Whew. Aaaaand we're back. Its still the Christmas vacation, but its nice to have all the official holiday celebrations done. Don't get me wrong, it was great. We had a really lovely Christmas. And the boys are at such a good age for it. It felt sort of, I don't know, formative for them. You know how you remember how great Christmases were when you were little? And how you remember specific Christmases, and even the toys you received some years? I think this was one of those Christmases for the Little Dude. He skated on the pond for the first time. We had some really good tobogganing. His cousin got a new dog, and he got to spend two days playing with a puppy. He ate more good food than he could imagine (and I did not have to cook ANY of it, thank you Mom for hosting Christmas yet again!) I think its going to be a year that he remembers. Our Little Guy had a great time too, though its hard to say how much he'll really remember, only being a little more than two-and-a-half. But despite the fact that it was awesome, I'm kind of happy for it to go back to our regular day-to-day life. It'll be nice to get up tomorrow and not have to pack everyone into the car and drive somewhere. We can just stay home and play with our new toys and read our new books. Also, boy do I need to do laundry.
Anyhow, I just wanted to show you a few little things I made to give as gifts. I did not do much gift making this year, just a little bit here and there. Most notably I made these adorable little bags for my neices. aren't they fun?
I got the pattern from We Love to Sew, by Annabel Wrigley. They were ridiculously fun to make, and very easy, as well they should be since, We Love to Sew is, after all, a sewing book aimed at little girls. So really, my biggest challenge was choosing the fabrics, which took me foreeeeever.
There were three fabrics to choose for each bag (outside, lining and handles) and I have roughly a kajillion fabrics in my stash to choose from, so you know, it took a bit of time. But I went mostly with vintage sheet fabric, as is my style.
The little appliques were really fun to do too. I used my good felt, which I buy from the Child's Dream Come True site, which is a lovely dense, real wool felt, and is so nice to work with. I got the pattern for the apple and the mushroom from the book, but just used a cookie cutter to make the star one.
It was funny, the Little Dude had not seen these at all, since I was working on them mostly in the evenings, so when I showed them to him this morning he said "Which one is for me?" I told him they were all for his cousins, and we'd be giving one of them away today, and sending two of them on the airplane to BC. Crestfallen he said, "but I really want that one with the mushroom!" So I took a picture and promised to duplicate it for him when we got home from our visiting today. (He has since amended his request with some different material choices, come back tomorrow to see his version. Spoiler: it will involve both Ninjas and mushrooms)
I regret now that I did not have the presence of mind to take a picture today of the lovely recipient of one of the bags, modeling it, so you'll just have to make do with this: We had such a fun visit, so full of talking and laughing and chasing and playing and tobogganing that I barely had time to take pictures. But here's the Little Dude and his from-far-away cousin, sharing a laugh today. One of many. Oh, and she chose the pink bag with the magenta stars. Because magenta is he favourite colour. Naturally. I feel honoured to have something I made become a part of her amazing wardrobe.
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