A zig zag pillowcase for Christmas presents

A friend of mine Tash Judd recently asked me to make a pillowcase for her daughter. She had made her a wonderful advent calendar full of mini toys in little red and green zig zagged paper bags.

She wanted a large pillow case in a similar design for the 25th - Christmas Day presents!

I found some zig zag material on the Village Haberdashery site and Tash ordered two fat quarters of each which was delivered in very pretty spotty packaging. I made the pillowcase green on one side and red on the other, with a fold at the top to secure the pillow (if it ends up containing a pillow not presents in the end).

Here's the pillowcase filled by Father Christmas;

And here's an excited toddler looking forward to opening them;

Apparently now every time she sees the pillowcase, she says a hopeful 'More Santa?'. Maybe next year Isabella...

Tash and Matt gave me some lovely chocolates and a Village Haberdashery voucher as a Christmas thank you. I've yet to decide what fabric to spend it on but there's loads of pretty options to choose from. Thanks you two!

Christmas cushions - some more patchwork, dinosaurs and holly

A homemade Christmas present selection wouldn't be complete without a few cushions - so here are the ones I made this year.

Patchwork for 3 year old Oliver, mini dinosaurs for 2 year old Leo

And here is other side of the patchwork cushion (of course, they weren't matching!).

Finally, a Christmas cushion for Liz to add to her wonderful Christmas decorations each year.

I reckon it could be used all year round.... :)

Draught excluder snake - with a buttonhole fastening

Al's sister Liv asked for a draft excluder with a removable cover for Christmas, so I had a go at making one with a big piece of blue corduroy from Our Patterned Hand. I got the inners from Lancashire Textiles online.

His stuffed felt forked tail appears to be slightly folded under here. Oops.

As well as buttons for eyes, I used a button to fasten him together at the bottom end. This is the first time I have used the buttonhole foot on my sewing machine. It's very clever, you put the button into the foot and it creates a hole to fit it.

Button hole foot in action.

Here's the finished button hole and button.

And here is Liv enjoying her snake :)

Mug jumpers

My only foray into knitting beyond scarves, I made these mug jumpers from some leftover wool on 10mm needles. To add the handle hole, I cast off five stitches in the middle, then cast back on again next row. The button I attached with wool. No need for an extra buttonhole as the knitting itself was loose enough to poke a button through wherever you needed it.

Personalised bags for Ivy and Poppy

I decided to use some left over corduroy to make little handbags for Alex's neices Ivy, aged 5 and Poppy aged 3. They were simple little things, with pink binding and a wooden button. I appliquéd the letters I and P onto the flap and added some butterfly, ladybird and flower buttons. 

Photographed under the Christmas tree at home.

The flower bag was a prototype

 I wanted to get pictures of the girls wearing them, but in the chaos of Christmas with small people, it wasn't easy and all the ones I took were blurred.

Christmas scarves

After a long break where I spent most of my 'making things' time on my sewing machine, I did a bit more knitting in the run up to Christmas. I'm still really only any good at knit stitch - so it's all about simple scarves. The wool for both of these came from Bibelot in Leek and they were knitted with 10mm needles. I added tassels to the end of this one for Mum, which made it look a bit more exciting. I haven't done tassels before, so I have no idea if I did them right. I cut three lengths of wool and folded them in half (to make a tassel of six strands). I then pushed the loop made by folding them in half through the wool at the end of the scarf, threaded the tassel ends through it and gently pulled them tight.

I thought Dad might like his left tassel free.

And here is Tilly the family dog modelling Dad's scarf... she's a natural.

What a good girl :)

Cycle doodles with porcelain pens

Another go with the porcelain pens, this time to make plates for a couple of cyclist friends. Jess's looks a bit better as hers was the second one I made...