More Christmas sewing projects!

I have to post new pictures of the projects I've been making because it makes me feel like I'm getting somewhere on my list of sewing that I need to get done before Christmas.

I've finished another stocking,  2 more are almost done ( but they won't be posted till after Christmas, Janet), and I've made 2 of these little pincushions for the Mom's, that are filled with steel wool to sharpen pins.  The pincushions would go a lot faster if I didn't feel like I had to embroider them and decorate with beading, but it just makes them so cute!

Here's a few of the gifts I've been making!

I've been sewing!!!  Mostly  I've been making Stockings and tote bags.  I love these bags, they're easy, but make really nice looking bags.  I hope the people I'm giving them to like them as well as I do.  In order from left to right, a bag for our family gift exchange, a bag for our hair stylist, and lastly a bag for Daphne's teacher.  Wish me luck on getting the rest of my Christmas list done!

I didn't think dogs made nest's

This is what our dog does at our back entrance.  I really didn't think dogs made nests but as soon as we clean this up our dog starts over till we get tired of stepping over or on all the twigs.  This time she's even added part of a newspaper that blew into our yard and who knows what else!

I always do this!

I love Christmas time.  I always plan tons of homemade gifts.  I even start them early.  Yet somehow I always have that sudden point where I make a list of the presents still to make and then look at the calender and ask myself what was I thinking.

In fact last year I fully intended to make Janet's family ALL stockings.  Now in my defense she does have a big family, at least to me.  Hey remember this is my defense!  I got the three stockings done for her boys, I just never got the stockings done for Janet and her husband.  Yes they are on my list for this year, they're actually in the middle of assembly.  I've come up with a really easy way to make these and they even get quilted as you go, but they still just take a certain amount of time.  

I have finished two other stockings for Daphne's teacher.  Those are the ones with names on them in the slide show of my projects.  I had never appliqued names onto a stocking before, but I thought they turned out really cute.

Now my list is down to finishing Janet's 2 stockings, I need to make 4 - 5 tote bags, a few gift card holders and by the end of December I'd like to finish a wall quilt for my Dad.  Of course there are all those other little projects I'd love to make but I just don't know that I'll get to them.  Maybe I'll cut them out and take them with on our trip to visit the parents for Christmas.

Oh well I better get back to the sewing machine, otherwise I'll really not get the things on my list done!!!! 

What do you do when someone doesn't like your gift?

Yesterday I got together with a friend that I hadn't seen in a while.  I was excited to be able to give her and her husband the mitten "stockings" (they are pictured in a previous post and in my projects slideshow) I made for them, and the stocking for her youngest that was almost identical to her older sisters.  For the girls stockings I made sure I used different trim so they could be told apart.  And for the mittens I used the rest of the fabric that my friend picked out and loved, when I made them a tree skirt and table runner.  It's not my favorite fabric but I thought the mittens turned our really cute!

So I gave them to her and nothing.  I guess there was a half hearted thanks, but that was it.  She did go to hang them up right away, but then turned and said that they all could really use their names to tell them apart.  I was a little (yeah more like a lot) frustrated and told her that "they" could probably use fabric paint to do that.  Then I had to turn around and teach them how to sew tote bags as Christmas gifts, using really weird fabrics that she let her 7 year old pick out.

I don't know why this bugged me so much!  When I make homemade gifts I try very hard to make things that I think the recipients will like and enjoy.  However I know that my taste might not fit what they like no matter how hard I try.  So I preface a lot of my gifts with this "I had a lot of fun thinking about you and the good times we've shared as I made this for you, however if this isn't to your liking than please feel free to give this to someone else who you think will enjoy it."  So I'm not sure what got to me this time.  Maybe it's that I really thought she would like these.

Oh well, at least I can take a perverse pleasure in the fact that even if she doesn't really like them, my friend will never give these away.  In fact she will probably keep using them every year just because I made them for her!