Flannel is awesome.

Getting ready for Christmas this year, I realized that my sister and I got our sewing machines from our parents last Christmas and we've had some good times over the last year. I wish I could say my sewing has advanced as much as my knitting did in Year 1 (when it was a full on, all-encompassing obsession), but I have made a few things I've been pretty happy with.

The newest is this little gift set I made for a February baby. I got some really great deals on flannel from Joann, so I looked up ideas for things to do with it. Chickpea Sewing Studio has this great tutorial for a blanket, changing pad, and washcloths and this tutorial for bibs, which were both awesome. I combined the directions from both and just kind of ran with it.



The whole little set contains a huge receiving blanket (flannel on both sides), two washcloths, a changing pad, and a bib (all flannel/terrycloth). I bought 3 yards of fabric and one yard of terrycloth. Even with my super-slow sewing skills, I finished it in an afternoon.





There was a fleece remnant at Joann that matched the green frogs in the flannel, so I decided to make a frog plushie to look like the frog head in the pattern. I free-handed a pattern on tracing paper to look like the frog head, then cut that out, pinned it to the fleece, and cut out two identical fleece pieces. I sewed them together right sides together leaving a small opening for stuffing, flipped it inside out, stuffed it, then ladder stitched the opening closed. Using felt from the craft store that is sticky on one side, I cut out shapes for the facial features and stuck them on the head. Ta da! Frog head plushie!



I gave it to the parents at a baby shower a few weekends back and they were pleased. They were even more pleased with the knitting I did for the little one, though- more on that later.

Hope your last minute holiday knitting is going well and is not stressing you out too much. I have one last project to finish up knitting-wise, but I think I have plenty of time to do it. Now just to wrap all the presents and clean the house and dang it I want to bake some sugar cookies too.