Crystal Madrilejos

[Image via Condé Nast]

The past few weeks have been full of Christmas present making, birthday gift buying, baby stuff planning and baby shower invite designing!

We’ve been making the majority of our presents for a couple of years now; which is fun, budget-friendly, as well as, time consuming. In my family, we mainly do presents for the kids and just a gift exchange for the adults since there are so many of us. Andrew’s immediate family is smaller so we buy gifts, but we’ve also made gifts for them in the past.

This year we got an early start and many presents have already been completed. I’m really excited about them and want to post them but I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise for some people!

So instead I will post about a few of the gifts that we’ve made in the past years. You can read past posts about Christmas gifts here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Apron and cookbook for Monica: Designed and sewn by Andrew. Made from thrifted fabric.

Bag O’ Shapes for Arwen: Designed, sewn and screenprinted by myself and Andrew. Made from canvas, thrifted fabric, and polyfill. This is something that we eventually hope to make more and sell in our etsy shop.

Doll for Abigail: Based on this design from a Japanese craft book. Crocheted scarf and a skirt made from a doily.

Leg Warmers for Abigail: I designed and crocheted these, but it was difficult because I’ve never made a pair before and I didn’t have Abigail to try them on as I was making them.

Crocheted Bag for Mariela: I crocheted this from a free pattern that I found at JoAnn Fabrics. Made with Bernat Handicrafter Cotton Naturals (you can find the pattern online here at the Bernat site, but you need to sign up for a free account.)

–c.

As if I didn’t have a million craft projects, add a baby into the mix and my brain is about to explode. Andrew has made me promise to not get carried away and take on too many things because sometimes even the most relaxing things can become stressful when you load them on nice and thick.

It’s been a dream of mine to make a quilt. For years and years, I’ve kicked the idea around in my head but it always seemed like such a daunting task since I’d never made a quilt in my life. Finally, I decided on a pattern that I found in Suzuko Koseki’s Patchwork Style that will be our baby’s first quilt and hopefully one that he or she will keep forever.

I’ve had this book for a few years now, first the Japanese version that I bought online and then more recently the English version that came out this year. At first I debated on whether I needed the English version, but I’m so happy that I bought it. The Japanese version was great for inspiration, but for a first time quilter I had to study the English version for a week before I was sure that I had it right. And not until I actually sat down and started sewing did it really start making sense. Here is my progress so far:

Luckily for me, the pattern doesn’t call for too much precision or for much planning. It’s very “decide as you go” which is nice because it’s less repetitive than I imagine a tradition quilt being. Each square is different. There really isn’t a color scheme and it’s sort of all over the place, but so far I’m happy with it. I just have about 24 more squares to go! Yikes.

I hope this baby like bright colors!

–c.

This is my newest sewing project, a request from one of my co-workers for her new niece. Cat pillow! You can see ones we’ve made in the past here and this is the very first one I ever made years ago.

–c.

I’ve started a new sewing project (a request from a co-worker) and it inspired me to re-list some items in our etsy store. You can buy 8″X10″ prints of these photos I took at my sisters old tailoring business.

Enjoy!

–c.

And to continue with the Christmas theme, the next installment of past Christmas presents. Christmas Present #2 given to my niece Abigail and my nephew Josef: Happy Little Monsters

These guys are made from thrift fabric, felt, foam and poly-fill. The are really simple to make and the kids seem to enjoy their tossability. They are pretty much just sewn cubes filled with a big foam piece and filled in with polly-fill. The number of faces you could use are infinite. I chose to just cut out felt and glue AND sew them on for extra reinforcement, which is a good idea if you are making them for kids that are prone to pulling things off and eating them.

Fondly,
Crystal