Holiday Gift Guide For Grinches

Grinch Gifts: These are gifts that are clearly in the "Oh, you shouldn't have!" or Please Don't category.

For example, Scott Walker's suggestion that instead of giving gifts to your children for the Holidays, you donate to his campaign instead.  Unless children have changed considerably in the last few years, I'd be willing to bet that not very many children would like getting tax deductible receipts instead of an actual gift in their stockings. Imagine their sad little faces! I know I never liked getting an envelope that instead of cash, was filled with a note saying that they had donated to fill in the blank charity in my name. If you like throwing money around, just give the young person the cash and let them decide if they want to donate it. Or Grinchily donate to a cause that they hate and tell them about it. Mission Accomplished!

How about these Santa Stones?

I cannot improve on this description:
Lead-free pewter pocket stone hand-stamped with "Santa was here" is the perfect addition to your cookie plate on Christmas morning! 
Drop this in a stocking, place it on the tree skirt...sneak it next to the fireplace or front door.
This makes a great keepsake to pass on and adds to the children's excitement!
The stone is Santa's little signature ...a special treat for even adults..lol
Your stone will come in a red draw string organza bag nestled in shredded ivory paper with a chocolate treat.
Hand crafted here is Washington state! :) 

I was unaware that Santa dropping signed stones about the land was an actual thing.  If true, this shows that Santa is kind of a jerk, yes?

Also in the Grinch Gift Category:
Improvement Gifts. I had a boss who would give self-help books as gifts. I'd open the lovely package and be faced with The Race to Excellence, or the 37 Habits of Outstanding Managers, or Change Your Work To WIN, You Cannot Love Your Work Too Much!  (an early version of Lean In, perhaps?) Worst of all, he would inscribe them. Don't be that person (unless you are a Grinch, in that case, carry on!)
My mother in law gave Mr Hunting Creek a Calligraphy Set, because he is a lefty, and on the actual card wrote that he could use it to "improve his handwriting". He did not appreciate this.
People generally don't appreciate gifts that make them feel imperfect. Best to refrain from the gym membership, Jenny Craig Gift card or or other passive aggressive gestures unless your intent is to spread ill will, as Grinches do.
I'm sure you can think of many Grinch appropriate Gift Opportunities if you put your mind to it. How about a box of chocolates for a diabetic person , or a Don't Blame ME, I voted for Romney T shirt  for a Ron Paul supporter?  

Or, if all else fails, steal all of their gifts, including the roast beast. 

Gearing up Mrs. Santa's Workshop

Every year Mrs. Hunting Creek magically transforms her workshop into Mrs. Santa's Workshop. What? You thought Santa made everything? Ha. We all know Mrs. Santa does all the real work, there with her clipboard and MBA organizational skills. Santa just drives his red Ferrari sleigh, while he scarfs down Christmas cookies. Typical. If most men were in charge of gift giving, we'd all get beer and chili for the Super Bowl. No birthday gifts, no baby showers...just football related gifts...but I digress. We are thinking about the winter Holidays. In the Northern European culture that I sprang from, holidays are mainly the responsibility of women. We bake the cookies, make the gift lists, wrap the presents, plan the parties. Whew! I'm tired already.
But these fun activities make the holidays memorable, and build happy memories. The trick to avoiding a Holiday-induced nervous breakdown is to pick what activities are important to you, and delegate the rest. Every year I make little gifts for my family and coworkers. During the year I test out little projects to find something fun I'd like to make.

These little birdies are from Spoolsewing.com
My sister sent me the link because she liked the birdies, so I made a couple for her. They only took a few minutes to make, and will be cute decorations for her tree.
They also offer free patterns for a grocery tote, and a chef's apron.
Grocery totes and chef's aprons make nice personalized gifts, and they are fun to make assembly line style. Just decree that everyone gets an apron!
I made my whole office custom totes last year (I filled them with homemade treats) so I have been thinking...what about insulated totes and casserole cozies? This is potluck season, so they would come in handy.
To try out my new Insul-fleece, I designed an oven mitt. You don't need a pattern to make one; I traced around my hand. I cut four sets - two for the outside, and two for the lining. You can use matching or contrasting fabric - you are the designer. I used a cute 60's Volkswagen van print. I used 100 percent cotton fabric. Canvas or denim would also work. No synthetics, please. I then cut out a layer of Insul-fleece and a layer of thin cotton batting. Just for fun, I quilted the layers with my Pfaff's decorative stitches. (No quilting is actually required. I was just goofing around.)

