Holiday Catch-Up + the Giveaway Winner!

Hey y'all! So I guess I took a bit of an inadvertent break there! With Hanukkah, Christmas, and our anniversary (and the fact that I made most of the presents for each and have been applying for jobs), the time just slipped away from me. But I'm back now, woot! I thought today that I would share some of the presents I made for Alex for the holidays.

We'll start off with Hanukkah (since it did come first and all). But what could this be?!

Why, it's a guitar strap, of course! Alex has been playing guitar for a number of years, and I thought it would be pretty fun to see if I could make him a new pretty strap to enjoy. I pulled out a bunch of Denyse Schmidt fabrics from both Hope Valley and Chicopee in colours that I thought he'd like and told then him to pull out any he didn't like particularly.

I used his old guitar strap as a basis for my measurements and pieced the patchwork part together (it's backed in Kona Medium Grey with a heavyweight interfacing in between); both the brass buckle and ring came from an old messenger bag of Alex's that I bought him almost four years ago but that broke about a year ago. I cut the brown leather end bits from an old purse of mine and based them on the ones from his old guitar strap. It works perfectly!

Now onto Christmas - these slippers took me almost four Harry Potter movies to knit and man did the chunky yarn and big needles make my hands hurt!

I used the Non-Felted Slippers pattern which can be found free on Ravelry and only made a couple of changes to make them bigger (the original pattern is about a ladies medium) - my pattern notes can be found on Ravelry here. I really like these slippers because I think they have a more masculine feel than many other slipper patterns I've seen and they are super-chunky and cozy.

I also made him this zipper pouch! The white wood grain fabric is Ikea and the denim-y looking fabric is actually wool suiting in sort of a grey-blue; the deer is an iron-on patch that I bought ages ago with Alex in mind and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally use it!

I'm starting to get the hang of this zipper thing (this was only my third I think), so this time I decided to be a little adventurous and try zipper tabs - seemed to come out alright I think! I also used a metal zipper because I thought it would give the pouch a little more ruggedness.

And these photos (except this one of course) have all been brought to you by this baby - my new DSLR! It was my anniversary gift from Alex and I love it; Alex's anniversary gift is sitting under it not quite done. I'm making Alex his own quilt but couldn't get it all completed prior to our anniversary since he works from home. I just wrapped up the top and gave it to him. I'll show the whole thing when I get it all quilted and bound.

Now I bet you want to know who won my Blogger's Choice bundle from FQS, right?

Congratulations Jenelle! Please get in contact with me via email with your address and Fat Quarter Shop will get your bundle sent out to you!

Phew, alright, I'm done. That was a long post but I'll be back soon with even more holiday gifts and even more crafty happenings around here!

Scrappy Stitched Season's Greetings

So, I have another new fun pattern out! This one can be found in the Holiday 2012 issue of Stitch Craft Create on newsstands now!

Eeek, don't you just love the cover?! The centre embroidered piece there is done by the super-talented Mollie of Wild Olive and the pattern is included in this issue.

My pattern is called Scrappy Stitched Season's Greetings! I've been making stitched cards with fabric scraps for a couple of years now, but these specific cards were not only inspired by the holidays but also by the fact that I know some SCC readers asked for more projects featuring small scraps.

I made four cards which are featured in the magazine - presents, Christmas tree, ornament, and dreidel (y'all know we celebrate Chrismukkah around here, right?) - there are full instructions for the tree card and then notes for creating the other three using the same techniques and added embellishments.

I just love this picture of the cards on the mantle - the styling in SCC is just fabulous! As you can see the cards are all lined with cardstock to cover the backs of the stitching and there are instructions in the pattern for how to achieve that nicely.

The dreidel card also got it's own little special mention at the end of Sara Dahan's Hanukkah Stars & Hexagons bunting pattern.

The cards feature all kinds of scraps from my hoard! Both the tree and ornament cards have lots of scraps from Sheri McCulley's Have a Sherri Berry Holiday collection which came out a few years ago (some of the same fabric was used in both my Countdown-to-Christmas and Winter in the Woods patterns). There's also some Joel Dewberry (I am so going to cry when I run out of the herringbone and wood grain fabrics) and Sandi Henderson, along with some other random bits I had.

Actually, mentioning Countdown-to-Christmas made me think of something - Sheila took a fabulous picture of it at one of the recent TMQG meetings!

In this picture you can see the actual colours in my advent calendar for the Pretty in Patchwork Holidays book. Unfortunately the picture in the book is incredibly washed out and the calendar just doesn't look as cheery as it appears in real life! I'm glad Sheila took this picture because I don't think I took any pictures of it other than one sort of quick shot when it was completed.

Anywho, yes, so this issue of SCC is on magazine stands now and will be available until about midway through December (I believe the next issue comes out sometime around December 13th or so) - some of my favourite parts of this issue include the Alabama Christmas spread, the fun guide on what to put in a crafter's stocking, and Corey's Fresh Forest quilt pattern. Get it while it's hot!!