Christmas Pass-it-outs: Check!

 Remember that I talked about making "pass-it-outs" for Christmas. You know, the little things that you like to hand out to people to let them know you're thinking of them but not a big enough or expensive enough thing that they feel the need to reciprocate.

 Just some little something to say "Merry Christmas" but not anything that would cause any guilt over not having something to give back.

The few times I've had enough time and forethought to make these, I've really enjoyed it. But one of those things is usually missing so it's rare that I do.

   

Well, thanks to the sewing ministry, I have managed to have time to make my pass-it-outs and finish them up. 

And, lots of scrapbusting is done too. It's a win-win.

Score one for me having a start on Christmas in June -- didn't even have to wait for July.

Another Scrap Busting Project

 I wasn't sure how this one would go but I gave it try because I kept seeing the video for it on Facebook. This isn't the video but it is similar.

As I said before, Rugrat is crazy about the whole red, white, and blue thing so I have lots of fabric scraps in that vein. 

This can be closed using a sewn on strap or with the handy little snap like in the video.

In a house with three girls, this comes in handy. But I could see it being useful for any number of things you want to corral. It could hold cash, credit cards, or gift cards. It could be used in a board game to keep the pieces and/or cards from going everywhere. A little shorter and it would be perfect for business cards (or the address cards I keep to hand out so that people won't have to write down all my info when they need it). Lots and lots of uses that I can think of. How about you? What would you use it for?

More Summer Sewing Series

 The scrap busting continues over here.

This little project uses slightly larger (but not much) pieces of fabric than the last two.

But I am thoroughly convinced it's probably something everyone could use. In fact, I have actually made several of these by cross stitching a design and then sewing it together. I even have one of those cardboard booklets with a bunch of design patterns on it for cross stitch.

I'm a little shocked it never occurred to me to just sew one up.

Rugrat is a lover of all things red, white, and blue. I won't tell her birth country. She has fully embraced the American color combo though. 

As a result, I have lots of patriotic fabric scraps.

I was able to make a couple of these in a matter of minutes. It literally took me longer to iron and cut out than the sewing part did.

Probably the best idea on this one is the little clip. Easy to clip to your purse or in your car.

Who can't use a travel tissue holder?  I think this is going on my Christmas pass-it-outs list.

I enjoyed this video tutorial for these. And this woman is my kind of people because she has lots of scrap busting ideas.

Summer Sewing Series 2025 - Part 2

 After getting going with the little bag for Rugrat, I was ready to do some scrapbusting.

All sewing fiends accumulate a bin, bag, drawer, or room full of scraps from their various projects. That is usually the point at which they begin quilting if they haven't already been.

You may or may not remember but I am NOT a quilter. I am pretty sure I am just not precise enough or math-sy enough to make it work out right probably as well because I can be a little too perfectionist about some things. Others I slap together and call it good but quilts aren't one of them. Maybe I'll get over it one day. Who can tell?

But I do know that there are others like me. And the reason I know that is there are whole posts and books and websites devoted to scap-busting with nary a quilt in sight.

One of the first things I did was these key rings wristlets I mentioned the other day.

These can literally be made from almost nothing. In fact, I usually toss the scraps that I cut off of the size needed for these. They are literally a bias tape sized piece of fabric, a d-ring, and a clip. The clips and d-rings can be purchased from Walmart (and multiple other places) inexpensively. If you plan to make a lot of these, just go ahead and get them in bulk online for even less. This video shows you three different ways to make them. I used the last since I was just using up extra purse strap but I think the others would probably turn out nicer.

The next thing I tried was this nifty little notebook pen holder. I think the third one was the charm. I figured out to just use some light interfacing on the large pieces.

You can see how floppy the pink one is. I didn't use any interfacing on it. On the other hand, the butterfly one had Heat n' Bond on it which made it much too stiff. It was difficult to turn and didn't really want to cooperate with the whole holding a pen thing. The nursery rhyme fabric one turned out perfectly though. Light interfacing was enough without being too much.

I followed this video tutorial for these even though I still had to mess with things. But I think I have the hang of it now. And Rugrat didn't mind taking the butterfly one off my hands either.

