Thanks for the lovely presents!

Woops... it's been over a week since I last blogged... time flies when you're having fun... and the fun this week was that it was my birthday.... and look at all the goodies I got! (Photo is not even showing everything...)

My 6 year old daughter had written a looong wish list for me. She'd worked on it for quite a few days... "Muuum? Do you want any fabric for your birthday??" and other similar questions was regularly asked during the weeks before my birthday. She took my hubby out shopping for almost everything on the list...

Look at the cute fabric she picked out for me... and she also picked out these stamps...

I'm going to have so much fun with my prezzies... thanks a bunch!

My wee helper and a birthday present...

If I am to sew during the day, this is how you'll most often find me.... With Susie on my lap, helping me. Susie's job is to take the pins out of whatever I'm sewing and put them in the pin cushion (if you look closely, you can see that I'm using my new pin cushion... the one I won). It takes... eh... a bit... longer with this help, but at least I get to sew. Right?

And I must admit, it is kind of cozy having her there on my lap showing an interest in what I'm doing. Here, she's helping me sew a wee drawstring bag.
I (we) finished the drawstring bag and a travel tissue holder yesterday. Maja's friend from school had her birthday party last night, and Maja needed a present for her. I hope she likes it.

Every little girl should have a pretty bag, and when Maja realized I was making a drawstring bag for her friend, she wanted one too. So when I spotted this lovely fabric in the shop yesterday (had to go and get a string for the drawstring....), I thought of Maja's wish for a pretty bag.

Look, it even sparkles...

Maja was over the moon by the thought of getting a bag in this pretty fabric. Don't know when I'll get the time though. I have to drag my sewing machine and everything I need downstairs and use the kitchen table for sewing. My sewing room is still just a mess with boxes from the move....

This year's, or rather, last year's handmade Christmas presents

Well... Christmas is over and a new year has begun... I guess I'm safe to put up pictures of some of the things I made for Christmas presents last year (it feels so funny to say last year about this Christmas...)
I made my mum and dad a quilted Christmas tree skirt. Well, that was what it was intended for... but I think my mum wanted to use it as a table cloth as well.... I guess it has many uses, so I'm happy for her to do as she wishes with it.

It was hard to catch the colours correctly, but you get an idea.

For my hubby's family (sister, brother, nieces, nephews, all with family) I made egg warmer hens. Some of them has been pictured before, so I'm not going to show them again.

For his brother and his sister I also added a bread basket with a quilted cloth that matched the egg warmer hens (I didn't make the basket though...or the egg cups...)

The blue and striped pin wheel basket cloth was for Per's sister and her hubby, and the red and blue flying geese cloth, for hubby's brother and his wife.

Here are the hens that went with the flying geese....!;)

I gave some other handmade things as well, but most of it has been picrued on my blog before, so I'll just leave it here...

Wedding present

I'm working on another set of these flower place mats. I'm making six of them this time. Some friends of ours in Switzerland are getting married, and I thought this might be a nice gift for them.

I hope I will finish them in time...

Happy birthday!

It's my little brother's birthday today! Sooo... I've made him a card and a present. I don't think he's got the present yet because I was a bit slow getting to the post office... well... to be perfectly honest, I hadn't finished his present in time (I was waiting for the batting to arrive in the post). And it's really hard using the sewing machine with Susie around. She tends to "help" me a bit too much... pressing the pedal, pulling the cord, running away with the rotary cutter (or licking it)... or just rearranging the bookshelf and make a general mess... So I'm mainly a night worker when it comes to patchwork/sewing. I don't think my brother read this blog, so I'll take my chances and post some pics of what I've made.

Just a quick card for him... (Why can't I just make up a batch of cards to save for when I need them?? I always end up with just having to throw something together in a hurry... )


Ok... now you're getting impatient.... "will she never get to what she's made"... Place mats!! I saw these place mats on a blog a few months back and fell totally in love with them. I just knew I had to make them. So after a bit of research on the web, I found the pattern for them (thanks Merete). I really wanted to keep these myself.... but I couldn't think of anything to give my brother for his birthday, so I decided to make these for him instead. I hope he likes them...

I made four of them. I'm kind of hoping that won't be enough... cos then I can make some more and give him for christmas....hehe...
Oh... forgot to say... this is what I needed that black fabric I wrote about earlier for.

Christmas presents revealed...

I promised to show you those christmas presents that I made that I only gave you a sneak peak of in an earlier post... so... here they are:

All the sneak peaks were handbags. One for my mother, one for my brother's girlfriend and the rest for my husbands nieces.

The two top ones are the same design and the two bottom ones are the same design. I've used the same fabric for three of the bags but all the bags are different. (It's quite amazing how different they look when you change the fabric.) All the bags had pockets of some sort, some on the inside and some on the outside, some zippered some not. They all had a magnetic snap closure as well.

I hope they all liked their handbags (if not, they could always put them in a wardrobe and use them as storage for bits and pieces.....;))

Christmas presents....

The reason I don't have that much in my Etsy shop yet is that I've been busy making christmas presents..... I know I should have started earlier with my presents, but I didn't really know that we were going to be so short on "pennies" this christmas..... so I thought why not get the ole sewing machine out and make some prezzies myself and save the pennies for stupid things like food and electricity..... hehe.... sooooo I'm giving a few home made prezzies this year. Obviously, I can't post pictures of these things yet, but a post without pictures is a bit boring, so here are some teasers..... hehe..... enjoy!

For Sebastian

As you know, I've been quite busy cross stitching lately...... The advent calendar is still not finished..... but I've managed to finish this birth sampler for Sebastian (my hubbys niece's baby). It was a christmas present, so I kind of had to make it before christmas. Hope he is pleased with it.....