Then I trimmed the seams, added a hanging loop and inserted the lining, remembering to leave an unsewn portion at the side so I could turn the whole thing right side out. (Yes, I really forgot to do this and then had go go back and use my seam ripper.) Then I turned it right side out and VOILA! Custom made oven mitt, with heat resistant batting.

If I were to make a bunch of these for gifts, I would not do the fancy quilting, because it takes too long. But I'm working on an insulated tote for my next project.
Here's a free pattern for a casserole cozy that I might try as well.
What kind of fun gifts are you making in your holiday workshop?
All good ideas will be warmly welcomed.

Holiday Gifts: Luxury Pillowcases

The nice thing about making gifts yourself is that you can take something practical, like a pillowcase, and turn it into something luxurious, or personalized or even a work of art. It doesn't take much money, and only just a little time.
Pillowcases can be made out of cute themed quilting cottons, like these that I made for my nephew:
Or they can be made of of soft cuddly flannel:



or you can make them out of silk, like the ones I am working on now. Silk is not much more expensive than good flannel or high quality quilting cottons. I ordered mine from Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics (not affiliated, just a happy customer)
I think Habotai or Charmeuse makes nice pillowcases. You don't need much and it makes a fabulous impression. If you looked at the prices of nice silk pillowcases in stores you would faint dead away. I read somewhere that silk pillowcases are supposed to prevent wrinkles. I don't know if that's true, but it can't hurt!

Imagine all the possibilities here. You can make custom designed pillowcases for kids that they will like so much they won't sleep with anything else. With printable fabric or transfers thrown into the mix, you could even put family pictures, pets or kids drawings on them.
Here is a brief description with dimensions for your convenience:

Standard pillow measurements:
Regular 20"x26"
Queen 20"x30"
King 20" x 36:

Fabric requirements for ONE pillow: (based on 42" wide fabric)
Main pillow std/queen 3/4 yard king 1 yard
cuff 3/8 yard
contrasting trim 1/8 yard

Supplies besides fabric:
scissors
thread
rotary cutter and mat
ruler
sewing machine of course

Cutting:

Std queen king
Body cut one piece 22" x42" 26"x42" 32"x 42"
Cuff 10" x42" 10"x42" 10"x42"
contrast trim 1 1/2" x42 1 1/2"x42" 1 1/2"x42"

I do everything flat first - sew your contrast trim piece to the pillow body. You can sew it as a contrast band like my flannel cases above, or you can do my flange variation, where I folded the contrast piece in half wrong sides together and then sewed to the pillow body, like flat piping. This looks very nice. You can also do eyelet here, or lace, or other trim. Then sew on the cuff piece to the contrast piece. Right sides together. Now you fold the whole thing in half right sides together. You'll have a 21" x 22" rectangle if it's a standard case. There is a long fold on one side and a seam at the bottom and one side. Match your contrast and cuff seams at the sides. Sew the sides. For silk pillows it's nice to do French seams. I trim and zig zag, but you can also use your serger. Press. Fold the cuff edge down half an inch and press then fold in half so it covers the raw edges inside - wrong sides together. Sew down, covering all raw edges. You can use a contrast color thread, or matching. A decorative stitch looks nice too. Press case and you're done! It's also nice to package this gift with lavender sachet if you are giving to grownups, or fun pajamas for either kids or grown ups. Everyone in our family enjoys home made gifts, so it's fun to make unusual things for them every year.
Happy Sewing!

