Happy New Year everyone! I was pretty busy in the past month sewing some little gifts for Christmas. This in between shopping, gift wrapping and being with the kids. Like most of you I guess… Now that I’ve given all those gifts, I can show them to you. These were all small gifts, quick to sew, because I wanted to make a little something to the most people I could in our family.

I generally love to design my own projects. But at this time of the year, I find it very usefull to be filled with inspiration from the blogosphere. So for all my Christmas projects, I followed some tutorials or an idea from one of you sewing out there. Thanks to everyone. I hope I’ll contribute more to this in the year to come with patterns/tutorials from my own.

The first project I made were 3 Japanese Knot Bag for my sisters.

 

My sister has tried them and she loves it. Much better than her Ziploc she says!

For my father-in-law, I sew him a kindle case. The same as the one I made as a giveaway for the event hosted by Sew, Mama, Sew! before the Holidays. I was pretty happy to see that the fitting was perfect. I was a bit worried since I didn’t get a chance to actually try it before. Thanks to the recommendations on this post. I had looked over the internet for some inspiration. There are plenty of tutorials out there to make e-reader cases. Here are two that caught my eyes (post and post). But, I wanted something a bit more manly.

For my mother who loves photography, I made her a camera strap. I followed this tutorial (using fabrics from my scraps rather than cut with Accuquilt). There is a myriad of those tutorials online as well. This project was really a quick and easy one. My mother was really happy it. She loved the fabrics I chose for her.

For my mother in law, I made a case for her reading eyeglasses. I free-motion quilted it following the flower circles and I attached the binding using embroidery floss with a running stitch. My inspirations were this tutorial and this case for sell on Etsy.

For a gift exchange in my mother’s family, I bought a tea cup with some white tea and a tea stick infuser. I decided to make a little mug rug to accompany it. It’s my sister that picked up my gift thinking that it would contain something sewn by me. She wasn’t disappointed!

For my husband, I wanted to make him a fabric tray for him to put his iPod, wallet and spare change. I had seen this tutorial about a month before Christmas and thought it would make a great gift for him. Finally, I mainly followed another tutorial by Elizabeth Hartman. The most challenging part was assembling the inner and outer box. It’s not as neat as the one shown in the tutorial. I think my seam allowance for the outer box’s corners was a bit to small, so I had to much fabric when I folded the fabric acting as the binding over the inner box. I also think I made a bit to deep. But, my husband was still thankful to receive it and I’m sure he will make good use of it instead of putting everything loose on his chest of drawers.

Finally, I made some pot holders for a gift exchange in my husband’s family to accompany a recipe book. I made a block I loved from Elizabeth Hartman’s Pratical Guide to Patchwork book.

I assembled the pot holder using the pattern from Malka Dubrawsky‘s Fresh Quilting book. It has a pocket on the back to slip the hand into. It’s one of my sister-in-law that got my gift. She seemed to be pleased.

I was pretty proud to make all this projects with fabric from my statsh. I didn’t waste much time going at the fabric store. The only thing I went to buy was some heat-resistant cotton for the pot holders and mug rug as this was the first time I did such projects. I love giving gifts made by my-self on Christmas time and I hope the recipients were glad to receive them.

Happy New Year once again. I wish you all the best in the year to come!