Christmas Wrap Up

If you’ve followed my blog the last year, you’ve seen that I love to make Christmas gifts for friends. Last year I made notepad covers and the year before, handbags. This year I made two dozen mittens from thrift shop sweaters that I washed and felted and added polar fleece lining to make them very cozy! As usual I overbought on the sweaters so have plenty left for future projects!

Also this year I thought a very special little girl would like a poncho in PINK with butterflies on it instead of mittens. This was a simple pattern with hood that took less than 2 hours total!  If you start in September, you can have it all done before Halloween and it is so fun to give something that you made.

And for the neighbors, we use this Swedish saffron bread recipe and make trees for their Christmas breakfasts and deliver them on the 24th!  I make the dough and my husband rolls out the tree shapes. It is sooooooo delicious and a recipe in my family since the 60’s.

Next to our tree this year, you can see my Christmas present on the wall…a Noriko Endo quilt from an earlier post.

The tree skirt is a pattern that we sold when I started the company….it’s ornaments with fancy machine stitches and comes with a wallhanging and a pillow.

 

On the tree are many ornaments that I’ve made throughout the years. Here are machine embroidered ones from Criswell that I used to give to all the elementary teachers.

 

 

I made these smocked ornaments. The first year that the Clintons were in the White House, they asked many artists to make blue and gold ornaments for their tree and I made one for them. They sent a lovely photo of the tree and a card. It was exciting!

I love my Christmas stocking because it is a sewing studio! A friend made this for me when I was in grad school in exchange for a formal dress that she wore to her boyfriend’s military ball. I think it was a good deal…I still have the stocking but the dress is long gone I hear!

We collect these German ornaments by Heutschenreuter ( a ceramics firm) and they may be the most expensive ornaments on the tree but the one below is the most valuable!

   Made by my oldest son when he was in pre-school!

Hope you all enjoyed a very happy day with your family! Now for my husband’s sauerbraten dinner!

P.S. I already know what gift I’m making next year en masse!  Stay tuned!