Handmade Holiday Sneak Peek

Our gift-making around here seems to have taken place in a very last-minute sort of fashion, despite all intentions to the contrary. Down to the wire this weekend, I set up Mission Control in my bedroom--the sewing corner, the cutting corner, the ironing corner, the trimmings and trappings corner--and put three little elves to work.













One handmade holiday item I haven't had a chance to share with you is this lovely rainbow garland, inspired by Waldorf Mama. Remember all that finger-knitting we got started on last March? This is the result (except for Z's section, which wasn't quite done and somehow got lost in the shuffle of holiday decorating...it will turn up soon I'm sure). BTW the yarn for the garland is from Syrendell.



We had an extensive discussion around here last year regarding less wasteful methods of wrapping gifts, and while I enjoyed all of the suggestions (especially bath towels), I decided to go with fabric bags. I assembled some holiday fabrics that I had leftover from years past, bought some at Goodwill and a couple of yards of new fabric and sewed up a hefty little stack of bags this weekend. I originally planned to do a few at a time throughout the year, but who wants to sew Christmas bags in any month but December (I imagine there are quite a few people who don't even want to sew Christmas bags then!). They did give me a lot of opportunity to fiddle with my machine's tension and practice with my hemmer foot and try out new and creative swear words. But they are done and so pretty.


And many of them got put to good use right away. We loaded up two boxes with handmade gifts, farmer's market goodness, wild blackberry jam and some sweet treats and sent it on a trip across country this morning.