My holiday traditions exchange is all wrapped up and ready to go.  I’d love to show you what’s in all those packages, but you’ll have to wait until my partner gets it.   Meanwhile you’ll have to look at the fabulous vintage wrapping paper I used.  Isn’t it fabulous?  There are only scraps left, but I cut some of the pictures out and glued them on white cardstock. And there you go: all my christmas cards made.  Now I just have to write them, address them, wrangle my children and take a picture of them, and get them to the post office.  Truth be told, they will probably end up being new years cards, because I’m slowly loosing steam.  Back to the wrapping paper.  I got this roll and two others at St. Vinny’s last year: one is printed with carriages and the other cute angels.  The angels are just a little too cute for me, so I’d thought I’d pass it on.  I don’t know how vintage it is, but the paper is sturdy and new.  If you like it, leave a comment and I’ll send it tomorrow when I go to the post office.

see my flickr site for bigger pics

I am halfway through this handmade holiday thing–making everyone’s gift is a lot of work.  Thankfully I have a fantastic husband who lets me hide in my studio and sew for hours.  I even got myself to the post office Monday morning before it opened (there was already a line!) and a bunch of presents are on their way! The apron above is from Denyse Schmidt’s book and has an oven mitt to match. I made a few of these set for a few sets of people–aprons for the girls and oven mitts for the boys.  I think an oven mitt makes a fine man gift. I only have a few boys on my christmas list, but I have some crafty man gifts up my sleeve, which really I should be making now that I think about it…

These are a couple of placemats I made for one of my sisters (and if my mom can hold off telling everyone she know about this blog–hi mom–she won’t know she’s getting them for christmas).   You would think placemats would be easy, hell even my husband said so, but you really do have to pay attention.  You can’t watch crappy tv while cutting them out with your dull ass rotary cutter on your cutting mat that is way to small, or none will be the same size.  This set is saved by the pretty fabric, but I made another set (for another sister) and everything went wrong: they are too big,  I used plaid fabric so you can see every flub,  I tried to make them pretty with a decorative stitch, but it make them look old fashioned, so I made some matching napkins (I never want to hem anything again) and they look ridiculously small next to the huge placemats, oh and I had to patch some fabric together because I didn’t have enough. There is always at least one project that goes like this, where everything goes wrong no matter what you try. My mom used to call these days “E.I triple T. S.” days: everything I touch turns to shit.  So here’s something nobody can screw up:

pomanders.  I did this with my daughter and her friend last week: just push cloves into oranges or clementines; for small people cut a tiny slit in the orange so the clove goes in more easily. You can tie a pretty ribbon around them and hang them on your tree or in your closet–they smell lovely.  I was going to make letters with the cloves and spell out something festive (noel was the shortest christmas sentiment I could think of) but we started eating the oranges…

Here is something you can do if you want to eat them and another if you don’t have any cloves.

I had a thousand ideas for the holiday ornament swap–most were crap or required way too much work, some were pretty good but I never wrote them down, and the best ones I thought of were things I could of done if I had thought of them sooner. Ultimately, something had to be made and this is what did. Little stuffed christmas birds. They are two pieces sewn together, but the tail is sewn perpendicular to the other seam. Does that make sense? I wanted to make something stuffed, but didn’t want to sew up 10 stuffing holes (that is my least favorite part) so I left the tail open, stuffed the bird, and machine stitched the opening to look like tail feathers. Oh, this is not making sense, but whatever. Some look like christmas seals, some like christmas chickens, but at least one turned out the way I hoped. They just need their hangers (loops, string, you know) and an envelope and they can go in the very large pile that will hopefully get to the post office monday morning. If you are in group 44 (represent!) they will be on your tree soon.

Two christmas presents done. I think I have started everyone’s gift, but finished a sad few. The starting is the exciting part; the hemming and trimming thread and finding a #@*% box to put them in is not. I’m desperately trying to get at least most of the gifts that have to be sent in the mail by friday, but I’m sitting here eating gingerbread cookies (stolen from my daughter’s St. Nick gift–thanks mom!). These two are from Sock and Glove, the japanese craft book (in english) by Miyako Kanamori. I have a few japanese craft books (in japanese) and I can follow all the diagrams, but always feel like I’m missing something. And I am–to fold an opening closed these are the directions given in the book: “Fold the back of the head like a caramel-candy wrapper.” It makes perfect sense, but how bizarre. These were a lot of fun to make. There was quite a bit of hand sewing involved, but they came together pretty quickly. The horse is actually a zebra pattern–same thing, right? That’s what I thought, but I should have made the mane longer to make it a little more horse like (equine, I guess). Oh well, he still cuddly. It’s pretty fantastic that these two came from two pairs of socks. There is a great pattern in the book for a sweater made from a sock as well. If there’s time (ha!) maybe I’ll whip one up for the elephant. I found this soft toy glove book as well with patterns for squirrels and bananas!