Sewn Christmas Gifts

Hi Everyone,  Hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday spent with family and lots of good food. I would like to share some items that I sewed up as gifts for this Christmas. I wanted to finish quilting Plus Dash and Boxed In and Out as gifts but it just did not work out for me. I tend to over do it, but since part of our Christmas will continue on into possibly the middle of January, my quilts will get extra care and be completed at a later date.

Our two Grandsons and their Great Grandma all got Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 tablets for Christmas. I decided to make up sturdy cases for them that stand up by themselves when you want to watch long videos. The boys love Netflix.

I used a pattern that I found on Etsy. The pattern was originally able to be purchased and the designer could draw you up one to fit your tablet computer. Our grandson had an off brand tablet that was larger than these Samsung ones. I see that the designer Sew Spoiled has updated her pattern for 2014 and sells them for Ipads. We had purchased the original pattern back in 2012 and his tablet was a good inch wider and close to 2 inches taller than what his new one is. I had my outer cases made before I realized that there was a difference in size of tablets. Luckily I could just move the corner tabs and elastics to fit the smaller tablets.

I made this one for Grandma Beckie. I used some fabrics from my stash that I had made her a tote bag for her knitting two Christmases ago. The fabric was called Heart and Soul by Whimsicals for Red Rooster Fabrics. I had three of the prints left and I added solid brown and bound the edge of my pieced tablet top.

I used the third print as the lining of the case. I fused the lining with a medium weight iron on interfacing. The outside of the case had a firm interfacing Pellon Peltex or Timtex applied to it. Once I sewed the two top layers together, I slipped another piece of really heavy fiberous stablizer product into the case before I sewed the channels for the tile pieces. I cut a couple linoleum tiles instead of masonite boards.

Here is the tablet case standing up.

Here is Shaderek’s case. I made his out of a fun Transformers cotton print I found on sale at Walmart.

Yellow for the inside of his case, since BumbleBee is his favorite Transformers character.

Sawyer likes Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He calls them the Monster Turtles.

I pulled red cotton from my stash. I know one of the turtles wears it as a mask color.

I purchased the Ninja Turtles and Transformers fabrics to make the boys quilts. I purchased 3 yards of each, and cut off 1/2 yard to make the cases. I have enough of the half yard of fabric left that I am making padded cases for storing or traveling with the tablets. I do have some scraps left of the Heart and Soul prints that I have a case cut out for Grandma as well. I have some neoprene type rubber that I have rectangles cut out that will help pad the front and back of the tablets. I have not decided yet if I want to make the cases zippered or make them closed with a flap that slids behind an elastic strap. (I made myself a case with the elastic band for my Kindle and like that style of case.) Future quilts made from the Turtles and Transformers fabrics can stay at our house for when they visit, especially since I put all that work into making the Scooby Doo quilts for the boys.

I made a special pillow for the boy’s Great Grandpa. It is color striped like the Italian Flag. It was one of my first flanged pillows.

Our daughter cut out of black vinyl, their family name Lasorella in a really neat script font and added a black outline of the Italian map under it and fused it on to the pillow with her heat press. (I unfortunately do not have a photo of it.) I made my own pillow form from upcycling a pillow top mattress pad. The wife of one of my husband’s coworkers works at a large name mattress factory and apparently employees are allowed to have the defective tops. Two king size mattress tops were given to my husband as they knew that we made furniture and did our own upholstery at times. It was not what my husband thought it was going to be, but when cut up and sewn together, it makes wonderful pillow forms. It is five different layers of foam and tuffed together with large circles and awesome machine quilting.

And the last gift I presented on Christmas Day was my finished High Tea batik quilt to Grandma Beckie. She loved it and was shocked that I would give her such a gift. Her birthday is January 1st so it made it better that I said it was a joint birthday/Christmas gift.

I will be sharing these finished items with various linky parties. Many thanks for the continued support of my blog readers. I hope you all have a healthy and safe New Years. I have many new quilty projects to share in the upcoming year.

Happy Sewing,

Shelley