Handmade Christmas, part 1

Once again I tried as much as I could to make homemade gifts for my friends and family this year for Christmas. I don't know if it was that I was lazy, disorganized, busy or waited too long to start, but I was working on stuff up until the early hours of Christmas morning. Ugh! I really, really have to do better next year.

Anyway, I made a couple cool projects this year.

This was my absolute favorite — a Harry Potter made from felt, stuffing, yarn, and embroidery thread for my niece. He turned out so great! Now I totally want to make some more characters.





I had a little trouble getting him sewn together, especially his head. I made up my own pattern and didn't really think about how I was going to attach his head to his body — making the little scarf helped cover up his weird chin seam. And it made him look jaunty.

I also made some knitted dishcloths. I was so rushed with a few of them that I didn't even take photos. Whoops. Here's two that I finished early.



One of my friends has a little girl who often makes little things for me. I try to make her handmade gifts, but I was stumped this year. Inspiration finally struck though, and I ended up with this — a little quilt and pillows for her stuffed animals. The quilt was re-purposed from a quilt-as-you-go project I have been working on for a long time.

Here's the quilt modeled by one of my bears.



And the set with the pillows.

Bring on the carbs

I'm a big fan of carbs in just about any form, and I ended up focusing my holiday cooking on two items: one, homemade white bread, which is a Christmas staple in my family, and two, Cinnamon Buns From Heaven, which I've made a couple times before and are amazing.

Christmas Eve marked the first time I ever tried to make bread ... usually my mom or one of my sisters would do the honors. I was excited to try it myself though, since I secretly have this delusion that someday I will magically turn into a super domestic person that bakes their own bread, raises vegetables in a garden and cooks a from-scratch delicious dinner every night. (I'm a long ways from that -- last night I enjoyed chili given to me by my dear friend Amy warmed up in the microwave. Located next to a loaf of store-bought bread. In a kitchen with only canned or frozen vegetables, minus some baby carrots and a bag of lettuce in the fridge.)

Anyway.

I used a recipe from one of my mom's oldest cookbooks ... a Betty Crocker back from the 1950s or so. I love looking at this book, it's got a ton of retro illustrations and tips on hostessing. I was worried about the bread, since the texture of the dough seemed a little off when I was kneading it. My mom told me she doesn't normally use as much flour as the recipe states. Whoops.

After it rose a bit though, it looked fine. I followed the directions and let it rise twice, then we slipped the two loaves into the oven. It was long before we smelled something burning ... one of the loaves had ridden so much it was burning on the roof of the oven. My mom pulled them out, moved the racks and stuffed them back in. Not much harm done.

I smeared the loaf tops with butter after they got out of the oven and then had to wait until Christmas to find out how they were. And they turned out great! I was really happy, since we're all carb-lovers and not having bread would have been a travesty in the house.

Here they are, resting after being baked:



My other baking was the cinnamon rolls. These are, hands down, the best cinnamon rolls I've ever eaten. The recipe is from "The Best American Recipes 2000." This listing on Amazon even includes the recipe.
And here are four of them (the recipe made 18).

Why am I up?

This has been one of those nights where I randomly wake up in the middle of the nights and then can't fall back asleep. Ugh. I know all the sleep experts suggest getting out of bed and doing something else until you're tired again, but truthfully I can't be bothered. I am way too cozy in bed with my flannel sheets and comforter.

Here's a photo of a project I finished last month for a Christmas ornament exchange we held at a party with coworkers. We exchange ornaments every year and it's always fun.



I made the tiny stars in 2007 and didn't really know what to do with them. They are crazy little, just because I love trying to make tiny stuff.



And here's the back:



This combines a lot of my favorites: stars, polka dots and rick rack. Maybe I'll make one for myself next season! It was fun, didn't take too long and used up a few of my tiny scraps I insist on saving.

Mmm ... fuzzy food!

I've spent much of the last few months making Christmas presents for my family and friends. Surprisingly, I got just about everything done I had hoped to do, and even on time. One thing I did finish Christmas day, but still, that's pretty close for me.

