Festive cheer & my Christmas gifts revealed!

I just love the few days between Christmas and New Year. The Christmas mania is over and there's lots of down time, with opportunities to meet friends, laze around the house in PJs and spend some fun time with the kids. We just got back from my mum's today after a lovely few days with my parents, my sister and her husband and my brothers and sister in law. Also, maybe most importantly, my niece and nephew who are 8 and 9 months old. It was really great seeing my kids with their baby cousins - they got such a kick from making them laugh and playing with them. We still have lots of people to see in the coming days so I'm glad I have another whole week before I am back to work, not least because of the piles of laundry and the general tidy up that is needed in the house at this stage. At least our water came back this afternoon!

 

Yesterday morning, I met one of my oldest friends and her two girls for our annual Christmas meet up. This year, I made the girls' Christmas presents - bunting for both their rooms, and a cute drawstring bag for Fiona who is my goddaughter.

 

I'm hoping she will get lots of use out of it for her PE classes, or swimming lessons or similar. The "right side" of the bag is made from 3 main fabrics, and an edging strip at the top for the drawstring which is made from a soft pink cord.

  

I used a pink ribbon with a heart pattern to make the loops for the cord at the bottom.

 

I made the bunting for Niamh similar to Fiona's but with some differences. I used the pinking shears to give them a decorative edge and used a slightly different, but complimentary, fabric selection.

Finally, I brought some crochet with me to do in the evenings when watching some films in my mum's and she loved the yarn, so I gave her the finished scarf for her birthday next week.  I bought the yarn last year in Kenmare and can no longer find the ball band, but it is a ribbon texture and is in a beautiful colourway. After trying a couple of different patterns which didn't do it justice, I decided to do a simple, fine, treble crochet scarf to show it off in its beauty.

I did a simple, loose picot edging to finish it off. I love the sea colours in this scarf - teals, moss greens, pinks, pale blues. It will look lovely on my Mum.

More baby gifts....

I finished this cool baby comforter last night and I love it, I think its my favourite so far! Its so cheerful and colourful. The back is baby blue minky and the front is really soft apple green fleece.






The rocket is appliqued on, mainly in fleece with decorative red stitching and some fabric features from the Riley Blake "Wheels" collection which I think work really well.










Hopefully the lovely little baby boy I made it for will get lots of fun from it, with all the different ribbons and textures to enjoy. It measures approx 33 x 33 cm without the ribbons, so is a really nice size for a blankie.


I'm now working on some baby blankets with the lovely fabric I got from American Etsy stores this week. I've now just got too much choice and its hard to pick something to start with. For the boy's baby blanket I'm going with this lovely funky owl fabric backed with minky:





But I still can't decide on which fabric to use for the baby girl's blanket. I'll figure it out later on but now its time for a nice cup of tea!

Loveys all around

I couldn't wait any longer to make something with the gorgeous minky so I got out my things last night and put together a brand new fish comforter yesterday evening. It is bright blue fleece, backed with baby blue minky, and has a fish applique in a contrasting fleece. I used some heavy cotton spotty fabric to applique the fins, tail and eye, and some thin blue ric rac for a wavy affect. Some soft blue fleece bubbles and lots of ribbon around the edges finished it off. There are lots of interesting contrasting textures for a baby's little fingers, not to mention bright colours.





It joins the 2 star loveys I made as baby presents, entirely of fleece and embroidered on the back with baby's name. I love making these, they are so soft and tactile and it's fun picking ribbon and deciding where to place it. Every single ribbon is different with a mixture of colours, widths, lengths and textures for greater exploration by little fingers!