Craft Wrap-Up

So I promised a post of the holiday crafting that I did and here it is! First up, this year 'the kids' gave my mom a trial subscription to one of the local CSAs here in San Diego. To go along with it, we picked up some reusable grocery bags. In order to spice them up a bit, I drew some common grocery items on the large grocery bags and various fruits and veggies on the produce bags.

The canvas weave actually made it really easy to free hand relatively straight lines. I used a pencil to draw out my picture and then I went over and colored in each bag with permanent fabric markers. I'm happy with how they came out except for the broccoli bag...I meant to make the stalks lighter and the tops darker (you know, like real broccoli), but I had already colored in the stalks when I realized I messed up. Oh well! :-P

As for other gifts, I also made a few modified versions of the Relaxing Eye Pillow from Denise Schmidt Quilts. I didn't both with all the patchwork pieces because honestly, it seemed like a lot of precise work for something that was supposed to look like it was patched together haphazardly. I ended up making three pillows like the one laying flat in the photo with a pieced top and a solid back. I also made another 4 pillows with solid tops and bottoms.

All the pillows were made out of scraps I had on hand so the only expense was the flax seed and buckwheat for the filling. All in all, these probably cost me about $1 each to make. It also took every ounce of restraint I had not to mention that to all the recipients...especially since several of them went to the partners at my firm! But I did good and when they thanked me and told me how much they liked them, I managed to avoid telling them they were made from scraps and cost me practically nothing :-P