Twins!

No, not that kind of twins! Twin quilts, silly.

Now that I have your attention though, perhaps you'd like to see the the twin-sized quilts I made for my niece and nephew for Christmas.

The fabrics were picked out with my mom during her visit in late October and both were completed by early December - just in time to ship them back to B.C. before Christmas. I opted for my usual hand-stitched circles to quilt the layers, and because I know someone is going to ask, there are nearly 200 circles between the two quilts. In case you're wondering, I can stitch 4 per hour while watching TV - 5 if I turn it off. It's fortunate that I enjoy hand stitching so much!

These were both a breeze to assemble and a pleasure to quilt. I'm looking forward to working on many more quilts like these in the new year! If you'd like to order your own custom quilt, don't hesitate to contact me at heymilkybeer [at] gmail [dot] com.

From our family to yours...

Dear Santa

Like so many other kids, Abner wrote a letter to Santa this year. This was the first letter she's written to the big guy in the red suit. I think we're going to have to work on her buttering up skills for next year though. She kind of dove straight into the wish list without the usual niceties of "How are you?", "How's Mrs. Claus?" and such.

Santa didn't seem bothered though since he took the time to write back. Abner was beyond thrilled to get a letter in the mail.

I wish I could personally thank the little elves that help Santa write back to all these little kids. It must be so much work, yet they miss out on the best part - seeing their eyes light up when they open that letter. Priceless.

One Word Wednesday: Trippy

Buttons, buttons, buttons!

I have a new favourite sewing gadget - my fabric covered button making tool. So simple and oh, so cute! Taking a cue from Anne over at Flax & Twine I secured the newly-made buttons to some hair elastics. Perfect little stocking stuffers and a great way to use up even the tiniest of scraps!

Abner chose this cute little seahorse one for herself...

...and because I will probably never have another opportunity to tie in on the seahorse thing, here is a little video of my daughter doing her "seahorse dance."

Pretty in pink: oliver + s messenger bag

One of the best sewing books I've purchased in recent memory has got to be oliver + s: little things to sew. I drooled over it in the bookstore and was so excited when the first project I completed (the reversible bucket hat) turned out beautifully. My second project turned out equally well, don't you think?

This is the kids' version of the messenger bag pattern. I used an Old Navy twill backed with light-weight interfacing for the outside and lined it in a super cute Michael Miller for Vera Bradley fabric called Tea Garden (which I can't find online anywhere to link to!).

The pattern was super easy to follow but I did have to improvise when it came to the adjustable strap. Apparently you just can't buy 1.5 inch strap adjusters in this town. A buckle did the trick, though it is a wee bit bulkier than the strap adjuster would have been. Ah well - it works, and that's what matters.

I was also too lazy to manually make bias tape in the width suggested so I used my bias tape maker to quickly prepare some slightly narrower binding. It made things a little trickier to be sure, but I'm happy with how it turned out. Plus, it saved me about a half hour at the ironing board! Perhaps Santa will bring me another bias tape maker...hint, hint.

This little bag is off to a new home for Christmas, but I think I just may have to whip one up for Abner in the new year.

Around the house: Abner's room

One more stop on our tour around the house: Abner's room. Apart from my sewing room, I think this is my favourite room in our little house on the prairie. We've tried to keep most of the toys and such out of the bedroom and down in the playroom so that it doesn't get too cluttered, but you can always find books and puzzles aplenty in here.

The Dear Sweet Husband's boyhood stuffie, BoJo, holds a place of honour atop the bookcase. He's seen better days so Abner's pretty good about being gentle with him. The family friends who originally gave BoJo to TDSH also gave Abner her own stuffed monkey when she was born. BoJo Jr. sees a lot of play time and is, according to Abner, her "best monkey."

You may have spotted a rather odd item on the bookcase. Yup, that's a picture of Terry and Betty Fox right there. My dad has organized the annual Terry Fox run back home for the past few years. When he and mom came to visit back in October, they brought along this card for Abner as a memento of her first Terry Fox run. Doesn't every three-year-old have a picture of Terry Fox in their room?

Putting things up on the wall was so much fun since I finally had a chance to put up a bunch of pieces that never made it up in our old place. I believe this cross stitch was done by my grandma back in the day. The silhouette was a project I did when Abner was about nine months old. Abner herself took the picture of the trees...it was the very first photo she ever took. All together this wall of pictures makes me very happy!

My grandparents' rocker also made it into the room. The cushion cover I made is looking a little saggy these days, but I still love the colour. So cheery! Abner chose her own bedroom when we moved in and thanks to a giant blue spruce in the front yard, it happens to be the darkest room on the main floor. The bright chair really perks you up in an otherwise dim room.

For now Abner is still in her little toddler bed. I kind of wish she could stay in it a while longer because this room is going to get very crowded when she moves up to a twin!

One Word Wednesday: Cow

Easiest Wreath Ev-ah!

Wanted a wreath for the door...didn't want to spend any money to make it happen.What's a crafty girl to do but dig into the craft stash and see what she could come up with.

This project required nothing more than cardboard and yarn. Lots and lots of yarn. How it's made should be pretty obvious, but I will point out a few details that might help in case you want to make one yourself:

• I used four different yarns (2 boucle and 2 chunky) which give an interesting texture
• I alternated between the yarns as I wrapped (i.e. 3 times around with blue boucle, then 3 times with blue chunky, 3 times with green boucle, 3 times with dark blue chunky and repeat...) I wanted the different colours and textures to blend together a bit

If I were going out and buying materials to make this again, I would probably go for more traditional Christmas colours. I think an assortment of reds, greens and creams would look lovely! But it sure was nice to use up yarn I'd had sitting around for nearly a decade!

