Gift Handmade

Over the years, I've gone in and out of making and giving handmade gifts. A maker sometimes gets clues about whether a recipient appreciates a handmade item or not. Not always, of course, but sometimes. So I was pretty sure that one particular friend would appreciate the recent gifts I made for her.

For one, she had commented when I made a Small Booklet Pouch for myself using Aneela Hoey's pattern, that it would be handy to store crochet hooks in.

Of course, I made it as cute as I could....

My friend has been a bunny owner more than once, and because of that, the Rifle Paper Wildwood Woodland fabric seemed fun to use for a gift for her. I couldn't resist, and I hope she doesn't feel inundated by my bunny-focused gifts.

Because I also made her a Small Maple Street Pouch by Svetlana @sotakhandmade using the same fabrics. For the pouch, the bunny print was on the exterior, and the floral on the inside.

There are other instances, though, where someone close to me asks outright for me to make them something, such as my daughter, Rachel @snippetsofsweetness, asking if I'd make her some fun pillowcases for her birthday. My reply was an instant, "Yes!" I always use the tutorial by The Twiddletails Blog, this time making the queen size pillowcases. By now, I know that for anything larger than regular, you need to take care if you're ordering a directional fabric. I did, and ordered fabric special for this project, as I don't keep the lengths needed on hand, plus I really wanted all of the fabric to somewhat coordinate, and to be BLUE.

Lizzy House is one of Rachel's favorite fabric designers, and all this fabric was from Lizzy's Constellations line.

Cutting the fabric the right way can be a bit confusing, especially with directional fabrics; so this time, I made myself a little cheat card, and am posting it here in case I can't find it next time I need it. Ha!

Of course, I made a drawstring giftbag for Rachel's gift - it's tradition! This time I used the Easy Going (Single Fabric) Drawstring Bag pattern from Jeni Baker's @jenib320 Lined Drawstring Bag Expansion Pattern. I was glad I had enough of the Pearl Bracelet fabric, as it's one of Rachel's very favorites.

So I was really happy to be able to give these handmade gifts - as well as the scrappy potholders a couple of weeks ago. Now back to some serious scrap-sewing.

2026 Studio Mystery Box

You may remember that early last year when Anna Graham @noodlehead531 offered Studio Mystery Boxes, I couldn't resist. And subsequently, I made quite a variety of projects from the fabrics and supplies I received. Here's what I can remember off hand....

A Journal Cover, tutorial by Rachel LaBour @stitchedincolor

A Small Booklet Pouch, pattern by Aneela Hoey @aneelahoey

A Fairfax Sling, pattern by Svetlana Skumanicova @sotakhandmade

An Essex Wallet, pattern also by Svetlana @sotakhandmade

And just a few short weeks ago, a Workshop Tote, pattern by Jeni Baker @jenib320

Obviously, I've made good use of what I got, so there was no second-guessing myself when I saw Anna post: Studio clean out time! You will receive a box of some (if not all) of the following types of items:

• zippers
• fabric
• fabric scraps (each box has an approx. 1 lb bag of pressed scraps)
• some have webbing
• cording
• patterns
• a few have leather scraps, zipper pulls
• hardware
• woven labels
• box measures 11.25 X 8.75 X 5" and is full!

The box I just received had all of the above except patterns, which I'm fine with, considering all I did get. 

Half yard each of Fableism Checkmate Checkers double cloth in Butterscotch and Ivory

23" x WOF of Speckled Canvas Metallic by Rashida Coleman Hale in black

21" x WOF of Speckled Canvas Metallic by Rashida in Sarah (green)

8(!) zippers in a variety of sizes and styles + one leather zipper pull 

Half yard of Anna's Orchard Run Flowers in Slate 

A mix of bag hardware and other supplies - a scrap of leather, 2 1/4 yards of 1.5" webbing, natural and blue drawstring cording, several rectangular rings, a half moon magnetic edge clasp (which I've never seen before!) from Emmaline Bags @emmalinebags, a side release buckle, waxed cord, and woven labels. 

AND my bag of pressed scraps (14.8 oz.) included cuts of Essex, Orchard Run, Carolyn Friedlander, Echino, and Fableism. IE. some good stuff! I figure between the scraps and the yardage, I received about 5 1/2 yards of fabric, all of which I really like.

So I'm more than happy with the mystery box, and look forward to working these items into my making!

Subsequent Studio Refresh

Last year in July - see here and here - I shared about a couple of refreshes in the studio. There were quite a variety of things I was organizing, like threads, needles, labels; recovering my pressing and cutting tables; even replacing old irons with a new one. And most of that has continued to work well. (The lazy susan for the batting roll, not so much.)

That said, I meant to post more refreshing tasks, but got held up, and I know exactly why. I bought this:

 >> Handheld Steamer. The Conair Hand-Held Turbo ExtremeSteam Garment Steamer was recommended by Shannon Fraser @shannonfraserdesigns, and I got it because I thought it would be handy before gifting, showing, or even using quilts that had been stored away. And I fully expect it will be. Except I've never tried it. AND it is no longer available where I bought it, though I provided the link anyway, both as reference, and in case knowing anything about it is handy. Let's just say, I have it in case I need it.

Meanwhile, it's way past time to report on other things I did in my studio to organize.

>> Perle cotton storage. Mine was an absolute mess, just jumbled all together in a basket. So I bought two of these large square plastic bins, and it's better. Still not great, but it's better than what I was doing so there's that.