Anyway, one of the projects I was working on was some felt food. I love making this stuff, but it does take a lot of time since I do it all by hand. I started around Thanksgiving and got some cute stuff done. I didn't take photos of it all -- there was a slice of swiss cheese and a spread of peanut butter -- but here is what I ended up with.

Jelly


Carrot


Bacon


Bread


Fried egg


Broccoli



I was working on these during my trip to my parents' house over Thanksgiving and while I was there, my teenage niece really liked the food. I was trying to think of gifts to make for her and thought there wasn't much she could do with the lifesize food, but I should either go really small, like a keychain size, or really big, like a pillow. I decided to try to go big.

Luckily the non fuzzy-producing fleece was on sale at Joann's when I went there and even found a remnant of cream ... which was half off the half off. Yay! I also bought a bit of tan for the crust.

I traced half a slice of bread on a sheet of 8.5" by 11" paper then pinned that to a fold of the light cream and cut out two like that. I cut some strips of the tan for the crust. Before I put it together, I had to make the face, so I used a smile made out of felt and some safety eyes. Then I assembled it on the sewing machine and stuffed it with an entire bag of stuffing! Fluffy bread!

And here it is:


This was by far the most-appreciated gift this year! Stephani loved it and hardly put it down the entire Christmas visit. That definitely made me happy.

Crafting updates

My quest to have a mostly homemade Christmas continues. I can't believe I only have one week left though! Oh, the stress and angst of it all. :)

Just kidding, I am doing the best I can, and at this point am making things that I hadn't especially planned to, or the things in my head are either easy or stuff I just need to assemble. I just hope I can find all my supplies at home! And yay, I just heard from the short bus that they can take me to Joann's tomorrow after work so I can get a few last minute things for a couple projects I thought of in the last few days.

I'm very excited about most of my projects. I hope all the recipients like them as well!

One of my projects was for a friend of mine at work. Last year, I made a Christmas stocking for a friend of mine that -- I thought -- really needed one! I personalized it with an orange kitty to match her cat, Julius. Here's that one:





My other friend asked me to make her a couple of stockings for her pets, Jersey and Cleopatra. I was going to make her something different as a gift, but this idea was even better, since I knew she'd like it! I saw photos of her pets on Facebook and modeled the stockings after them.

I couldn't find any plain stockings when I went to Hobby Lobby this past time (well, except for like 3-inch ones and 30-inch ones). I did find some small fleece sheets there though in the felt section. They were softer and thicker than the felt, and were cheap too, only like 33 cents a sheet. What a bargain! I already had a bunch of felt, beads and embroidery thread at home, so I was all set.

Here is the one of Jersey, who is a tan and white hound-esque dog:

In the early stages



Done, bottom half



Full stocking



I made a little dangling bone to make the top more interesting



And Cleopatra. She was harder to make because she is calico and I was worried that her face wouldn't show up enough.



And for the top of the kitty one. I had the mouse body and tail put together, complete with eyes, but for some reason it didn't look right. Seriously, it took me forever to realize that the mouse ears were missing ... duh!



These weren't terribly hard to make. Probably the hardest part was getting the calico patterns close to being right, drawing the shape of the stocking (this was more complicated than I thought!) and hand sewing the fleece. It was harder to get the needle through that than the felt.

I gave them to my friend today, so yay, I was happy that she liked them. Off to another project now! :)

Christmas flashback, part 1

I've finally started pulling out my Christmas stuff and putting a few things out. After moving my 4 bedroom, 2 bath house into a smallish 2 bedroom apartment, it's been an impossible task to find homes for all my Christmas decorations and other holiday whatnot. I've got a very large tree in storage, so I've just put up an 18-inch tree I've had forever. Of course this doesn't give me much room for ornaments.

I'm sad that I won't be able to hang most of them this year, but I still love looking through everything and remembering when I got the ornaments or when they were made. Some of my favorite ornaments are ones my mom made years and years ago, probably in the '70s or early '80s. Here are a few I especially like.