Em's Christmas sewing

My niece, Emily has a list of things she wants to make for people for Christmas.  Because I can't share the fun things I'm making without their recipients seeing them early, I'm showing hers off just a bit.  She was finally able to come over and get started last night (and made much progress).  Look how cute these turned out!  And she did every every part of every step herself.  (So easy to 'help' her sew now!  All I have to do is answer the occasional question and keep her company).

Hopefully this weekend she'll be able to finish the rest of what is on her list. 

What projects do you have going on?

New bookbag

I had an urge to be at my sewing machine the other day.  But no urge at all to be very inventive or to measure and cut.  So, I made these matchy bookbags out of already cut up scraps of fabric.  Start to finish about a half hour, satisfied my desire to sew for now and I know some girls who just may like these.

A little more done on these projects and a little more to do

Here are a few things that the fabric my Aunt Sheila gave me turned into.  The tote bag started with plans as a purse but I didn't quite like how it was going so it made its way into a giant (suitcase for the whole family size) bag.  Tall enough for my knitting needles so chances are that is what may live there.

The little bags will have big, colorful, fun buttons along the top and will be gifted to our nieces over the next few months as birthday gifts, some will hold art supplies, some make-up.  I'm sure they'll all have a chance at holding some girls' treasures. There actually ended up being enough fabric in this set to make my giant bag and 6 little ones for the girls.  

My sewing set up

I thought these were fun.  Here is a little peek into what kind of creators I, my mother and my aunt are today.  I've been able to join them for a couple of afternoons of sewing and I've quite loved this time spent feeling creative and connected to family.

Here is my little sewing station.  We'll call it a creative mess, shall we?  That seems to be how I work best, creatively speaking, all over the place, making much up as I go, often surprised by the outcome (usually happily surprised). 

Here is my Aunt's workspace.  Neat, tidy, efficient.  (Though she says her workspace at her home is much more messy).

And here is my mom's space, something in between.

A little peek at what I'll be happily working on next week

Here are some fun things that  will make their way into finished projects sometime this next week.  My Aunt Sheila is in town and we have big plans for much sewing!  More photos to come.  Spencer's sewing debut will come this week as well.  He has plans for turning some of Grandpa's old shirts into sleeping bags for his stuffed animals and small cowboy figurines.  Photos of all this for sure will make it here!

P.J.s

Here is an overdue peek at a few of the pajamas that I made for kids this year.  The blue and brown polka-dot with contrasting cuffs and pockets were so my favorite!  I ended up making them for 5 of the girls, I wish I'd done the same ones for all of them!

There were also some great cougar ones for Spencer (that were hard to keep a secret until Christmas, I almost gave them to him early because I knew he'd be so excited!  ~he was!)

And some fun blankets and purses that I didn't get around to taking pictures of before gift giving.  That is a goal this year, more pictures of projects!