As a bonus, it matches my couch perfectly.

Hey, Christmas tree, cute skirt!

I picked up a slew of Christmas fabrics after the holidays last year with good intentions to have a pretty new tree skirt made in time for the holidays this year. I even had the pattern designed sometime in January! To no one's great shock, I didn't even start cutting or sewing until just a few days ago. Thankfully it came together quickly.

I love aqua and red together. Don't you? To me it says Christmas without beating you over the head with holiday spirit.

And who doesn't love gingham? I used my bias tape maker to produce a few meters of straight strip (i.e. non-bias-cut) binding and attached it by machine. This goes against my usual preference to hand sew, but seeing as I was finishing the binding while The Dear Sweet Husband was out buying the tree, time was of the essence.

For the backing I used a piece of remnant fabric my aunt gave me some time ago. Lately, we had been using it as temporary curtains in our kitchen, so I guess I know what my next project is going to be.

My favourite part is the closure I came up with at the back. See how some of the squares are positioned to overlap with one another? When they're aligned properly, you almost can't see the two halves coming together behind the tree. If you're going to try this detail yourself, be sure to clip and notch your corners very carefully and press very well before top stitching.

Obviously I started this before we had our tree, or our tree stand for that matter, so I had to guess at the sizing. I suppose the skirt should probably come up to cover the stand a bit more, but I'm totally fine with this. TDSH picked out one good looking stand!

When I have more time, I will stitch some circles to properly quilt the layers (just like on my regular quilts), but this will do beautifully for this year.

DIY: Holiday gift bag

My love/hate relationship with gift wrap is quite well known so I won't go into it again here. Suffice it to say, I am all over the idea of wrapping gifts in something other than paper. Perhaps you are too?

If you'd like to learn how to make your own gift bags with encased seams, read on. As long as you can sew a straight-ish line, you're good to go. As an added bonus, you'll be able to brag to all your friends that you know how to make French seams. You'll sound so fancy!

Step 1: Select your fabric and cut it to size.
You can pretty much use any kind of fabric you want at any size - the process is the same for all. To start you need to cut your fabric into a rectangle. Figure out how tall you want your bag to be in the end and double this measurement and add on about 4 inches to get the long edge of your rectangle. The short edge will be the desired width of your bag plus an extra 2 inches or so.

Step 2: Sew up the sides.
Fold your fabric in half WRONG sides together using a 1/4 inch seam allowance. Trim the seam allowance down to 1/4 inch if you happen to get carried away in any spots.

Step 3: Turn your bag inside out and press the seams.
Your seams should look something like this now. You're now working from the WRONG side of the fabric.

Step 4: Attach the ties.
Cut a length of ribbon approximately twice the width of your bag and fold it in half. Use a pin to secure the folded edge of the ribbon to one of your seams from what is the inside of your bag at the moment.

Pin on the WRONG side of the fabric holds the ribbon in place inside the bag.

Looking into the bag with ribbon secured with a pin.

Of course, thinking back now, it would have been smarter just to pin and stitch the ribbon in during Step 2. D'oh! Why don't you go ahead and do it that way instead.

Step 5: Encase the seams.
With the bag still inside out, stitch up both sides - this time with a 1 cm seam allowance [yes, I did just switch to the metric system mid-pattern...I like to keep you all on your toes!] It's important to use a wider seam allowance on this step to ensure the raw edges of the seam will be completely encased.

Voila! You just made a French seam! Go ahead and remove that pin that was holding the ribbon in place. It should be nice and secure now.

Step 6: Hem the opening.
Turn down the top edge of the bag opening approximately 1 inch and press.

Turn down the top edge of the bag opening another inch and press before stitching the bottom edge of the hem in place. This would be a good spot to use a decorative stitch if you're so inclined.

And....you're done. Here's one of my finished bags. Pretty cute, non?

One Word Wednesday: Advent

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

This weekend we took our first trip to the Mackenzie Art Gallery for their Holiday Celebration event. The experience was fantastic! Not only did we get to explore the exhibits, but we also enjoyed music from the local Regina Symphony Orchestra and a local choral ensemble.

The crew from Articulate Ink brought along a teeny tiny printing press for the kids [and, ahem, perhaps some of the parents] to print their very own Christmas cards.

We also got our craft on and made some ornaments for our as yet unpurchased Christmas tree. We're so excited to be able to get a REAL tree this year! We've lived in apartments that ban live trees for soooo long, this is going to be such a treat!

Abner got to have a little chat with this "helper" Santa. Much like last year, we couldn't get her to actually sit on his knee like all the other kids. Maybe next year.

My favourite was definitely the sleigh ride. Who doesn't love a sleigh ride? Okay, it would have been better if the temperature hadn't been somewhere near -15 C (which feels like -30 with the windchill), but with so many people jammed on the cart, the body heat actually kept us quite warm. I also could have done without being pulled through a patch of bushes. Even still, it was a great ride.

It was a two-horse open sleigh in case you're wondering.

With so many awesome things packed into one afternoon, what do you think was Abner's favourite?

The choral group. Grandma...are you beaming with pride?