One Hour Basket Teacher Gift

With the holiday giving season coming up, I want to share a bunch of the gifts I’ve made and never shared!

You probably remember the last gifts I shared about and probably remember the UW color scheme… Well, I kinda bought a lot more fabric than I needed for the first gift. So, I decided the end of school year present would be made with he same fabric! Every year since preschool, I have made tote bags for his teachers, with this label as a pocket on the outside.  Last year was the first year he had a male teacher and I wasn’t sure he’d want a tote bag, but I couldn’t not use the label… You can order the printed labels from Spoonflower. And you can download the label here.

So I went with a one hour basket. Yep, one of those one hour baskets that take longer than an hour! I always use the same tutorial I used the first time I made this, from Kelby Sews. It takes me longer than hour becuase I alwyas make them pieced, rather than just a piece of fabric on the exterior.

I started this one by cutting out a bunch of triangles. Did I say a bunch? Way too many… I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of them!

I didn’t measure anything when I cut the triangles, but I did try to cut them as close to right triangles as possible without measuring or rulers. Then I sewed them together. Then I trimmed them. I wanted a certain height, but width I wasn’t concerned about. So I aligned my ruler so that I got a 5″ rectangle with the top and bottom edges aligned with the corners of the blocks.

You can tell that they aren’t all the same width, right? And lastly, I quilted as you go onto the batting that gives the basket it’s shape.

These baskets are great and you can give them to anyone for any occasion really! Every year I give the neighbors cookies. How awesome would it be to deliver them in one of these baskets?!? How about one ot hold all the Christmas cards? What would you gift these for?

 

 

Handmade Teacher Gifts

Halloween is over, and as much as I want to keep sewing for Halloween, I’m going to take a break and move on to handmade gifts! Not quite Christmas posts, but a few gift idea posts are coming up before I move into full on Christmas!

What do you do for Teacher gifts at the Holidays? I’ve always made handmade somethings! One year I made a two in one pouch for a teacher and one year I made a personalized pouch with the teachers initial pieced on it. I forget what else! ha! And then for the last two years, I’ve made these adorable little quilted ‘folios’ from the book Pretty in Patchwork: Holidays.

I’m a little obsessed with buying quilting and cross stitch magazines, but I rarely buy books. One year, I found this book is  super sale bin at the bookstore and I bought it. I have to say it’s one of my favorite project books I have! The projects are focused on Christmas primarily, but most of hte projects also have suggestions for turning the projects into other holiday sewing projects. Stay tunned for some more projects from this book this holiday season!

I made this one just like the directions say. I laid out my blocks how I wanted them, then turned them over, but forgot to flip their location… The little girl flying the kite was supposed to be on the front, not hte back! Oh, well!

My family gave me all the lovely Cotton and Steel fabric for Christmas. I think it was a perfect choice for this little gift!

I loved placing the little apple on the side pocket! Aren’t you supposed to give teachers apples?? I’m not exactly sure what apples have to do with teachers, but it’s a thing! ha!

And then I made another one last year for his teacher. This teacher is a University of Washington grad, so I went with a UW themed version! Purple and gold with touches of black and white!

Photo via Amazon

And for this one I combined the folio project with the Ho Ho Ho pillow project! The book has directiosn for each letter, so I made the W. I pieced this as quilt as you go and didn’t go back with any additional quilting. Looking back at this picture, i’m kinda inpreseed with how striaght my lines are! 

And the inside of this one!

I’d love to know your favorite teacher gift go to! I have a new idea for this year….. More to come on that!

 

My Halloween Quilt! with a paper pieced pattern download

I know, most everyone has moved onto Christmas, but I’m still posting about Halloween!

I started this about this time last year. I had a plan. I was going to do one block each month… I was also going to make one Halloween and one Christmas placemat each month. Let’s just say NONE of those things happened! Oops!

I didn’t quite finish in time for Halloween, but I finished 3 days later. So I’m calling that a win!

I did intend for the stripe to go from top to bottom, not side to side… But I realized I didn’t have enough of the green fabric, so I switched gears mid stream. I actually really like having the stripe of pieced blocks along the bottom.

Our Halloween guests seem to like it as well! They can still scare, but show off the stripe! ha! Who doesn’t love seeing monsters and skeletons cuddling under a quilt on the porch bench??? So sweet!

For this quilt I did paper piece the stripe. That’s how I got such sharp points! Look at those points! I love it! You can download the quilt block here. It is a 12×18 page, so most home printers won’t print it, but your neighborhood office supply store will be able to. The block makes a 10″ square.

How do you do binding? I sew mine onto the top and then iron it over to the back and hand stitch it to the back. I have not mastered the machine binding! Nope! And I love the time away from the machine to do a little hand stitching anyway!

And the back. I made a few extra blocks with the scraps to put on the back. Then I just pieced all my scraps for as much of the back as I could. Then I just started adding larger pieces to make up the difference.

Man, did this quilt almost give me a heart attack??? I was in the process of quilting it. I quilt on the dining room table. We had family friends over for dinner, so I just through my quilt and the machine in my son’s (also known at Lulu’s room, our 3 year old great pyrenees mix) room. Well, the pup got super excited about our guests, so we put her in ‘her room’ to calm down… When we go in the room, she has chewed up the quilt. I stifled my scream! we did still have guests… But luckily, she had just chewed the excess you add to the batting and back! So it was totally ok, but, man, did it scare me! And no, she didn’t get sick at all!

My token label picture that I take for each quilt!

I’m so excited to have it finished! And even though I have a list of more Halloween projects to do, I’m also excited to move on to handmade Christmas presents! What you working on after Halloween? Did you sew anything for Halloween?