  Fill it up with chocolate candies and you've got the perfect gift that can be used in so many other ways after the candy is long gone!

I'm going to make another one for my local Crystal Lake Modern Quilt Guild's April door prize filled with Easter grass, chocolates, and some other goodies.  Maybe I'll even engineer a way to add a handle to make it a real Easter basket :)

I think this might be my go-to 2015 hostess gift project.  Do you have other suggestions for quick and useful handmade gifts that you regularly sew?

jumping from here to there

At my February Breakfast Club II class, I asked all the students to count up their UFO (UnFinished Object) projects and bring the oldest of those projects and their total count to our March class. For a project to qualify as a UFO, it has to have been started - meaning some cutting and/or sewing has taken place. It doesn't count if you've just got all the fabric gathered and a pattern selected. That's a future UFO, and a whole different story...

So of course I had to count up all of my own. My total? Twenty-three. I was prepared for a number much higher. And actually, only five of those are actively being worked on right now. So that proves I do have a very little bit of focus, after all ;) And don't panic - I'm not going to show you photos of 23 UFO's - I'm just going to highlight the oldest and newest ones.

Most recently added to the UFO category are these 4 completed blocks from my "Twinkle" quilt project...

You may remember that some time ago a very sweet friend of mine actually cut all the large pieces for this quilt from her stash and gave them to me. Then I hemmed and hawed over which fabrics to use for the star points and center squares. As you can see I finally made those decisions (Art Gallery Oval Elements in Mood Indigo and a Kaffe shot cotton in Apple) and chose this as my traveling project to work on when my SewMod group meets for sew-ins. So forward progress will be slow, but at least it's progress! Four down, thirty-eight to go!

My oldest UFO? It's either this hand-pieced sampler...

Or this "Thru Grandmother's Window" block of the month hand applique (1 of 4 completed, 8 more to go) which are both circa 1997, but I can't recall which class I took first...

I did manage a couple of finishes during my hiatus. Both were Breakfast Club II class projects so there was a deadline - hence the "finished" status! Most recently graduated from "UFO" to "finished" status are some bright batik placemats...

And a table runner using the new Maude Asbury Calypso fabrics...

So how many UFO's have you got? What's the oldest? Do you think you'll ever finish it? Right now I doubt that I'll finish that sampler (it needs to be hand-quilted), but there's a good chance the hand applique will some more progress one day.

Happy Weekend to you all!

gifts in the mail

My one and only hand-made gift this holiday season: placemats for my brother and SIL :)

The super-easy pattern from Elizabeth Hartman of Oh, Fransson! is found here. There are four separate posts with instructions, so make sure you download all if you want to make these yourself! I did not make the matching cloth napkins as indicated in the pattern, so I only needed 1/4 yard each of the four patchwork fabrics, 1/3 yard of the neutral solid, 1 yard for backing, and 5/8 yard for binding. You can see many more variations of these fun placemats in the flickr group here.

The same five fabrics are used on the front of each placemat, but the placement of each changes slightly according to the pattern directions.  Elizabeth Hartman calls for a solid backing to match the binding, but I used the dishes print you can see here in this next photo, because I had plenty of it, and it's just more fun that way :)

The bindings are entirely machine sewn for durability, and the quilting is simple, straight lines in a random pattern.

I spied these fabrics locally early in the year and considered them for my own kitchen, but since I already had so many projects in the queue, I passed on buying them. After my brother and family visited for Christmas, and I learned their new kitchen color was warm peach with burgundy accents, I immediately thought of these fabrics again!  They are called "Lizzy Dish" by Lizzy House for Andover Fabrics. Not sure when they were released, but lucky me, they were in the sale area at an LQS in late November. 

I had such high hopes for giving lots of hand-made gifts this year, but it just didn't work out that way. Next year I'll have to start earlier... much earlier.

Which brings up a related topic: my project goals list for 2011. I stuck to it much more than I thought was possible for me, and I've already got another on paper for 2012 :)

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all!

make his manly

My wonderful husband had a birthday this past weekend. I'll not gush on (again) here about how great he is, but take it from me, he is. He likes to cook on weekends, sometimes experimenting with new recipes, and sometimes making old favorites. Oh, and he loves wine. Drinking it, reading about it, shopping for it...

So a couple of months ago he asked our youngest daughter to make him a "manly" oven mitt for his birthday. Apparently the oven mitts in residence here have scalloped or ruffled edges and flowers. Hardly fitting for the man of the house.

But wine fabrics - now that fits my husband! We found some fun wine and cork prints at Quilt in Joy, paired them with textured solids from Moda and Michael Miller, and then she whipped up this manly oven gear set as a birthday gift.

The quote on the mitt, "A Votre Sante" means "to your health" in French. Fitting again, huh?

Even though he only asked for a mitt, she decided to make him a large potholder too. She attached the binding completely by machine to make it more durable in the wash. Here's a photo of her first attempt at blanket-stitching. Great job!

The back of both the mitt and the potholder feature the corks fabric, so they are completely reversible.

Each one is lined with one layer of cotton batting and one layer of Insul-Brite insulated batting. The pattern she used can be found in The New Handmade: Simple Sewing for Contemporary Style from That Patchwork Place.

Her dad was very happy with his new cooking gear. Lucky for all of us, that means he'll be able to keep cooking amazing meals for us on the weekends. But I warned my daughter - once all her uncles and guy cousins get a look at these, they're all going to want a set for Christmas. Especially Uncle Peter...