If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet, then here are some some ideas for £20 or less:

• Kim Hargreaves Winter Blooms – £16.95
• Weave Your Own Scarf Kit – £12.50
• Knit Pro Acrylic Interchangeable Needle Starter Set – £11.99
• NEW!! Lucy Neatby’s: The Brand New Knitter DVD – £16
• Rowan’s Greatest Knits – £20
• Knit Kit – £13.95
• Little Luxury Knits – £14.99
• Sock it to ‘em Kit – £10.50
• Knit Pro Nova Metal DPN Sock Needle Set – £19.95
• The Xmas Forest quilted wall hanging pattern – £4.95
• A Melly and Me sewing pattern – £6.85
• Knit Pro Symfonie Wood Crochet Hook Set – £19.95

Today is the last posting day for second class post.  The first class post deadline is 21st December.  Don’t forget we’re doing free shipping when you spend £30 or more too.

I don’t about you, but if I have time, I like to give handmade Christmas cards to my family and special friends.  It is nice to make the extra effort for the people you’re closest to.  So a few of our friends will be getting these cards this year:

handmade Christmas cards

They were so easy to make.  We used some card blanks bought from a local craft store and a piece of Novelty Labels and Classic labels Christmas fabric. From the fabric, we cut around each square label.  These were mounted onto a small piece of wadding which was slightly smaller than the size of the square.  We fixed the fabric to the wadding, wrapping the edges around the wadding so it was nice and neat.

The red and green card blanks already have square apertures cut into them which were the right size for the squares.  So we were able to fit the now padded squares into them and sealed them up.  The white card is plain, so we just glued it the square to the front of the card.

Easy peasy!

I know there’s not much time to crochet this before Advent starts on Tuesday, but I just spotted this free crochet pattern on Rowan’s website to crochet an advent calendar.  It looks really simple – just lots of pockets with numbers on them, hung from a pretty hanger – for you to fill with whatever goodies you like.

Free Rowan crochet pattern for an unusual advent calendar

The pockets are actually felted and the numbers stitched with Rowan Shimmer

You can download the pattern here.

Our next idea for Christmas sewing projects is this little Santa Sack.

Little Santa Sack

For this bag we used the Classic Stripe and Classic Scroll Christmas fabrics.

It has an oval shaped base, which has been stiffened, so that the big will sit nicely. The sides of the bag were made by sandwiching a piece of thin wadding with the two pieces of fabric.  This was then quilted in a simple grid pattern.  It was attached to the base piece and sewn up the back to form the bag.

The top can be folded over to show the contrasting inner fabric.  The wadding was smaller than the actual fabric, so it actually stops 5 or 6 cm short of the top of the bag.  This means that the part you fold over isn’t padded and therefore folds over better.  We put a coordinating tie around it and fixed with a loop at the back, under the fold, so that it didn’t fall off.

If you try making your own “santa sakc” like this, do let us know.  We’d love to see your own version!

Here’s an idea that my Mum came up for the Christmas table this year:

Christmas placemats

She used the gold stars fabric for the main part and then cut borders from a piece of the Novelty Borders Christmas Fabric.

Novelty Borders Christmas Fabric

She sewed them together and used some special heat resistance wadding. She backed them with a piece of the Classic Stripe Christmas Fabric.

Striped Christmas Fabric

Why not have a go yourself and brighten up your Christmas table with some placemats of your own.  If you would like more details about how these were made, then please do write a comment below.

We’ve been getting ready for Christmas for a little while now and in the past few days we whipped up these advent calendars.

We love the idea that you can fill them with whatever treats you like, and they can be brought out from year to year and even passed down to the next generation eventually.

They’re dead easy to make too…

Each fabric panel contains the backing piece and the pocket pieces and is clearly marked where to cut and where to sew.

1. Cut out the backing piece.
2. Cut out the pocket pieces.  Pockets aren’t always singles.  Sometimes the pocket are in strips of 2, 3, 4 or 5 depending on the advent calendar design.  Pay close attention to the correct cutting lines indicated on the panel.
3. Iron over the seam allowances at the top of each pocket strip.
4. Stitch along the top edge.
5. Make box pleats between each pocket on a strip by bringing the sides together to meet on the dotted line and ironing.
   
6. Press over the other seam allowances at the sides and bottom of each pocket to enclose the pleat.
7. Pin each pocket and pocket strip in place on the backing piece and tack in place.
8. Stitch the pockets on to the backing piece.
9. Layer the calendar onto a piece of wadding and then onto a piece of christmassy fabric.  The back layer should have an allowance of an inch or two around the sides and bottom and 3 or 4 inches at the top.
10. Tack the 3 layers together.
11. Quilt the calendar by stitching along various parts of the design, e.g. around the edge of the sleigh or tree and around the edge of the whole calendar.
12. Fold the side and bottom edges of the christmassy fabric over and stitch to the front, to create a neat border.
13. Fold the top over to create a sleeve in which you can slide a pole to hang the calendar up.

You can buy the sleigh advent calendar, christmas tree advent calendar and christmas fabric from our shop.