>>New iron - THIS is probably what folks are most interested in. Still back in July 2024, to my dismay, I realized I had SIX irons in the house, most of which I was not happy with, for one reason or another. I ended up replacing all the full-sized ones with a model recommended by Maria Shell @mariashellquilts in a workshop I was taking. It's a Beautural - my first - and I've been happy with it for over a year now. One caveat - I have yet to put water in it, even though Maria says she does it all the time with no bad results. I confess I like steam, I really do, though I've been getting along without it. So this is my current iron of choice. Until it's not.

>>Large booklet pouch for my Aurifil 12wt threads. My 12wts have also been stored in a jumble, and it wasn't going well. I made the large version (9" x 11" x 3") of Aneela Hoey's Booklet Pouch, and it has been a life-safer. It has four large vinyl see-through zippered pockets, that hold all of my 12wts loosely organized by color. I use it all the time.

>>Small booklet pouch for needles. After having the large booklet pouch work so well, I made the small version (6" x 8" x 3") for my hand-sewing needles. They aren't organized in a super logical way, but at least they're all in the same place now.

>>Recover pressing table. A year hence, it was time to recover my pressing table again. This time, I used Rifle Paper Co.'s  Lea in Navy Canvas from the Bramble collection. It always feels good to refresh this space.

>>New sewing machine! This is a biggie, I know. It wasn't entirely planned, but I'd been thinking about it. As you probably already know, I got a Janome Memory Craft 6700P, and so far, I'm really liking it. I've posted about it twice - here and here - if you want to know more about why I got it, and my experience so far.

>>Thread box storage. Just last weekend, I did the latest refresh, in the form of a new little Pixie Basket, a tutorial by Heidi Staples @fabricmutt. I've made oodles of these before, but I needed one more for the base of my miscellaneous thread bin.  

I rescued this small toolbox (my husband's childhood art box) from the donation pile ages ago, and it's perfect for a nice collection of threads. These are all those random small Aurifil spools + odds and ends ...other brands, metallic, etc. More threads that I use occasionally rather than my every-day spools and cones. The new Pixie is on the bottom left, and will help keep that bottom section neat. 

So whew! It feels good to finally gather all these things together and share about them. If you have other organizational tools or methods in your sewing space that you love or suggestions for me, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Booklet Pouch

The Booklet Pouch pattern by Aneela Hoey @aneelahoey has been out for a few years, but for some reason, I saw it on IG recently and knew I needed one now. I thought the large option (9" x 11" x 3") would be a much better storage solution for my Aurifil 12wt threads than the bag I currently kept them all jumbled in. So I ordered up the necessary zippers (both closed- and open-ended) from zipit and put it on my to-do list.

As usual, cutting out the pieces for a bag takes as long/is as tedious as sewing the bag up. But once I started sewing, things went pretty quickly. Once you sewed up one set of pockets, you just followed the same instructions to sew up the other set - easy peasy. Can't say sewing with vinyl is my favorite, but it's not hard per se, and obviously was a key element to this pouch.

I used four different Carolyn Friedlander prints for the interior and bindings, and a CF Essex print, Graphite, for the exterior. 

So here was my jumbled mess of a pile of threads I made the pouch for.

Before filling the pouch, I sorted my threads by color. I was actually a little surprised at my selection once I'd laid them all out, and see a few holes I need to fill.

And....all settled into their new home, with some room to spare.

But thankfully, the pouch zips closed just fine. 

I'm pretty excited about the new home for my 12wts; enough that I've ordered the zips I need to make a smaller version for my hand-sewing needles. Looking forward to getting those organized too.

Patchwork Sashiko

So having finished my latest Dropcloth sampler, and with no quilts to bind, I needed a handwork project to work on during QuiltCon lectures. I happened across the Patchwork Sashiko booklet I'd purchased from Banjo Flannel a few months ago and decided now was the time.

The process is similar yet quite different from the Kawandi quilt I made last fall. Or should I say, it looks somewhat similar, but in fact there are a few key differences. First off, all the patchwork pieces are cut before beginning for the patchwork sashisko method. I cut mine all from scraps, 1.5" x 1.5" squares and 1.5" x 2" rectangles. Then the fabric shapes are actually arranged on top of a muslin backing, then secured with pins and basted before any stitching begins. 

After pinning, the piece is basted by machine and marked with quilting lines. I used the same needle and thread for quilting as I did for my Kawandi - a Bohin crewel embroidery needle #7, and Spagetti 12wt Egyptian Cotton Thread in Ecru from Wonderfil Specialty Threads.

So here's my finished, quilted piece, with basting and quilting lines removed. It measures just slightly larger than 6.5" x 9.75".

Note that in addition to the quilting lines, there are additional little stitches to secure the occasional loose edge of fabric; and because they seemed to 'fit,' there are a handful of 'x' stitches here and there as well. 

Soooo.... the main reason I thought to try Banjo Flannel's patchwork sashiko methoed was a cute little draw-string pouch I'd seen - I'm not even sure where! But it's the Pita Pocket Pouch, with the hand-stitched fabric panel for the front, and Essex linen on the back.

Super cute! 

I made mine just a little larger than the pattern, just so I didn't trim off any more of that hand-stitching than was necessary. A piece of lightweight fusible interfacing was pressed on the back of the piece before trimming to size; and I also went so far as stitching a very tight machine stitch around the whole perimeter before constructing the bag.

This and several other patterns for things to do with patchwork sashiko are on the Banjo Flannel site. Do note that the fabric patches are raw-edge clear to the end of the project - another key difference from the Kawandi. But with all that hand-stitching, I'm confident the little pouch will hold up well for quite a while. And the occasional loose thread just adds to the bag's character, don't you think?