A Couple of Things

Not much sewing has been coming from my hands.  Testing, muslins, etc. but nothing that I've felt like blogging about.  I have kept up with all of your fantastic projects though.

My Designer group met at one of the member's homes for our holiday luncheon.  Lots of chatter, laughter and food, of course.  We had a gift exchange--a White Elephant, actually.  We drew numbers to determine who chose a gift first, 2nd, etc.  The first person opens a gift.  The second person can draw a gift from the pile or take an already opened gift from someone instead.  And it goes on.

We had to make a gift for the sewing room and could only spend $5.00.  Here is my gift, wrapped in pattern paper and tied with tape-measure printed ribbon.  I thought it was perfect for the occasion.

This is what I made.  It's a round box--about the diameter of a salad plate that I've had for years.  It came with a bottle of perfume in it.  I covered the top with black velveteen, made a pincushion for the top, and decorated it with trims.  The top looks like a little hat.

It has braid for handles, inserted through grommets, so it can be carried.

I covered the inside of the lid, and the bottom.  It can be used to hold sewing supplies.

This is the gift I drew from the pile.  It's a sewing machine caddy.  It slips underneath the sewing machine, and the pockets drop from the front of the table.  It holds scissors, tweezers--whatever you need when you're sewing.  It can also be rolled up with your tools inside to take along for classes or sew-ins.

We also showed our most recent challenge projects.  The challenge was to use a computer generated color editor to pick colors from a photograph.  I used picmonkey.com for the generator.  It's amazing how many colors are actually in a photograph.  The photograph I used had reds, greens, blacks.  I gathered those colors of cotton from my quilting stash, and made a crazy-quilt pillow.

The top was pieced and embroidered by hand-lots of embroidery.  Many bouillons and french knots.  I added beads when the embroidery was done.  Then put the pillow together with a green and black lace ruffle.

Our next challenge is to make pants.  I have a good fitting pant pattern, but I want to try the SureFitDesigns pants kit.

Continue shopping. Christmas is in two weeks.