Christmas gifts

First of all, Happy Holidays everyone.

Finally I can post the Christmas gifts I made for some of my friends this year.

Here is the first one….

What this “foldable thing” may be?

TA-DAAA! A Yoga mat bag.

With a lovely IKEA fabric

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Marta’s starred bag

I didn’t produce much in this past few weeks but at least I made this tote-bag for my friend Paola‘s daughter Marta. Last week it was Marta’s 13th birthday and her mother told me that she needed a large bag so…. the obvious present. Since she is a Star, I decided to use a star printed fabric. This canvas is also waterproof, which is handy because, despite the light coulour, it is easy to clean.

As I had some fabric left I also made her a little matching pouch for her lipstick or make-up. 😉

A star bag for a Star Girl

The tutorial is from the lovely THE PURL BEE website and you can find it here.

Wedding purse

I have been invited to a wedding at the end of July (apparently people do still get married!!) so since I’ll be wearing a pair of sandals with a bit of gold in them I decided to make myself a matching purse with some Japanese “kimono” fabric I purchased recently at a stall in a Japanese “matsuri” held here in Milan last month….

It is small but capacious enough, and it is also reversible!

Reversible kimono fabric purse

 

this is how it is shaped…

 

the reverse…

and this is how it looks….

Bestseller

Here is my one, and so far only, bestseller: the meal voucher holder!

A colleague asked me to make one for herself and accordingly to her personality and preferences, I came up with this… (I know, I should have ironed it before taking the photos…!)

Anyway, she said she might order other voucher-holders for Christmas as present for her colleagues…. we’ll see! 🙂

meal voucher holder

Inside.

Christmas placemats

This is the last post about my handmade Christmas gifts: four placemats for my friend Cristina and her family.

I wanted to give her the placemats before Christmas so that they could use them on Christmas morning for breakfast, but as usual we failed to meet before the date and they have been handed over only a couple of days ago! But better late than never! 😉

As I forgot to take pictures of them (I was in a desperate hurry to finish them before Xmas… :-0 ), Cristina herself sent me some. The fabric is from Ikea and I used some tartan bias for an extra Christmassy look. Each of them has similar but different motif.

Christmas placemat

Folded placemat

unfolded placemat

Pencil case for Dad

My father doesn’t want any Christmas present anymore. I don’t know why but probably he thinks that he already has all that he needs and he doesn’t want that we spend money for him… So, in recent years I began to make his presents myself. This year, since he likes to draw and write, and he’s always looking for places where to store his pencils and pens, I made this pencil case for him. It is very simple but useful.

I’m not sure if the fabric is suitable enough for a man, but it is the best I came up with. BTW, I really like to use colourful zips in contrast.

Pencil case, the other side

Pencil case, the inside. 🙂

Baby Lorenzo’s survival kit

My friend Simona’s sister is due to have a baby very soon and she asked me to make her a diaper stacker for her soon-to-be-born Lorenzo…. Not an easy task since I had never seen one before! Far from being discouraged I looked for informations on the web and I came across few tutorials which weren’t exactly suitable for my sewing skills. So I decided to make myself a project…. it took me at least a couple of hours to complete it!

baby diaper stacker project

… and a couple of weeks and a lot of Ikea fabric later… here is the result… I hope she’ll be happy with it:

Baby Lorenzo’s diaper stacker

from the back

from the side

the inside (the bottom inside seam is finished with the very useful bias!)

detail: my hand-sewn label! 🙂

And here is a little extra and very useful bonus….

a pacifier lanyard….

 

First order

This is my first order ever! I’ve been asked by a friend to make her a new tablet case because she wasn’t satisfied with the one she had. So I let her chose between my fabrics and then I set to work.

It took me a while because I wanted it to be perfect. So, I stitched and unstitched it quite few times becase I wasn’t happy with the result. After several attempts here is the final product!

It is definitely better than my first e-reader case here, which dates back to exactly two years ago. So I also might be happy because my technique has improved since then! 😀

 

Tablet case

inside the tablet case

from the side

Details

the label

 

Remnant case

Here is another project I made last weekend. Again I used some remnant of my “cushion-project” here. I’m not completely satisfied with it… I even forgot to add flaps on both to make it easier to zip/unzip. Anyway, next time I’m going to try to make a case with the end tabs of the zipper too!

the “left-over” case

The origami bag

I worked a bit with my sewing-machine this past weekend and, among other things,  I made this lovely origami market bag. I used some remnant from this project here, and I got the tutorial from here.

It is very quick to do and you can also easily modify its size: you can make it bigger or smaller depending on your needs! This one is 30×30 cm.

The origami bag