It's December 1st and I'm already done

Not with Christmas, of course. What I'm done with is making stuff. Yay!

Okay well that's not exactly true. I still have to sew my niece's quilt, and to quilt my son's quilt, but I'm not counting quilting stuff. I'm counting all the little fiddly things I've been working on for the last few weeks. I've decided to post a few of them here--mostly anonymously of course. :)

An apron for my middle son, Xander. A few months ago my oldest son got a Star Wars apron from my mom in the mail, which left Xander feeling a little left out. They both like helping me bake, so I figured I would make him one. At first I was frustrated with fabric choices--it seems like all "boy" fabric is geared toward babyish stuff. I mean okay, zoo prints are cute but no self-respecting kindergartner is going to sashay around the kitchen wearing hedgies or elephants. So then I thought, A HA! The perfect opportunity to buy some Echino fabric, which is prohibitively expensive and something I would normally not buy. But I couldn't pass up this chance. I was so happy when I got it and realized it was sort of a linen-like canvas, perfect for holding up to kitchen messiness.

My oldest LOVES to draw, particularly with markers. He's pretty fastidious about keeping his markers all together, too--he's had this set since April and he still has all the colors except black. Anyway, he also loves rainbows so I thought it would be cool to make him a holder for his markers using fabrics from my scrap bin to match the colors. It worked out really well, I was pretty proud. I only had to buy a few pieces of purple fabric since that seems to be the only color I never quilt with.

A sketchbook cover I sewed for...somebody. I actually started with another one which was a disaster. Does anyone else do this when coming up with a pattern yourself? The first one is like this giant pain in the butt that takes forever and turns out very "iffy", and that helps you figure out exactly how NOT to do it the second time around? Yeah. This one took me like a half hour. The first one (not picture here for prides sake) took almost three hours. Ugh. Anyway, this one came out good. Here's the back:

I also made several of these gathered clutches from Noodlehead's Tutorial. I love the way they came out! I made two more for some friend's birthdays. They are pretty easy to make and perfect for carrying a few things around in. I think next time I'll sew a little loop handle on one end for convenience. 

I made some homemade mulling spices. I love me some mulled cider. I figured I could give a few jars away to like-minded mulled cider lovers. I used a combination of allspice berries, cloves, cinnamon sticks, orange rinds, and vanilla beans. Mmmmmm.

Well the other things I made would be dead giveaways for who they're for, so I'm calling it a day. Hope you're all as excited for Christmas as I am!