Tag Archives: pajama pants

Christmas Gifting

Hello all and Happy New Year to you. I hope the holidays were pleasant for all of you. While this year was definitely not how we normally celebrate, we did enjoy them. We scheduled a Zoom call with our three boys who live away from home and that was great. Also, my son set up a Zoom so we could just quietly watch the girls’ Christmas morning excitement. That was especially great – seeing them so excited, opening their gifts. Sometimes I wish I could just have a webcam to the girls’ play room and watch them all the time. However, that would also mean I would get absolutely nothing done. They are so entertaining.

This year our tradition of making some holiday gifts continued. I wanted to show you some of them.

Bookmarks!

Have you made these bookmarks before? There are loads of tutorials for them on the internet and they are super fun. It is made to slip over the corner of the page to keep your place. I used a stack of miscellaneous charm squares I had for these. I tucked them into cards for my sisters and included them in gifts to (most of?) the family. Coincidentally, I also received one in the mail from a quilting friend which was a fun surprise!

Pajama Pants

I made three pair of pajama pants. The two above were made for my parents. I believe this is their first pair of matching pj’s and I am hoping they will take a picture of both of them when they wear them.

Opening gifts.

They seemed quite happy with the idea of matching jammies though I did get them different color t-shirts to go with them.

Julia and Townes

This is the only picture I could find of Julia in her new pj pants. Cute polar bear flannel, right? You will also see Townes in this photo. Julia is fostering him for the shelter. This is the third dog she has fostered and he is such a sweet animal.

Wooden Christmas Trees

My husband made a set of these sweet Christmas trees, enough for one for each of our children plus our parents. I love these and they are definitely one of my favorite of all the things he has made. So simple and really pretty.

Julia painted this wooden ornament for me. A while back, Ray sliced a branch into small rounds and gave them to her to craft with. She has made several ornaments so far. Mine is so sweet. She made one for Ray as well but he keeps it in our room and I failed to grab a picture of it for this post. It is a cute camping scene of a lone tent in the mountains. Perfect for him!

I also made two aprons, one for Julia and one for my daughter-in-law, Shar. I don’t (yet?) have any good photos of those gifts though.

I do love making gifts for people. I am happy to see Julia also making some gifts. It makes gift giving even more special. Today is going to be the take-down-the-holiday-decorations-day. How about you? As much as I love Christmas, I am ready to get the house back to normal. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Projects with Vintage Sheets

It is no secret that I have this crazy love of vintage everything.  I have posted many times about different thrifting trips where I have found little vintage treasures. It is fun to find uses for some of these little pieces. My sisters know of this passion of mine. Last month my youngest sister was cleaning out her in-laws house as they prepared to sell it.  She set these measuring cups aside for me, knowing I would want them. They are worn, bent and dented and I love them.

My collection of vintage sheets is quite large at this point. I often cut them into fat quarters and bundle them for sale in my shop. Last summer I made a queen size quilt and two throw pillows for the sewing room/guest room.

Two weeks ago I was cutting fat quarters and bundling them up for the shop when I realized I was amassing quite a stack of sheets. In an effort to use some of the scraps, I thought it would be fun to make a bunting with torn strips of the scraps I have from my sheets.  My plan was to hang it somewhere in the booth at the quilt show I worked earlier this month. I am not sure if you noticed it but I had it hanging around the table I used for cutting and transacting sales. Look at the table on the left in the picture below.

After cleaning up everything from the show I hung the bunting from a little shelf above the guest bed in my sewing room. Doesn’t it look cute with the quilt on the bed??

At about the same time, I decided to make a pair of pajama pants with one of the yellow sheets. The sheets are usually very soft as they have been used and laundered. I used a simple pattern, Simplicity 3935, to make them. It takes about as long to pin the pattern and cut the two pieces as it does to stitch them together. They are so, so comfortable. Here is the front – yes, they are a little wrinkled. I am not much for ironing my pj pants.  😉

Now the back side – which looks much like the front!  I put a little label on the inside of the back waistband so I would know which was which.  Otherwise, you don’t know until you put them on backward and wonder why they don’t fit right. Ha!

Mostly I like to lay on the guest bed and marvel that my pj’s match the quilt. Not really though…

I do love the soft colors and patterns in these sheets. While I only list fat quarter bundles in my shop, I do sell whole sheets if someone wants one to back a quilt or make something like my really cool pajama pants.  If you are ever of a mind to do this, email me and I will send you pictures of what I have available.

I want to show you a fun gift I received for Mother’s Day. My daughter somehow downloaded the logo to my business and had coffee mugs made for me. What a great surprise.

Aren’t these cute?? I just love them!

Just one more thing.  I have been following a series that my friend Mari is publishing over at Academic Quilter. She is on a tear organizing her sewing room, purging unused books, patterns and tools, and going through her stash and getting rid of fabrics she doesn’t want. She has been publishing these wonderfully inspiring posts with all kinds of suggestions for taking this project on. The posts are well written and divide the projects into manageable segments. I have to be honest and admit that to this point, I have only read the posts and wished I was doing the work. It has been so crazy lately and I haven’t spent the time to implement her ideas and suggestions. However, maybe you will have the time to take some of the ideas and put them to good use! Go check it out, if you haven’t already joined in.

Linking to some of my favorites – check out the list at the top of the page, under Link Ups!