The Perfect Gift

I don't know when it started or who started it, but ever since I can remember, our whole family has always conspired together to get "the perfect gift" for each other. The perfect gift is that ineffable "something" that the recipient may not even know that they wanted, but when they get it, it's like love at first sight. You know when you give one and you definitely know when you get one. We think about this all year and conspire in small groups, discussing options.
The perfect gift is not necessarily expensive, even though jewelry stores would like men to think so. It can be that Italian cashmere scarf that you have always wanted, or it could be an old picture of your mother all dressed up in a formal gown from before you were born. Whatever it is, it's something that just feels right.
All year we collect information, somewhat like the NSA only more benign, observing preferences. Does someone want to go to Italy? Love chocolate, lime bars, snickerdoodles? Hawaiian shirts, cheesy horror movies, long historical novels, football? All of these things and more are noted, filed and discussed.
You won't always find one every year. Like the a night blooming cereus, it is rare and special.
This year, so far, I've made a few gifts already. I've made some cute themed pillowcases, baggage tags and I'm working on some specially designed table runners. None of these might be "perfect", but I think they are pretty nice.
These Pinup girl pillow cases are for my nephew who is in college.
Click on the pictures for a close up. With these and some snickerdoodles, a few gift cards for food and a book or two and he's a happy man.
Here's a baseball themed one for someone:

I may give this with a couple tickets to a game, a bag of peanuts and a baseball cap. You just have to use your imagination!
I'm still conferring with my co-conspirators about what else we will get that will be the perfect gifts, but in the meantime we've got pajamas, cookies, baggage tags and pillowcases. I hope you have lots of good ideas for perfect gifts too, and that someone is thinking about one for you.
Happy Sewing!

Holiday Gifts:Fabric Gift Bags

Quilting Arts Magazine Gifts featured fabric gift bags as one of the projects, and gave a recipe for making them. They looked so easy and cute, in my hubris I jumped right in and immediately made one incorrectly. As Mr. Hunting Creek says, when all else fails, read the directions.




Basically these are really lined pillowcases with boxed corners masquerading as gift bags, if that makes any sense. You can make them any size, out of any themed fabric and embellish accordingly. My wine bottle bag is made with 2 contrasting pieces of fabric 11"x14", sew each one in a tube with the top left open, and on one, leave a 4" area open for turning. Box the bottom corners by matching the seam to the bottom center and sew a triangle about one inch in. (Like you'd do with a pillow or purse bottom.) Sew the two tubes together at the top, right sides together. This was a tight fit on my machine, even with the free arm. Then turn right right out and sew up the hole. Make a cuff at the top and fill up with gifties. The wine bottle size could also hold maple syrup, liqueur, or any other long skinny things like biscotti wrapped in plastic
My little fat leprechaun bag was made because at first I did not follow the directions(because I didn't READ them. I assumed that I would just know how to make them.) and sewed two 11"x14" bags together first, so instead of a tall skinny bag I have a fat one. But that's ok. It will hold a pound of great coffee, fancy cocoa or candies. Plus it looks cute.
The nice thing about fabric gift bags is that they are reusable, you can use any fabric, not just Christmas fabric, and since we can make rectangles any size, they could hold any size gift. Perfect for lumpy or odd shaped gifts. You can tell the recipient to please feel free to reuse, regift and pass it on. It's not easy being green, but the more we try, the easier it will be.
Happy Sewing!

Holiday Gifts: Baggage Tags Part Two

I have had so much fun making baggage tags that I think I have enough for everyone on my gift list. I will use them as stocking stuffers and also as recyclable gift tags, so they do double duty by being green as well.
I had a couple emails asking for a little more explanation, so I took a picture of an unconstructed baggage tag.

I placed the fast2fuse interfacing in the center of my fabric piece. I fold up the edges of the fabric and fuse, then stitch with a decorative stitch. Then I sew on the Quilter's Vinyl sleeve on one of the sides. After that I make the strap. You could also use cord or ribbon. I fold the two raw edges of the long sides of the 2"x14" strip to the center of the strip then fold again so the raw edges meet and I have a long strip with the raw edges inside. I sew this, the place it with the ends in between the two sides, sew all around the edges and that's all there is to it.
Here are a few more completed ones:

Aren't they cute? Everyone who has seen them, loves them.

