Christmas Gifts

This year, due to me travelling at the start of December and expecting to get sick around Christmas as a result (I didn't!!!), I planned to not make Christmas gifts, or Christmas orders. This year I already have  4, possibly 7 Christmas stockings ordered from past clients LOL.

I had thought of making my son a shirt. I got this fabric that was a circuit board print. However, it wasnt' really enough for a shirt for a tall boy and I didn't have other fabric it worked well with. I thought I might make mittens cause he has a long walk to classes if he doesn't take the bus. Then one of the girls bought him expensive gloves. There wasn't much on his Christmas list, just odd things like a travel salt and pepper shaker and chopsticks. Yeah.

Then I decided he needed a bag for the salt and pepper shaker, and for the chopsticks. And while we're at it, let's add a re-usable straw!

It's hard to find a pattern for a little lined bag with a drawstring at the very top.  Most have the drawstring part way down, or made by sewing on bias tape/ribbon over the outside. As well, I wanted to box the bottom to make it fit better. I ended up taking too much out of the bottom corners but it's okay. The snaps are Transformers. I made it adjustable because I didn't know what he might want to attach it to, or if it was too loose it might bounce around.

The chopstick case was a bit of a dilemma too. Once they were in, it wasn't tight enough to keep them flat (there were two pairs and two straws and the brush). I was worried they could slide out between the snap and the flap. My youngest had suggested a sleeve divided front and back. Too much thinking. My husband suggested sewing vertical lines to divide the sections and make them tighter. That seems to work, as long as he's not whipping it around. No hanging loop on this one because I worried that if it hung at an angle, they could still slip out (they're metal chopsticks and slippery!). I also thought, being larger, that he might not want this hanging on the outside of his backpack.

The snaps are Captain America. I don't think he's really into Transformers or Captain America, but he is taking film studies LOL.