Christmas Gifts 2014 | Sweet Shop Sewing

I’ve been making ties this week for some family members.

I know it’s kinda boring that they’re all from the same fabric, but it’s cheaper that way so that’s what I did. Plus, I really like this fabric. It’s some home decor fabric from fabric.com.

Two of these ties are for some really tall guys, so I lengthened my tie pattern. I added two inches to the end of the front tie piece.

I slashed the pattern and added those two inches.

And of course I had Jon model one of the ties.

I think it looks good with the shirt and pants he’s wearing.

P.S. I made some baby pants using my trusty Oliver + S Field Trip Cargo pattern for my nephew too. Too bad I didn’t have anyone to model them.

I have been busy sewing a load of Christmas presents for family. Last week, I made these reversible tote bags. I’ve never made a bag like this before, but I used a free class from Craftsy called Bag Making Basics with Kristin Link to learn how to make these. The class was great and they were fun to make.

The dandelion and chevron fabrics are a nice medium weight twill. I really like these fabrics and they were easy to sew with. The yellow fabric is some quilting cotton. I wanted to use twill for all of it, but I needed yellow and I was having a hard time finding solid yellow twill.

For the lining of the bag with the chevron exterior, I used some fabric I had left over from when we made our curtains and some couch pillows. The quilting cotton and the heavy, polyester curtain fabric were a bad match because the cotton had some give to it but the polyester had no give at all. I had to tuck a little bit of the quilting cotton over because it was impossible to ease it all when I attached the lining and the exterior together. I was sad about the tuck, but at least it’s a small tuck I guess.

I loved making these bags. I am thinking I will make these when I need gifts for a long time to come.