Holiday Homemades

Now that the Christmas gifting is over with, I will share a few of the homemade gifts I made this season.

First of all, a NYC-themed pillow for my brother...

My brother is crazy about NYC, having made literally hundreds of trips there over the years. Often he just goes for a day, sometimes for a particular event, but often just to walk miles and miles and take in whatever is happening on the street. If you want to know where to find great pizza, deli food, architectural details, or even the best nearest public restroom in NYC, he's the man to ask. So when I got to visit The City Quilter and saw their exclusive NYC prints, I just had to buy a few and reproduce a pillow I saw there. This one covers a 14 inch pillow form. Here's the back:

I guess this was the year for pillows, because I made this one for my friend, Barb:

I saw the pattern in the Connecting Threads catalog done in redwork. Barb loves snow and snowmen and her favorite color is blue, so I bought the pattern and gathered my supplies to do it up in blue. It's been a while since I did so much embroidery, but it was a good project to work on in front of the TV for many nights and I was pleased with how it came out. Here is the corner detail:

Finally, I made some gift card holders, thanks to a pattern from my friend Alice. They were a surprise hit with my kids who enjoyed pulling the "string" so that an iTunes gift card popped up!

It's always fun to make a few things to "gift" during the holiday season!

I made a man-bib!

A couple years ago I made some adult bibs for the Asheville Quilt Guild. As part of the "community quilts" outreach, they were given to elderly people in our area. About that same time I made some adult bibs for my mother. Her failing eyesight made spilled food nearly an every meal occurrence and she has been a regular bib user since then.
My sister-in-law, familiar with my mother's bibs, asked if I could make a more manly bib for her elderly father, "maybe with a neck tie," she said, somewhat tongue-in-cheek. So here is my man-bib:
And here is a little closer look:I hope Carl likes it!