One more lovely Christmas fabric collection -- Berry & Pine!

 

Yes, here is one last Christmas fabric collection to share with you -- Berry & Pine by Lella Boutique for Moda Fabrics.  Here are some of my favorites from this collection:

The Fir Tree Lane quilt pattern looks like fun!

The Magic Dot Forest yardage is pretty.  It also comes in 108" width to use in backing a quilt.

This little tin is a fun part of the collection!  It's under $5!

O Christmas Tree yardage in the Snow color

Poinsettia Party in Snow

Cranberry Bell Song yardage

Cranberry Pine Needles

Such inspiring fabrics, don't you think?  They come in a large variety of precuts as well as the yardage.  I can definitely see myself making a table runner with some of these gorgeous prints!

Fabric coasters in three styles to make for little gifts

Front (at top) and back (below) of "patchwork" Coca-Cola coasters

I love coasters, and this time of year I especially love fabric ones that absorb condensation so much better than wood or other materials.  I have made a number of fabric coasters, most from this pattern that is so easy.  The Coca-Cola ones above are only a few of the ones I've made.

The pattern I'm sharing today, by Amy at Positively Splendid, is so versatile as it can be made in three different shapes: circle, square, and geometric.  

This looks so simple, yet by varying the fabrics and shapes one can make a lovely variety of coasters.  It's a free download from Positively Splendid, which is even nicer.  

Have fun with this idea!  Coasters can be paired with a gift of coffee, tea, hot cocoa or any other beverage to make a wonderful hostess gift or neighbor gift.

A fun Christmas fabric collection -- Cozy Cabin!

 Here is this week's Christmas fabric collection!  It is Cozy Cabin by Mia Charro for FreeSpirit Fabrics.  The description at Fat Quarter Shop reads: "Christmas Cabin features beautiful Christmas-inspired designs of lovely deer, curious hedgehogs, and studious owls, along with blooming poinsettias and cozy plaids."

Here are some of the items in this collection that caught my eye:

The Cozy Christmas quilt panel

Blue Owl Magic yardage

Linen Joy Pines yardage

Green Winter Floral yardage

Aqua Tartan Tradition yardage

What would you make with these fabrics?

An adorable Christmas pillow to sew!

 

Okay, so first I have to tell you about this gorgeous Christmas fabric, Santa's Tree Farm by Lisa Audit for Riley Blake Designs.  Then I can tell you about the pillow.  I had in mind to only post about fabrics once a week, but this fabric is too lovely, and is essential to the pillow project, so I have no choice but to post about it. 😃

Here's how Riley Blake Designs describes the fabric: "Grab a mug of cocoa as you peruse the main and coordinating prints of snowy scenes, woodland creatures, snowflakes, plaids, berries and boughs. The cozy palette of sky, green, snowy, forest and Rudolph will have you dreaming of a white Christmas and making all kinds of project plans for those wintry days ahead."

The link in the first paragraph should take you to the storyboard where all of the fabrics are pictured.   (There's also a free quilt pattern, among other goodies.)  They are beautiful!  Here are just a few of my favorites that I took screenshots of.

Here is Berries & Boughs in the Forest color, plus Green Plaid and Sky Snowflakes.

Snowy Plaid and Snowy Snowflakes

This is Berries & Boughs in the Sky color

Now, for the pillow.  It's Santa's Tree Farm Applique Pillow, and it's designed by Sara B. of @SaraBQuilts.  Sara has shared a great tutorial as to how she designed and sewed the pillow.

 
Isn't it sweet?  This is a project I would love to sew!

Mistletoe & Holly -- another gorgeous Christmas fabric collection!

 

1950s Christmas card

 Wow, here is more glorious Christmas fabric!  This Mistletoe & Holly collection is from one of my favorite designers, Beverly McCullough, who does so much more than simply designing fabrics.  Visit her at Flamingo Toes for more inspiration for sewing, embroidery, and more -  and to visit her shop.  You are sure to be charmed and inspired.

But on to Mistletoe & Holly!  I will just share a few of my favorites from this collection.

