My mom received a beautiful set of origami envelopes in the mail the other day and they inspired me    I love taking origami patterns and reworking them in fabric.  I’ve made envelopes from fabric before, but never for Christmas presents before.  I always make candy & baking to give as gifts during the holidays, and I thought this one might work nicely as a gift bag.
I used this pattern and a 16 inch square of cotton fabric, ironed onto heavy weight fusible interfacing.  I pinked the edges and ironed all the folds really well.
Here’s how it turned out:

I’m …read more

 My mom made a Christmas request for her spool-knitted & carved doll, Tottie Tomato.  She asked for accessories or other things that she could use in photographs with Tottie.
I’ve been thinking about different things that I could make, embroidered pillows perhaps?  Or even an eensy weensy little yo-yo quilt – but I decided on a machine embroidered doll house carpet.

It’s a great way to use up smaller scraps of fabric or to experiment with different embroidery stitches.  I used long strips of fabric, machine embroidered onto a base of heavy-weight interfacing.  Each strip of cloth has a different color of …read more

I loved Advent calendars when I was a child.  My mom made beautiful hand-made ones for my brother & I – and of course, my parents then had to fill a pocket with a little goodie each morning
I’ve been looking for a free pattern online for an Advent calendar, and I’ve found a couple!  Here’s a flat, tree-shaped Advent calendar from HobbyCraft:

Or how about this charming Advent stocking garland from JoAnns:

There’s also this lovely felt Advent calendar from HGTV:

There you go – enough easy Advent calendars to keep the kids in your life happy until Christmas!