Christmas on a Budget Series – Christmas Fabric Part 2

Continuing on from Part 1 of Christmas on a Budget Series – Buy Christmas Fabric Only When On Sale

I’ve been sewing for over 40 years, but the great thing about Christmas themed fabrics is that you don’t have to be an experienced seamstress to create really pretty Christmas gifts or decorative items for your home.

For example, here’s a simple apron I made years ago.

I bring it out every year when it’s time to do my Christmas baking.  Well to be honest, for many years, it was my only apron so it got used year round.  But since I made myself an everyday apron it only gets used at Christmas now.

I didn’t use a pattern for that apron as I made it specifically to fit me in a plus size but TipNut has a list of 40+ apron tutorials and patterns here and another list of 50 apron patterns here for you to check out.

Other simple to sew, fun gifts are pillowcases.

Every year, from the time our children were little, on Christmas Eve when we came back from looking at all the beautiful Christmas light displays, we’d find that the Elves had left three small packages under the tree.  In those packages were new PJs for each child. Even now that they are all adults, they insist the tradition must continue.  This past Christmas I decided to wrap their PJs in pillowcases I made from my stash of Christmas fabric.

Each set of pillowcases turned out a little different as I made adjustments to my basic pillowcase pattern depending on how much of a particular fabric I had to work with.

This set for our son, I only had enough of the main fabric to make the fronts of the pillowcases.  I used Kona Cotton (again bought on sale) for the back and the band of the pillowcases.

For the pair for our middle daughter, I didn’t have quite enough of the main fabric for two cases, so I added a horizontal strip in a contrasting colour to the top and bottom of the main fabric.

And then for our oldest daughter’s, while I had enough fabric to make both pillowcases, I decided to make a 4 inch band from co-ordinating fabric.

Christmas Eve 2010, everyone slept on their new Christmas pillowcases.  As you can see by taking one simple pattern and altering it to suit the fabric you have to work with, you can make three completely different gifts that will be cherished and used for years to come.

And of course, if you read back through my blog you’ll find that in order to make the switch away from using paper gift wrapping, I’ve been sewing gifts bags and furoshiki.  You can find some examples here, here and here.

The fabric gift bags are a little more complicated, in that they require several steps to complete but definitely something anyone with basic sewing skills can tackle.  The furoshiki are simply hemmed squares and would be great beginner projects.

I haven’t even gotten to all the other things you can make for your home or for gifts, as that list is pretty much endless.  But think tablecloths, napkins, tea towels, dresser scarves, tree skirts, Christmas stockings, etc.

So shop those Christmas in July fabric sales (with the money that you’ve budgeted for Christmas) and in future posts of my Christmas on a Budget series, I’ll have some fun tutorials for how to use them to make gifts and other projects for your home.

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