Thank you for stopping by my blog today and joining me for a Homemade Christmas! I am excited about this series (it is the first time I have ever used a Mr. Linky on my blog) and I am hoping many of you will join me by adding links to my post. Today I am going to share with you a gift that I have sewn, but if you don't sew, don't worry, over the next 8 weeks I am planning on sharing a wide variety of gifts and many of them will not include sewing. Also I encourage you to share gifts you have either made or someone has made for you and you really like, decorations you have made or anything else homemade that you have for Christmas. Please do keep all your posts family friendly. Anyway, on too my project for today.
This weekend I had a lot of fun sewing up this baby gift. I made a matching Hat and mittens and then also a quilt to go with it. After I had figured out the pattern (which wasn't very hard either) making the hat and mittens went very quickly! The mittens are thumbless as they are for an infant. I also added a string to attach the mittens together so they won't get separated.
I have drawn up the patterns that I used in case any of you would like to try making them. Just click on the image and it will make it larger so you can print it out. To make the hat you cut out to pieces of outer fabric and two pieces of lining (For the lining I used a t-shirt that had gotten a hole in it). Put right sides together and take a 2/8 inch seam on the outer fabric and a 3/8 inch seam on the lining. Then trim 1/8 inch off of the lining. Turn the outer piece right side out and then place the lining inside of it. (At this point there should be no rough seams showing.) Turn the rough edges on the bottom of the hat in to the inside so they are meeting together and sew together using a top stitch. Then cut an acorn out of brown fabric and applique to the lower part of the hat on the lining. Then turn it up so the lining is showing for about 1 inch. You are all done! (If these instructions are terribly confusing, please feel free to ask questions in the comments or e-mail me.) For the mittens check out the tutorial at Write, Mama, Write. Both mittens and hat could be made in much larger sizes as well.
I also had fun making this little quilt. Quilts are tons of fun to make, especially if you do as I do and use fabric from old clothes (make sure that the sections you use are still very sturdy!) and so are giving new life to something that might have otherwise been thrown away. Quilts make great gifts (for all sizes of people) as most everybody likes them. I recommend that you try something simple at first (like just squares) unless you are experienced or have lots of time.
For a quilt first you cut out the pieces. And then you arrange them in a design that you like. (Or you might do that first on graph paper, coloring in the different squares. If my quilt is very complicated at all that is what I like to do.)
After you have it all laid out you are ready to sew the pieces together. (I had decided to applique an acorn on this one so I did that before sewing the pieces together.)
After you have the top done you need to layer it with some batting (or you can use an old blanket or another thick layer of cloth but then your quilt will be heavier and not so fluffy.) and a backing fabric.
Their are a variety of ways to bind a quilt by I most often just fold the backing fabric up and over and then sew it in place. Making sure everything is pulled out flat before you do any sewing! After this you can either do some quilting (by hand or machine) are use some yarn to tie it together. (Again if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!) Here are some other related posts:
It is your turn now!! Please leave you links for homemade gifts or other homemade Christmas stuff! (It doesn't have to be a gift that you are giving for Christmas this year it can be one from the past or something you are using for some other occasion if you would like.)
When you link I would appreciate if you would link back to a Homemade Christmas at Proverbs 31 Living in your post. Thank you!
