Handmade Christmas

I want to sew most of my Christmas gifts this year. That's my plan. We'll see how far I get. I'm going to start with a few smaller items and work my way up to the more involved projects. First up are some hanging towels made using this tutorial. My goal this year is to create nice, useful, thoughtful gifts using fabrics from my burgeoning stash. These towels were store bought but the hanging tops will use some fat quarters that I already own (the wine themed towels are for my kitchen). I will also use buttons that I have in my collection.

Towel patterns and directions.

I'm not sure how well the prints will show up with the towels folded like that. We shall see. Next on my list, this adorable stuffed cat for a little girl in my life. Ever since I stumbled across that web site I've been wanting to sew one of these joyous felines. I thought I had some pink fleece in my stash but it turned out to be this odd knit fabric. I think it may be a type of double knit fleece? It has very little stretch to it. I think it will be perfect for this toy and should wear better than the polar fleece does.

The front side is fluffy and the back is a knit. Here are the pattern and instructions all ready to go.

I had a devil of a time getting the pattern to print. I ended up having to open each pattern piece in a separate window and print them that way. My last little gift idea for today is this coin purse.I can use up small pieces of cute fabrics and also use some of my sewing machines' fancy design cams. Win-win! I found the metal purse frames at JoAnn Fabrics.

While at JoAnn's I also picked up some more of that fusible fleece (for bags) and some rip-stop nylon for rub out mats. I'll post the finished items as I get them done. Stay tuned!