Finally! Some finished projects!

Can you believe that I actually finished some projects this week?! I can hardly believe it myself! Here's to [hopefully] many more finishes in the coming weeks.

An old friend asked if I'd make some stockings for her family for Christmas this year. Her decorations are lime, turquoise, pink, and purple. Since she needed one more color so there'd be enough stockings for each member of her family, we chose gray to go with the rest of the colors. I raided my stash and pulled together several prints for my friend to choose from and this is what she picked.



I used the same pattern here as I did with my own Christmas stockings last year, which you can find on Fabricworm's blog here.



For the hanging loops, I pulled out some grosgrain ribbon that I had on hand. I also used Kona white for the lining and the cuffs.

My friend was in town for Thanksgiving so I was able to give these to her last week. I'm excited for her to share pictures of the stockings hanging up with the rest of her decorations.

The second project I managed to finish this week is a quilt for the Festival of Trees, the proceeds from which benefit a local children's hospital here in Utah. Primary Children's has played an important role in my life as my son's club foot was treated there as well as his recent surgery. My sweet nephew, who passed away several years ago, was also treated there for his medulloblastoma. The festival is a really great cause and I was happy to help in some way.

The fabric for this queen-size quilt was donated. Since there wasn't much variety, I opted to enlarge the Surfside pattern from Thimble Blossoms, which I think works well with only two fabrics. I used a dark brown king flat sheet for the backing. This quilt was a beast to quilt on my domestic machine, so I was really glad when I finally finished it on Saturday.

While I was happy to finish these two projects this week, I still have more to finish before Christmas, including five quilts (why do I do this to myself?). I have a few other things I'd like to make for my kids for Christmas, like these cloth doll diapers, fabric crowns, and monster rice bags, so I hope I can be as productive as possible.

Linking up to:

Christmas Sewing 2012 Part 1: The Bags, The Pouches, and The Randoms

Every year for Christmas, I try to tackle a few handmade gifts. Not all my recipients are lovers of handmade goods, and I know that realistically, I couldn't make handmade gifts for everyone even if I wanted to. Here are the non-quilt things I managed to eek out before Christmas.

I made this Jane Market Bag for one of my nieces. She loves pink, blue, purple, and yellow so I combined some fabrics from my stash, and was actually kind of shocked to have enough yardage in the pinks and purples to put this bag together for her.

The fabrics are from Anna Maria Horner, Sarah Jane, and Aneela Hoey. I can't remember the designer of the inside fabric, but I think it's called Trellis in Purple or something like that.

I also made the same niece this simple pillowcase using a Joel Dewberry print and the same Anna Marie Horner print, but in a different colorway. It came together nicely, but I really think having a trim would have added that much more to the pillow. Tutorial here.

My mom's friend spends Christmas with us every year. She likes to shop so I made her a Jane Market Bag too. This one in a Robert Kaufman (?) blender fabric with Aneela Hoey, and a Riley Blake print on the inside.

Pattern available here.

For my coworkers, I had grand plans to make zipper pouches and fill them with useful items (hand sanitizer, band-aids, etc.), but then I realized I had zero time before Christmas and ended up scrapping the plan after making these two pouches.

One did go to a coworker and fellow quilty friend...

...and the other was sent to a far-off friend as a New Year's gift.

I used Anna's open wide zipper pouch tutorial for the zig zag pouch. I love her tip for the beginning of the zipper, and have started incorporating that technique into the pouches I've made since.

I made a few more various-sized pouches. This first one is for holding some of my son's cars. It doesn't have an interfacing of any kind, which makes this more of a bag and can mold around his cars easier.

For my mother-in-law, we gave her a gift card to West Elm. I made a small pouch to hold the gift card and it can double as a coin purse.

The last pouch I made was to house this set of felt mustaches for my nephew. I thought that mustached kite was pretty cute too.

Oh, and I made stockings for my family this year. I used leftover pieces of fabric that I'll (eventually) be making my Christmas quilt out of, Figgy Pudding by Basic Gray. I used the stocking tutorial from Fabric Worm - it has the best shaped foot to it. Then my sister embroidered the names on the cuffs with her embroidery machine for me. I didn't have enough fabric to make each of them out of a single print, which I like the best out of the five I made. I wish I would have pieced the last two with strips running in a different direction. Maybe I'll remake those two. Or maybe not.

That wraps up part 1 of my Christmas sewing. Up next, the quilts.