Christmas Presents

My sewing machine came out of retirement in September '09 and was put through its paces in style!  I concentrated on the girls in the family and made each of them a different bag using patterns from Nicole Mallalieu Design and learning all the time. The great thing about Nicole's patterns is that they walk you through every single step with detailed explanations and diagrams - it was really so easy to understand.  The patterns are printed on paper that is far more durable than most, so they can be used over and over. ... and I did just that.

So, what did my folks get for Christmas?  Take a peek:

These three identical bags went to two nieces and a goddaughter.  They were made from the Evening Bag pattern.

This City Bag was a present for one of my sisters-in-law.

I made several Clutch Bags in different fabrics for different people:

And this Sling Bag in a lovely fabric called Mojo was for my other sister-in-law:

Not wishing to leave him out I made my brother-in-law a tie using a Burda pattern and some wonderful Japanese fabric: 

Last but not least, this Origami Bag (my name for it because I couldn't read the Chinese name!) was made as a nightdress case for my niece in Australia using instructions found online:

                                     

Very girly!

Having not sewn anything in years, I more than made up for it in the space of just a couple of months.  After a short break for the holidays, I started trying out a few more patterns and thinking about different things to make.

But that's for another post.

The Christmas presents seemed to go down well which was a huge relief on the day!