Every year my mom (hi mom) would somehow manage find a bird’s nest to put on our christmas tree. I grew up in Minnesota where there is several feet of snow and it’s ridiculously cold come christmas, so finding a bird’s nest is no small feat in December. So for the holiday traditions exchange one of the things I made was a nest. I was lucky enough to find a real nest (abandoned, of course, it’s cold here!) the very morning I was boxing up my package to send. It puts my little ruffle nest to shame, but I suppose my nest has a modern aesthetic (take that, bird).

The patchwork bit in the middle is a needlebook that I made for storing my partner’s popcorn stringing needles. We would string popcorn and cranberries most christmases, but I don’t think the popcorn string ever got all that long because, well, we would eat all the popcorn. The gingerbread man is a little stuffed ornament (I posted a pattern here and there are more I made here). We would make gingerbread men (and ladies) every year and before they would go in the oven we would give them extra legs, or no legs, two heads, six arms, basically creating an army of mutant gingerbread men that we would then cover in sprinkles and hang on the tree.

Now that I think about it, there was a lot of food on our tree growing up. I’ve always wanted to decorate my tree completely with food, not just popcorn strings and gingerbread, but gumdrop garlands and pretzel angels and marshmallow snowmen. But we have always had dogs, so half the tree would be eaten once we turn our backs. And now that we have two little kids they would pick up where the dogs left off and we’d be left with a bare tree. So maybe someday I’ll have a little tree way up high that I can decorate to my heart’s content.

That’s it. My package is somewhere between here and western australia now. I hope it (and our traditions) will be well received. I’m going to add this post to the sew mama sew Handcrafters’ Holiday meme because I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Only six days until christmas and amazingly there is no furious sewing in this house. Just one more gift to make and then we’re off to Grandma’s house. There are always a couple people I forget and they are always the ones ready with a gift for me. So I thought I’d make a few ornaments to keep in my bag for those awful, awkward moments. I’m sure there are people like that in your life too: the weird cousin, the super smiley coworker. I thought I’d pass on a pattern for a gingerbread man ornament that can be whipped up quickly just in case you forgot someone. Click here to download the gingerbread man pattern and instructions. I included some pictures with the instructions below as well. If you make one let me know!

materials
brown or tan wool felt
a tiny bit of white felt too
some stuffing (polyfil, etc.)
red, white, and black embroidery thread
white mini rickrack
fray check
two red buttons
glue stick

directions

1. cut out template and pin to felt. Cut out one gingerbread man out of felt.

2. for the eyes cut two small circles out of the white felt and attach them to the gingerbread man with one black french knot each. With a backstitch, sew a small circle for the mouth. Sew buttons on with white embroidery thread–to make them look like candies, sew from the button holes to the outside edge of the button. Cut pieces of mini rickrack for trim on two arms and the leg, dab all the ends with fray check, and use the glue stick to tack them down.

3. cut a rectangle as big as your gingerbread man out of felt. Pin your decorated man to this rectangle. Make a loop of rickrack and tuck it in between the layers on your gingerbread man’s head (to hang him from later). Stitch by machine or by hand from A to B (the long way) 1/8inch from the edge. Be sure to catch all the rickrack as you stitch.

4. cut off the extra felt.

5. stuff the little man lightly and sew up the opening.

6. hang him up or give him away!

It’s a cozy cozy christmas.  I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it turns out my christmas gifts have a theme this year. I guess we all have too much stuff, so now we need stuff to put our stuff in.

Crayon cozies:

A knitting needle cozy:

and a tissue cozy  (that is going to my nana who is 104!)

All the patterns were from online tutorials (this christmas season I am thankful for the internet). They can be found here, here, and here respectively.  I can see the end of my christmas list now and I am very excited.  I really didn’t know what I was getting into with the whole handmade pledge thing.  Now that I think about it I haven’t bought anything–except for some thread and notions and a couple “just in case I forgot someone gift.”  But somehow the money still gets spent: pounds and pounds of butter for cookies, wrapping paper, tape, more tape, shipping.  It was a lot of time spent sewing, which I couldn’t have done without a very supportive husband to watch the babies (and vacuum!), but I am pretty satisfied with myself.  Let’s just hope the recipients like them too.

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.