WIP Wednesday & Yarn Along

What a busy, busy week of crafting around here! (Hence my scarcity in this space.) I feel almost ready to slow down and be more present in the holidays now though since most of my crafting is complete.

My biggest accomplishment of the week is the completion of Finn's car quilt. (Details about the top are here and the backing are here.) I finally finished all that quilting using my regular sewing machine.

(Ever tried to cram yards of material through the 4 inch square opening in the arm of a sewing machine? I don't recommend it.)

The binding is just the flannel backing cut 2.5 inches wider than the top and folded over twice onto the front and zigzag stitched.

I have to say that I'm thrilled with how it came together, and I hope Finn will be too! I found a yard of car flannel (from Riley Blake's Wheels line) that I forgot I bought on sale several months ago. I had the intention of using it to make Finn a pair of pj pants, but since that same print, in cotton, is in the quilt and the backing of the quilt coordinates, I decided to make Finn a matching pillowcase.

Now he's getting a whole bedding set!

I used this tutorial and the quilt backing for the trim. I also had a brown circle print leftover from Finn's crayon holder from the same line that I used as a trim between the flannels.

I don't think I've written much in the past about our gift wrapping system for birthdays and Christmas, although you can see them in this post from almost 2 years ago, but for many years now we've forgone the wrapping paper in favor of cloth bags. In the beginning we got some grief, "won't the kids be disappointed with no paper to tear?!", but it's amazing how attached the kids are to the memories of our wrapping bags.

The Charlie Brown prints are the favorites and so I have to make sure that each child gets at least one present in a Charlie Brown bag. This year when I went to wrap Finn's pillow/pillowcase/quilt gift, I realized that my 2 larger wrapping bags were already in use. A quick stop by Joann's, and I managed to find 4 more yards of Charlie Brown fabric. Woohoo! So the big Charlie Brown-laden bag in the right corner of the photo below is the new bag. I keep my bags really simple, sewing up 3 sides and leaving a 3-inch turn-under at the top. Just below the turn under on one of the side seams, I sew about a yard of grosgrain ribbon, folded in half, into the seam. A very festive pile of presents under the tree!

I'm joining Ginny's Yarn Along again today with my present WIPs. Elizabeth and I were flipping through this book when I first received it, and she declared that she would like a beret for Christmas, "in dark blue but not navy". So here's my attempt at a "dark blue but not navy" beret for Elizabeth's stocking.

I've also been perusing Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven trying to get inspired for some new dishes over the next week of celebrating and company. My other WIP is a knitted snowman who will be part of a craft exchange. He's almost finished...just needs a scarf!

I hope all of your holiday crafting is coming along nicely!