Mistletoe & Holly Forest main yardage

Cloud Snowflakes yardage

Sage Snowflakes yardage

Silver Mistletoe yardage

Sage Floral yardage

Cloud Plaid yardage

 
Aren't they beautiful?  I love the vintage look.  I can think of many projects I would use these fabrics for.  In addition to the yardage, there is a full variety of precuts in this collection and also a good number of panels to make different projects from.

More Readerville projects for handmade gifts

 

Today I will post links to a few more of the gifts I made using the Readerville fabric.  The tote was the first thing I made, and I actually made two of these for book-loving granddaughters.  

I had saved this pattern some time ago: Three-Ten Tote Bag -- three fabrics, ten steps -- and let me tell you, I am so thankful that I did save it and finally got around to making it.  As I mentioned, I made two and they will not be the last ones that I make.

I also made a bookmark, as mentioned earlier, and a pocket size tissue cover.

And then I also made a mug mat (I can't find the pattern I used, but you can see it is six squares of equal size for each side).

and coaster -- 

because both girls are aspiring writers and might enjoy coffee and/or a snack as they work at their computers.

This fun to make gift ensemble was very well received!

Easy Quilted Fabric Bookmarks

 

A bookmark is a small gift that almost anyone can use!  Even with all of the books available to read on phones, iPads or tablets, many people (of all ages) still prefer an actual book.  So a bookmark can make a wonderful stocking stuffer or is also a nice flat small gift to give or mail inside of a Christmas card.  

When I made the above tote bag from Readerville fabric by Kris Stammers for Maywood Studio, I had some scraps left over and wanted to make some coordinating pieces to go with the bag.  I had patterns for a coaster, mug rug and tissue holder, but had to go looking for a pattern for a fabric bookmark.

This one, from Pin Cut Sew Studio, really fit the bill: Easy Quilted Fabric Bookmark.  

 

Photo from Pin Cut Sew Studio

This pattern is a really nice one and I especially like that one can use smaller fabric scraps to piece the bookmarks, or just use an entire piece of fabric, as I did.  In the photo above, you can see that the bookmarks on the right and left are pieced from scraps, while the center one is made using larger scraps in their entirety and then simply quilted.  That's the method I chose to use, as I felt my fabric was busy enough without piecing it.  But I do love the look of the pieced and quilted bookmarks too.

Have fun with this idea!  I hope to share the links for the other Readerville projects too -- if not tomorrow, then later in the week.

Repurposing some simple sewing projects

 

Years ago I won a giveaway at Sew4Home, one of my very favorite sites to find tutorials for things to sew for the home, and for personal use as well.  The giveaway was for a $125 gift certificate from Fabric.com.  You can read the story here.

One of the things that I chose was this fun Christmas panel from Moda, In From the Cold.  It's designed by Kate Spain.  I looked on line a bit, thinking that I might find one of these available on Etsy or eBay.  And they may well be out there.   But I got sidetracked when I found a treasure trove of free patterns to use with In From the Cold.  You may want to check these out.  I plan to take a closer look at them once Christmas in July is over.  But back to the panel.

I think that the rectangular pieces (which are the only parts of the panel I have used so far) were intended to be turned into little pillows. 

However, I looked at them and saw mug rugs.

 

And so,  that's what I did with four of them -- used one rectangle each for top and bottom, with batting between, to make two mug rugs.   I am sure I took photos of these, but a search has not turned them up.  But one of them is shown above.  The second one was made from the red rectangle at top left of the panel and the teacup one just below it.

But I seldom have a need to use a mug rug, yet I liked them too much to give them away.  So I had just tucked them into my hutch with similar items.  

Fast-forward to this humid summer, where anything that is cold will sweat and get surfaces wet.  We were finding it an issue with the quart of cream and the small jug of maple syrup on the coffee bar at our little camp.  We had been solving the problem by keeping a paper napkin underneath these commodities, but I wanted something prettier, and something thicker, so I thought of the mug mats.  I'm using one and will swap it out for the other if it gets too damp.

What a perfect solution!  We are loving how well this repurpose is working on our coffee bar.

For more Christmas fabric inspiration, visit my virtual Christmas fabric stash on Pinterest.  There is so much glorious fabric out there!!

