Quick Christmas Sewing

The time around Christmas, when Gaby visits us, is usually, apart from all the family cooking and feasting and all the other activities we do together, also time for some last minute frenzied sewing. I'm just that kind of person, I love it when I can make something with my own hands for my close and extended family.

This summer I sewed some curtains for Gaby's kitchen and as an addition to my Christmas presents I decided to sew a matching tablecloth for the kitchen table. I bought a big piece of fabric and made two tablecloths - one for Gaby and Vali's kitchen and a smaller tablecloth for our kitchen table too, out of the remaining fabric. Yes, I love using up all the fabric, when possible!

Earlier this year I made a t-shirt for Vali, which he loved, so I bough another piece of cotton viscose fabric and made him another t-shirt for Christmas.

The fabric is divinely soft and pleasant on touch, I really hope he likes his present.

Pattern: Burda #132 from 12 / 2020

Size: 46

Fabric: cotton viscose knit

Time to make: 2 days

This year Gaby joined a folk dance club in Vienna and she asked for a simple black t-shirt and short black skirt for her folk dance practice. For the t-shirt I chose a true-and-tried-many-times Burda basic t-shirt pattern - 6820. My light modifications - I shortened the sleeves to make them 7/8 and raised the neckline, which I finished with a simple covering band.

Pattern: Burda 6820

Size: 36, shortened sleeves, raised neckline

Fabric: black cotton knit

Time to make: 1 day

The skirt is a shortened version of the skirt of the Willow Wrap Dress by Love Notions, which I made this summer for myself, so I knew the pattern. It is super simple, with two seams at the sides and a waistband with an elastic.

Pattern: Willow Wrap dress by Love Notions

Size: xs, shortened

Fabric: french terry

Time to make: 1 day

Pencil Box and Tablecloth

Doesn't that sound like the title of a fairytale :) Actually it all began a bit like in the old tale about the button that lead to buying a matching coat :))) I wanted to make a fully lined project box but I didn't have a suitable fabric. So, instead of buying the fabric for the box, I decided to buy enough for a tablecloth and make a box out of the remnants.

I was browsing through various tutorials, when my daughter saw the cute boxes and asked me to make her one for her pencils. Cotton is a fairly weаk fabric for a pencil box, so it occurred to me to make the outer box out of a pair of her old jeans and use the tablecloth fabric as the lining:

I followed the instruction of this tutorial, applying fusible interfacing only to the lining.
To make it more interesting and girly (and much more difficult for me) I cut out a heart from the fabric and embroidered it carefully on one side of the box, and on the other I stitched a beaded butterfly:

The red zipper was her suggestion - bull's eye idea!