Gifts #13-15: Mother's Day

Devin's grandma whipped out this cool roll/muffin/biscuit-serving device while we were visiting and I thought it would be the perfect thing to recreate for Mother's Day.  So we traced hers onto some paper, marked where all the seams go, and I made three roll holders: for my mom, my mother-in-law, and my grandma.


Once again, I forgot to take pictures along the way.  But now I want one for myself, so when I make mine, I can do a whole tutorial.


Basically, the roll holder (anyone have a better name?) is made of three double-sided fabric circles.  I cut out all the circles from two different fabrics, then matched one blue with one pink and serged them together.  Serging in a circle, by the way, was very scary but not actually that hard.


Then I pinned the bottom two circles together and sewed three seams all the way across:

You can see the seams if you really really try, or just picture cutting a pie into six pieces.

Next I pinned the last circle on top and sewed six seams, each half-way in between the bottom seams.  Does that make sense?  These were only about 1/4 across the circle, and only through the top two layers.  If you think it's hard to understand, try actually doing it.  I had to undo a few stitches that accidentally went through all the layers.

These are easier to see.

Last, I sewed on two snaps, as shown above.  And the finished product:

See how that works?  When you snap it together, 12 little roll-hugging pockets pop up.  Pretty slick.

I didn't get to give my grandma hers in person, but I enjoyed both my mom's and my mother-in-law's puzzled faces when they opened their gifts.  "Oh, how cute... what is it?"

Cost:

2 yards each of two fabrics (with leftover): $14

6 snaps (part of a set at the dollar store): $1

Serger thread (given to me by my grandma just in time and in a perfect corresponding color): $0

Total: $15 or $5 each

Gift #12: Scavenger Hunt Cards

Ben was recently invited to his friend Erik's birthday party.  We go walking with Erik and his mom, so I thought something like these cards would be perfect for our walks.


These are pretty self-explanatory, but if you must know, I got all the pictures by searching Google Images, printed on regular cardstock, and laminated the cards at the local school supply store (I think 69 cents/square foot - way cheaper than anywhere else).


Total Cost: I'm going to say $2.50, guessing on the square footage of the 16 laminated cards.

I'm Back!

Wow.  We've had quite the little dry spell, haven't we?  Sorry about that.  Besides not giving many gifts lately, I've just plain been busy with other stuff.

First of all, I received a gift that was amazing, but made life hectic for a while.  I babysit for my friend who's a painter so this is how I get paid:

Before

After

I love my new kitchen!  I bet I spend twice as much time in there now, and I keep it much cleaner than ever before.  It is incredible what a difference some paint (and someone who knows how to do it right) can make.

Then, I made a little gift for myself.  I come from a family of musicians.  We used to perform together all the time, but now it's been a really long time - like 10 years.  We were invited to do a sort of reunion concert and so I had to wear something formal.  Only problem is, I'm pregnant.  Very pregnant.  So where do you get a formal maternity dress that isn't either a wedding dress or $400 (or both)?  NOWHERE!  Ok, on to Plan B: find a pattern.  Oh wait, those don't exist either.  So my very patient and generous mother, who has sewn many a dress in her day, went to work with me creating our own pattern (a combination of 3 or 4 existing patterns, plus some good ol' guessing).  We made the whole thing out of a sheet first, made easily over 50 changes, and then finally did the real thing.  It turned out great!  I can't believe how hard it was, and I kept saying that I would never sew again, but now that it's done, I feel pretty empowered and even kind of want to sew more stuff.  Anyway, here's what it looks like:

(The best picture of the dress happened to be a really bad one of my face, so I just cut it off.)

Please note that the pleat in the front allowed for me to make the dress ahead of time, not knowing exactly how fat I would be when I actually had to wear it.  I thought that was pretty smart of us.  In theory, this dress could look good at various stages of pregnancy.  Maybe even post-baby?  We'll see.

Anyway, these things, plus some others, have kept me far away from blogging and reading blogs.  My RSS Feed collection totals 508 new posts right now.  Scary.  But I do have a couple gifts to post, so stay tuned...