I'm thinking about making a few of these for little Christmas time pass-it-outs (you know, the little inexpensive gifts that you can make a lot of to hand out and let them know you were thinking of them but no need to reciprocate). The key rings would be good too. 

But I haven't decided yet.

Summer Sewing Series 2025

 The school year is a little too crazy and too busy for me to do much sewing, no matter how much I enjoy it. 

But, in the summer, IT IS ON.

And I got an early start this year as you saw from last week's post. Now that I have completed those pre-projects, all I can say is...

"And so it begins."  :)

My theme this year is apparently scrapbusting.  Usually, I have a list of things I want to make running in my head. If I had not carved out time to do my "pre-projects," I would have begun with those.

This year, however, I only had one thing on my list. So that's where I started -- all while compiling a list of scrap buster projects.

Last year, the youth group had quite a few little meetups on the regular during the summer. It just filled Rugrat's little social butterfly heart. And she made sure to check that the youth minister was planning them again this year. While mentioning it about 159 times to us as well to make sure we didn't forget.

One of them is a group lunch outing after a Bible study. While she has other commitments during the study, everyone is invited to show up for the lunch outing. Which happens to fall about 30 minutes after her commitment. And is about 10 minutes from the church building. 

It is perhaps her favorite thing because she gets to order for herself, pay (and bring back my change), and eat out while hanging out with her friends and NOT her parents. All her favorite things.

But she doesn't like to carry her purse (it's big so I don't blame her) and her phone doesn't have that kind of cover that has a spot for money. So I let her choose some fabric and put together this cute little bag from this online tutorial.

The flap is actually not wonky. I just didn't realize I had it laying that way when I took the picture.

When you open it up, there is a zippered pocket for coins and such.

Behind the zippered pocket is a very slim pocket that is perfect for a phone to go in. And in front of it is a space big enough to put any other essentials while still being quite small.

Perfect for an afternoon outing when you don't want to carry everything in your hands.

I had intended to make it a crossbody, but Rugrat said she wouldn't wear it that way so we measured how long to make the shoulder strap and attached it with some clips and d-rings.

I still had extra strap left over though. So I made some wristlet type key rings. They could also be used as a strap if you didn't want to use the shoulder strap, I suppose.

Obviously, practice makes better because the second one turned out a little better than the first. I'm thinking I might have to find a way to use one of these myself.

I have no illusions that Rugrat will actually use this bag but it was a fun little warm-up project.

Now, on to the scrap busting.

One More Little Pre - Summer Sewing Series Project

 Last summer, after attending one of the sewing ministry meetings, I came home and went on a hunt. It was a short hunt because I found what I was looking for pretty quickly.

You see, we had a visitor from another congregation where the sewing ministry is pretty large and VERY active. She told us about some of the projects they are involved in and invited us to help out with any we were interested in.

One of their ministry projects is a midwife kit. It involves putting together a kit for a midwife to take to a birth she is attending. Among the soap, needle and thread, towel, baby blanket, and other necessaries is an infant gown made from someone's old soft t-shirt. 

Hubs and I donate blood frequently. We volunteer at different events. And are involved in lots of things. We enjoy all of these things. But they often come with a t-shirt.  T-shirts are one thing that seem to multiply all on their own in our closet. So this seemed like a not only helpful and useful thing for this poor mom but also one that could be helpful and useful for us. And, once I began, I had at least two others offer me t-shirts they had. I guess that is not just an US problem. :)

I whipped up four gowns in short order. They were fun to make and didn't require anything more than the t-shirt if done creatively. I carried them off to the next meeting to show the ladies.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago, our fearless leader asked if I might give a demonstration of how to make the gowns at our next meeting. Yikes! What did I do!

I went online to print another version of the pattern for everyone. Oopsie! Not only had the original site shut down but the link to the free pattern was now password protected. I decided I would just use my original copy to make everyone a tissue paper pattern. Then, I ran off copies of the directions I had printed out on used paper and hoped it wouldn't show through on their copies too badly.