Aunt Mabel's pot holders

 

 My great-aunt Mabel had a wonderful idea that made bonus gifts out of scraps from other sewing projects.  She used to make flannel pajamas (maybe nightgowns for the girls, I'm not sure) for her grandchildren at Christmas time.  And then, from the flannel scraps plus other odds and ends for filling, she made sets of crazy-quilted pot holders to have on hand for small gifts.  Above you see a set of them.  I found maybe a half dozen sets of unused pot holders in my mother's linen closet.  What a find!

Here's another set:

And here is a very well-used pot holder which I finally brought myself to throw away:

 It helped to realize that I now have several unused sets to choose from!

She usually crazy-quilted the front of the holder and used a solid piece of flannel for the back.

Would you like to create some of these from your own flannel scraps?  I'm thinking that I would.  I found a great-looking tutorial here: Simple DIY Quilted Pot Holder from Scraps.

Happy sewing!

A fun little gift with a Christmasy touch

 

Recently our Nevada daughter and her family drove across country and spent ten days with us here in New Hampshire.  She brought me and her sister sweet little hostess gifts -- mug rugs she had purchased at the 2022 Ozarks Homesteading Expo, which their family had attended on their way East.  Mine has tufted titmice, as you see, and the one she brought for Carrie had chickadees.

I thought these mug mats were so cute!  And they look easy too.  The bird postcard motif looks as if it was stitched to the ticking stripe fabric by hand, using a buttonhole stitch and green floss.  

These could be made with any type of rectangular fabric motif.  I love mug rugs and am always wanting to make more for gifts.  Stay tuned ... I may actually make some similar ones at some point.

Christmas fabric fun!

 

A fabric from my own stash ...

 Here's this week's featured Christmas fabric!  I found this one at Fabricworm.  It's Camp Holiday by Jay-Cyn Designs for Birch Organic Fabrics.

These are modern designs that also have a vintage, or maybe more of a retro, vibe.  But they are so colorful and fun!

 

I'm working hard at trying to make sewing (which I dearly love) part of my life again.  I would love to make some small projects with one or more of these.

Christmas fabric fun!

 

Here's another edition of Christmas Fabric Fun, as seen here every Saturday for the 2022 edition of Christmas in July. I think of Saturdays as a day to do something fun, and what could be more fun than looking at Christmas fabric, right?  Maybe the only thing that would beat it is actually sewing something with Christmas fabric!  (At top, a screenshot of my Christmas Fabric Stash Pinterest board.)

I found this week's sweet Christmas fabric at Riley Blake Designs.  It's the Christmas Joys collection by  designer Lindsay Wilkes of The Cottage Mama.  I'll share a couple of screenshots.

I love the vintage look of these, especially the Christmas Joys Ornaments and the White Christmas Joys Plaid.   You can see the entire line here: Christmas Joys Storyboard.  

Sew much fun!  Can you think of a project you would make with one of these designs?

Great ideas for Christmas sewing in July

 

Photo from Moda Fabrics

Moda Fabrics had a great blog post some years ago (2014, but only recently discovered by me) titled:  Make it Today: Christmas in July. 

I will only share a couple of quotes, since I hope you will click over and read the article for yourself.

The author of the post notes, "Planning and sewing Christmas projects during the summer months makes good sense: not only will you have plenty of time to plan and complete Christmas sewing, but you also won't have trouble finding your favorite pieces from [the] brand new Christmas collections." 

"Not only is now the perfect time to shop for the latest in Christmas fabrics, but most importantly it's time to decide what to make with them! Don't get caught waiting until fall to begin: by then  you might not have enough time to complete all of your wonderful ideas."

The post also had some excellent suggestions for projects to work on in the summer months.  Here are some of the ideas:

• Christmas pillows
• Christmas table runners and table toppers
• Christmas wall hangings
• Christmas stockings
• Christmas ornaments
• Christmas tags
• Christmas kitchen items: pot holders, dish towels, and place mats
• Christmas gift bags of all sizes
   
• I'm also going to share with you a link to a post I wrote a few years back sharing some project ideas for  Using up some of one's Christmas fabric stash.  I hope it's helpful as well!