Vintage Nursery Style

Recently I showed you the sewing basket I made for one of my partners in the Sewing Accessories Swap on Craftster; today I have pictures of the package I put together for my other partner, adrienne_bowers.  Adrienne has a unique personal style:  she LOVES all things vintage, and she sells them on etsy too.  One of her favorite color combinations is light pink and light blue, and she loves vintage nursery-style things.  I decided that the best way for me to pull this all together was with something embroidered, so I looked online and found a TON of free vintage embroidery patterns--I had no idea there would be so much to choose from!  Two of Adrienne's favorite motifs are lambs and deer, so I grabbed a couple of those patterns and started working.

How sweet is this "Little Lamb"!  I embroidered it on bleached muslin, then hand-sewed it onto the fabric I had already cut out for a fabric basket (but for this swap, I'm calling it a sewing basket!)  I didn't have any vintage fabric, but this blue seemed just the right shade.

You can see the lining of the basket below.  Again, it isn't a vintage fabric, but the colors were just right, so I went with it!

I love this cute little deer!  I did this the same way as the lamb, by first embroidering it onto bleached muslin, then sewing it onto the fabric I had already cut to the size to use for this needlebook.

Since it's a sewing accessories swap, I wanted to add a pin cushion of some kind, and this tie-on pincushion was the perfect thing to go on the sewing basket.  It is made of wool felt.

Then I went on a mini shopping spree and gathered a bunch of color-coordinated sewing notions to fill up the basket.

Here's the message I got from Adrienne when she received this package: 
      "I just got a chance to unwrap your package and I am completely stunned by how absolutely beautiful and thoughtful everything was! That basket and needlebook are so professional and perfect! And the colors!   Blue and pink--my favorites! Thank you SO much, and I hope my package gives you even half the heart flutters yours gave ME!"

I think she likes it!!  Yay!

Wintery Blue Bags

Now that we are well into December, my crafting has shifted from Christmas-themed to a more general winter theme.  Coincidentally, I had some special orders this week for purses that are blue and winter-themed. 

Lee Ann, a regular customer of mine for many years, LOVES bears and teddy bears, so when she called to ask for something wintery that would go with blue jeans, this is the first fabric I thought of, since it has bears on it.  It has a wonderful back-woods, log-cabin feel to me.

But I wanted to give her more than one choice, so I made this bag too.  The fabric has different stripes of wintery scenes:  snow-covered houses, bare trees, and big silver and white snowflakes.

At the same time I was making these two bags, another regular customer, Debbie, called to ask for snowflake bags for herself and her daughter (Debbie ordered the Christmas bag and school-themed bag I showed you a couple of weeks ago).

I made these two bags for Debbie and her daughter, and then showed all three pictures to Lee Ann.

Much to my surprise, she chose the second bag with the bare winter trees!  It really is a great fabric, with touches of metallic silver sparkling all over it.

Just as I sat down to write this post, Debbie called to say her daughter had just picked up the two snowflake bags (I had left them for her at the local store that carries my crafts) and they both LOVE them!  She said they plan to get bags for every holiday and season!  That means I need to start looking for some great Valentine's Day fabric!!