Our leader had been in touch with her friend from the other congregation. When she told her we planned to make some of the gowns, her friend asked if we needed any shirts and gave her 100! As in ONE HUNDRED shirts. After my demonstration, some of the ladies took a bag of 10 shirts home (plus the one we'd been using to practice on) to churn out some baby gowns.

It's a fairly simple process but the sleeves require some creativity if the sleeves of  the shirt aren't long enough. I still had lots of scraps from Rugrat's t-shirt quilt that I could use if needed so I didn't worry too much.

Our living room became a baby gown making station for a few days. The card table, ironing board, and my sewing machine all sat in there while I worked in stages on the lot of them.

When I got down to inserting the drawstrings, I even roped Rugrat into helping out. She picked it up pretty quickly after this first one.

Despite having grumbled a little about being conscripted, she was pretty proud of herself for figuring it out.

And for how fast she got at it.

Before long, I had finished all my demo samples as well as my bag of 10 and the one practice one. That made 15. 

Throwing in the four I had made before which several people had taken home to use as an example, I managed to make 19 total. Not too shabby.

While these are fun and fairly quick to make, I don't think I'll want to make any more for a while. I'm a little baby gowned out.

Plus, now that school's out, I get to begin my summer sewing projects. 

Note: I apologize for not linking to the site where I got this pattern free but as I mentioned it is no longer available.  If I see that this one is available again, I'll link it here. Until then, I'm sure a quick search can find a different pattern online for free. There were several when I looked last summer.

Another Little Pre - Sewing Summer Series Project

 So, as I mentioned, being part of the sewing ministry group has encouraged me to pull out my sewing machine a little quicker.  As a result, even before my usual summer sewing has begun, I've been making some pretty quick but useful things.

One thing I've tried to stop doing is buying gift bags. For some time, I have preferred to get reusable bags for gifts when I can. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of them available unless you want to pay a bit more. When you do find them inexpensively, they tend to be kind of cheesy or intended for a kid's birthday party at best.

I realized though that I have several smaller pieces of fabric in my stash. Unfortunately, there aren't many 10th graders (11th grader now) who are into clothing for their 'big doll.'  I had always saved all these small but good sized pieces from projects because they made clothing and accessories for that doll. So what to do with them now?

One thing that doesn't seem to fall out of favor is gifts. We have a pretty thriving congregation and babies, in particular, seem to be arriving at a steady rate. 

A few months ago, a friend was about to have a 'bonus' baby girl. Knowing that they likely had most of what they needed already (or were getting it in the 'sprinkle' our church was sponsoring for them), I figured a gift card might be the most useful thing. I set it in the lap of a small stuffed animal from their list but didn't really want to go get a little gift bag for it.

I've mentioned my love of drawstring bags before. And even made a drawstring backpack.

I noticed some perfect pink fabric in my stash so I made a little drawstring bag to put it in. It was the kind of drawstring bag that could be used to corral something small in the diaper bag or wash all those miniature socks without losing one. Or just for baby to play with.

I was pretty happy with my solution. And I didn't mind making a tiny bit more space in my bin either.

Next came a wedding shower. Hey, hey! 

I found a very pretty little fabric that I can't even remember getting. And then found a bead in my bead jar that matched it perfectly for the string.

I picked a small gift from their registry and went the gift card route again since I wasn't sure about their plans after the wedding.

All bagged up and ready to go.

I really liked this method of using my stash and making these gift bags too. 

So I decided to make up a tag for them. On one side, I put a list of uses for drawstring bags that I found on the internet. And, trust me, this wasn't all of them at all. But there is only so much space on these even if I made them fairly large (about the size of an index card).

enlarge to see my list

On the other side, a simple "to:" sufficed because I included a card inside the bag with the gift.

On the next one I made (another baby gift), I threaded the drawstring through the hole of the tag before securing it inside its casing.  That made it look much better and assured it wouldn't fall off as easily.

I am loving this project. Not only does it add a personal touch, but it also gives them an extra gift that can be quite useful and I'm not buying one more thing that will go in the trash at the end of the day. It's a win for everyone.