If you truly want torture me, tell me you have a surprise for me & then don't tell me what it is. I swear, I revert to my 5 year old self and will HOUND you until I find out what it is, just ask my poor husband. I'm also horrible about keeping a surprise from anyone else. I cannot purchase presents early because I get really excited about giving them away so I wind up forcing people to open their gifts early. This wouldn't be all that bad but then I feel guilty that they don't have anything on their actual birthday or Christmas so I have to make or buy another gift. It's a terrible cycle.
But today I just can't resist spilling the beans because I have some things to cross off my ever growing To Do list. The Crafty Pay it Forward gifts are finally ready to mail! WOO HOO! I won't ruin it completely by telling who's getting what but here's a picture of all of them together.
I used the No Cash Wallet pattern from Sewing Outside the Lines. It's a nice little pattern but I did wind up making some revisions. One, I quit making the rounded top and just squared it off. I was having just too much trouble with top stitching on a curve. Is there a good trick for feeding it through the machine? I just can't seem to keep it uniform. I also left off the snap, sorry girls, but by the end I just couldn't do it and wimped out by using hook & loop. It's still darn cute so I think it worked out.
I also made this cutie from a free pattern at The Purl Bee. He's taking the place of a robot I had on my list. Hopefully the little guy who this is for will like it just as well. The frog has a great bean bag feel to him since he's filled with buckwheat.
Oh, I forgot to embroider his eyes on before I sewed him together so I improvised and used my sharpie. The patten recommends beads but the little dude is just too young for that. Personally, I feel like I'm tempting fate with the buckwheat...so Molly, I'm apologizing ahead of time if anything goes wrong and I'll be right over with my vacuum if it does.Whew, I've gotta say it feels good to get somethings done. It's AMAZING how much you can accomplish when your children are gone for 4 hours. Thank goodness for grandparents!!!
*** I didn't not sew all of that in 4 hours! I realized my post made it sound like I had. I just finished up the gift packages and made the frog. Sadly, I'd been working on the Pay it Forward stuff for about a month.
