Blog / accessories

Before mailing off Christmas gifts last December, I snapped a few photos, which I'm finally getting around to posting, if you'd like to see...

For my twin nephews, I made two sets of bibs from this excellent pattern, using a crab print I picked up on a trip to Nashville last fall and prints from Denyse Schmidt's Chicopee line.



I also made some simple quilted placemats, using fabric from Cloud9 Fabrics' Monsterz collection and a kitchen print gifted from a friend.



I used my favorite tutorial and a Leah Duncan print from Grey's Fabric to make some pillowcases for my parents.

And finally, I made a pair of quilt-as-you-go potholders with rounded corners, using green scraps.


Have you started planning any handmade projects for next Christmas? Any favorite tutorials you'd recommend?

P.S. I'm posting more over on Instagram these days. Come follow along!

I'm very lucky to have kind friends and family members who support my craft and commission me to make things for them and for gift giving. This month, I had the chance to work on two projects: a Kindle case for an aunt and a stuffed elephant for a college roommate's new niece.


I dragged my feet for quite a while on making the Kindle case (surely I'm not the only person who tends to put projects without a due date on the back burner!), but when I spotted Karen's iPad case, I was immediately inspired and motivated to whip up that case.


I pulled bright blue and green scraps from my stash, and pieced them at random until I had slabs large enough for the case's sides. I used batting scraps to add a bit of structure to the case, and quilted it with turquoise thread.


For the elephant, I returned to the pattern I used from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts to make Peanut, the Wee Elephant, last year.


Peanut gets easier to make each time I use the pattern, so luckily I was able to whip up this gray + pink + turquoise elephant in just a few hours.


The little tail is my favorite part! What are your go-to handmade projects for gift giving?

A few weeks ago, my friend Kait and I came up with a challenge for ourselves: each month, we would select a project from Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts, make it, and blog about it. [I've already done one project from this book and loved it: Luna's Puzzle Ball.] This month, for the first project, we decided to make the colored pencil roll:




I was happy with how my roll turned out, and amazed...