Christmas 2016: A Book, Some Sachets and a Lap Quilt (Oh My)!

Right now one of these gifts is going to be kind of a recap since I finished it earlier, but I kind of wanted to put it into one of these posts just to keep all the gifts together (as it were).

I'm feeling good about the couple of gifts I got done this week though, so let's recap the book first!

Gift One:  A Panel Project Book

This book I'm still undecided who I'm going to give to yet, either a young member of the family or my son will receive it for Christmas.

This was a panel project I bought for .50 at a yard sale ages ago and finally took out and finished.  I used some spare fleece scraps I had around the house and some actual batting for the batting in the book and used thread I already had on hand to complete it.

Total time to complete project:  About an hour and a half (I'm paranoid about getting my centers somewhat lined up or I would have been done quicker).

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I'll go with .50 for the panel since that's what I spent originally.

Gift Two:  Lavender Sachets

Next up is a gift for my sister-in-law.  About three years ago I thought I would try my hand at growing lavender in the herb garden.  I bought a fully grown plant to plant around the house and it was a good thing I did too because it never grew much at all that summer and I ended up harvesting what lavender there was and drying it.  I put said lavender in an air tight storage container and put it aside to use later.  I finally ran into said lavender and decided that it would be nice to make some sachets out of it for my sister-in-law.  Since she uses essential oils at her house I figure that the sachets might be appreciated to stick in between folded blankets or sheets to give them a nice fragrance.

Having been in air tight storage all this time the lavender remained nice and strong smelling, so I was happy with the final results.

The fabric I used was gifted to me and I just thought it was so pretty.  I don't really have enough of it to make like clothing out of, but I'm hoping to use it to make some pretty things with anyway.  Like the sachets :).

Total Cost to Make Gift:  Nothing.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About two hours between funneling in the lavender into the sachets and sewing them closed and things.

Gift Three:  Horse Lap Quilt

And finally up in this post is a gift I finished today for my daughter.  A lap quilt.

First, I confess I suck at quilting.  I normally do not have the patience to do it, really don't see putting in tons of hard work into a quilt because I believe they should be used and things and my pragmatic side just doesn't see the point in making something that you are going to use every day into a work of art (weird considering the amount of work I'll put into say embroidery, but I never said I made sense ;).  I do appreciate work others do though for sure on the quilting front, though, don't get me wrong.  So, this, by far is the most complex quilt I've ever made in my life.

I found a kit someone had cut out all the pieces to at a yard sale years, and I mean YEARS ago (like six at least) and I picked it up as it was .25 for all the pieces.  All the kit came with was cut out blocks and a paper pattern showing you the basics of how it should look when finished shoved unceremoniously into a plastic bag.  Projects like this scare me as geometry and me?  We don't get along (at all). But, I don't shirk from a challenge easily, so I was determined to see the project through.  Thus a long journey of me doing a little section here and there throughout the years followed with a lot of seam ripping involved as I'd line things up wrong and things.  This week I FINALLY attached the last three rows to the quilt and finished the sucker!

With the horses on the quilt I KNOW it will be a hit with the daughter unit as she is into all things animal related anymore.  She's constantly dragging her blanket out into the living room when she's cold, too, so I'm hoping the lap quilt will take the place of a giant sized twin comforter or quilt for keeping her legs warm while watching TV.

And hey, the diamond pattern is only slightly off kilter, so at least I didn't screw it up too badly.  I feel pretty good about that *laugh*.

The pink quilt binding was kind of a punt as that was the only quilt binding I had around here in any type of volume (read:  More than one container of it) and since it was for my daughter I figured pink would work.  I would have preferred blue, green, brown or black, but sometimes you just do what you can afford to do.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  Nothing in the current time.  The material for the backing was given to me  and the batting was left over from previous projects.  I did use up the rest of my quilt basting spray doing this project, though and had to switch to basting pins, which I suck at, so there are some faults in there that will drive me a bit batty over time.

Total Time to Make Gift:  I have no idea on how much time I've spent over the last however many years working on this on and off, but for the final "leg" I spent an hour yesterday getting the last of the top lined up where I wanted it and about two hours getting everything finished up today, so I'm going to call it three hours.

And there you go folks.  Some of the things I got done this week on the gift giving front so far.  How about you?  Working on anything?