Crafts for Christmas Gifts

I told myself last year that I was going to give myself a break from making Christmas gifts in 2014 after the sock avalanche of Christmas 2013. You know what? I lied to myself and I ended up making a lot of last minute gifts. My hands didn't appreciate it, but people liked them!

For a bunch of folks I made some quilted pot holders:





I made 16 total pot holders to give for Christmas. My sewing machine started acting up toward the end, so there was some struggling, but I managed to make things work until I could finish these. Ended up finishing the binding by hand, though, because I'm not good at machine binding yet, and that took ages.



And then as a last minute addition to some things for my brothers, I crocheted these washcloths up:



These two cloths were done using the Seeing Squares Dishcloth pattern.



And these two cloths were done using the Three Color Simple Stitch Dishcloth pattern.

Both were made with Lion Brand Cotton-Ease in Stone and Lime. They were nice, simple crochet patterns that were quick to get through and look nice. I'm glad I managed to fit them into the few days left before Christmas.


It was nice to do some crocheting. I've been a pretty steady knitter for the past couple of years, but my roots are in crocheting. It was very comfortable slipping back into that mode and I think I'm going to look for some crochet projects to add to my queue.


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Mini-Quilts!

Holy butts, guys, I'm so excited to show off these beauties. I'm so very pleased with them.

I've never made a quilt before. My grandma's been an avid quilter all my life and has been one of the primary craft influences in my life. I don't see her that often, but she's always asked about what I'm working on and what things I want to try and always has advice for whatever I'm doing (except spinning... that one stumped her).

I'm tempted to tell you the whole story about why I never tried quilting in middle school or high school and veered off into crocheting instead, but it can be a long story to tell. Namely, after a fire at my grandma's house, hours and hours of washing her bolts of quilt fabric to see what was salvageable, and seeing the investment she put into her new craft room when she had the basement redone after the fire, I found quilting incredibly daunting. Too much time, too much money, and too many small fiddly triangles.

You know me. I tend to throw myself into crafting without necessarily checking to see if where I'm starting is a good place for beginners. Quilting just seemed too deep a pool to jump into.

But you also know that I've been drawn to trying a whole bunch of new craft things since I started earning a paycheck and started having more space at home to work with. So it was time. I was going to make a quilt.


I uhh... made two.






I bought a jellyroll thing from Jo-Ann's that I liked the look of and cut each strip down to 2" squares. I sewed them together so the difference fabrics blocked out diagonally and quilted in diagonal lines across the middle of the squares like "X"s. The texture on this one is really nice and I like this one better than I thought I would. I thought this quilt was going to be the boring one.








I bought a second jellyroll thing for this one in the same fabric options and just sewed the strips together. Why not, right? I only quilted this one in the ditch (or along the seams that were already there). I liked the lines that way. Also, this one was the first one I actually quilted the layers for and I was nervous. I figured the other one was easier to hide mistakes on.


Overall, I'd like to make a bigger quilt or two. Try tying a quilt instead of machine quilting it, maybe. Try some interesting modern quilt things I saw on Craftsy. There were definitely issues with making these, mostly my own impatience, but also machine quilting can be really hard. My sewing machine and I had a fight a couple of times and it was really hard to get to the middle of these things on a regular sewing machine.

But I'm really glad I finished these suckers. I learned a lot.


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