More gifted crafts

Poor, neglected blog! I am so so bad at keeping this updated... Here's a quick catch-up of gifts I've recently presented to friends. First up is a bridal shower gift: a vintage-inspired handbag. This is for my friend Chrissy, whose wedding dress I made! (!!!) More on that in a month or so, after the wedding--I can't ruin the surprise! But you can consider this your sneak peek, as I used the same fabrics from the dress to make this sweet little bag.

The pattern comes from Making Vintage Bags, appropriately enough, except instead of copying and enlarging the pattern, I made some quick measurements and drafted it myself on some printer paper. Easy peasy. Other than that, though, I followed instructions as written and, in the process, learned a nifty new way to set in a zipper, which you can see above!

I made these bookshelf mini-quilts for two friends who had May birthdays. The design is from Modern Quilt Workshop and is pretty easy and fun to do. Once again, I machine-applied the binding, which really sped up the process. This is beginning to become my go-to method...

Last is this Mexi-themed apron I made for my friend Vanessa as an additional birthday gift (hey, she threw my birthday party in April, so it was the least I could do to try to pay her back!). This apron pattern was completely drafted by me, which makes me ridiculously happy. The skirt is modified from this one I drafted for myself, and the top is a pretty simple geometrical shape that I forgot the name of as soon as I finished 8th grade geometry. The skirt corners are rounded, and the whole skirt is bound in my first (and possibly last) attempt at continuous bias tape. Seriously, it was BAD! I liked the final outcome of this apron, but there are a few things I tweaked for my next round, which I will be showing you soon!