Holiday Gifts: Baggage Tags

This weekend I was reading my new copy of Quilting Arts Gifts and I saw the baggage tags pattern and thought, hey those are cute. I had some scraps of fast2fuse from another project and some glue so I made one (it took about 5 minutes). These are so easy, I dare you to make just one.
You only need small amounts of fabric, so these are perfect to use up those pretty scraps that you hate to throw away. I used Fast2Fuse for the interfacing but you could also use Timtex or Peltex or another stiff interfacing. I used my Quilter's Vinyl for the clear sleeves on top. A yard will make a lot of tags!
The first one I made I followed their directions, but since I always think I know better, I changed them to suit myself. The author used glue to attach her fabric to the interfacing before she sewed the two sides together, but I didn't want to fuss with glue, so I cut my fabric slightly larger all the way around and used a decorative stitch and pretty thread to sew them on instead. Then I used the decorative thread to sew on the vinyl window. Voila! Easy, cute, takes 5 minutes to make: what's not to love?

My daughter says that we could use them as gift tags too, on wine bottles and gift baskets and as part of a themed gift. We are also thinking of using printable fabric to make these with pictures and names for custom gifts. After we make those I'll take pictures. I realized I am now addicted to making these because they provide almost instant gratification, they are inexpensive, they make a fun gift for coworkers, and a super stocking stuffer.

To make a baggage tag, you'll need:
Fabric glue ( I dispensed with this after the 1st one, but of course you can certainly use their method. Just call me a Maverick ;)
Two fabric pieces, cut 5 x 6 1/2 ish ( I made mine larger than their instructions)
One piece cut 2" x 14" for the strap
stiff interfacing ( you can cut any size, I decided 3 1/2" x 5" worked for me, but of course you can make yours bigger, smaller, longer ...depending on what you need them for)
Quilters vinyl cut 2 1/2" X 4"ish ( I took a business card and made sure it fit. You can see how scientific and exact I am.)
I sewed the two fabrics to the interfacing, attached the vinyl window to one side, inserted the strap in between the two sides, sewed them together: done!
Silk, brocade, embroidery stitchouts, extra quilt squares - all of these would be awesome as a tag! You could embellish with paints, paintstiks, trim...whatever strikes your fancy.
I made myself a kit, and cut about twenty interfacing rectangles, vinyl pieces, assorted fabric scraps and strips and sat and played. Everyone is getting these this year as part of their present (Dad, forget you read this)
The Quilting Arts Gifts has other projects I want to try - next up, the reversible wine gift bag.
Happy Sewing!

Only 100 Plus days til Christmas

My brother in law, who is otherwise a very nice, kind and considerate person, sent me a ecard last week. There were butterflies, puppies, rainbows and leaping fish, all of them gaily proclaiming: only 115 days til Christmas! Isn't that Pure Evil? Like most working women, I look upon the holidays with all the cheerful optimism of Nell tied to the train tracks by Snidely Whiplash. All the work, all the gifts, cards, planning, cooking...I'll stop. I must think zenlike thoughts.
Adding to this normal Fall to Winter Marathon, this is the year that my son is in his senior year of high school and is applying for college this fall. He is my youngest child. Once he is at college, I'll be officially an empty nest mom. Mr. Hunting Creek is looking forward to this development. "We'll go camping!" he says. He points out the fun my dad had on a recent trip to Mammoth Lakes. (Hi Dad!)

What he doesn't know is, I am not going anywhere without my sewing machine. This may complicate his back to nature Simple Life fantasies. (We'll pare down to basics!, he says. "It will be great!") no stash? no machine? ah, no... I won't tell him yet. It will be our little secret.)
In the meantime, in between working, running a household and getting my son's applications in, plus all the holiday prep, I'll be attempting to do my pre-holiday gift sewing and cooking. I like to give some homemade gifts to my nearest and dearest.
If you see Dudley Do-Right, tell him I'm tied to the tracks.