Santa Sack Swap 2016 – My Gifts for Pauline

For the past few years, I’ve taken part in the Santa Sack Swap hosted and organized by Cheryl over at Gone Stitchin’. This year, I was partnered with Pauline who blogs at Phoenix Heirlooms.

I thought it would be fun to show you the gifts I made for her.

For the swap, we’re to make our partners a sack, stocking or tote (depending on what our partner requests) plus 5 other handmade gifts for a total of 6 handmade gifts.

When Pauline and I were first emailing back and forth to get to know each other a bit, I asked her which one she wanted or perhaps even something else. She replied that she had no preference… she liked to be surprised.

Now Pauline has taken part in the Santa Sack Swap for several years and I figured she probably had already been given Christmas themed things. I browsed back through her blog and discovered that she knits. It just so happened that I had some knitting themed novelty fabric in my stash.

I’d bought it because it was just such fun but had never been able to bring myself to cut into it. It was time to take the plunge. There was a lady across the Atlantic who might like a new knitting bag!

I kind of, sort of followed a pattern called Sew Downtown by This & That that last year’s swap partner, Debbie gave me.

I made it with a larger base so that it would hold bigger projects without smooshing them and I left off the exterior pockets in order not to cover up those adorable knitting sheep.

And I added two long pockets inside for holding long knitting needles.

Once the tote was finished it was time to fill it with gifts!

Pauline and I agreed on small gifts in order to keep overseas mailing costs down.

She’d mentioned that her favorite color was blue, so I picked two pretty blue fabrics and made her the small size of Thimble Pip  (using my Thimble Pip Tutorial) and a matching pin cushion.

I hand embroidered her initial on one side of the pip using a stem stitch with white DMC floss.

The blue with gold dots on the pincushion was used to line the Thimble Pip.

It’s hard to tell from the photo but these are small.

The pincushion measured about 3″ square. So you can just imagine how tiny that quarter square triangle in the center is!

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I continued the blue theme to make her a tissue box cover using my Reversible Tissue Box Cover Tutorial. You can see what the reverse looks like in this post.

When traveling to different quilt shops this past summer collecting patterns for the Row By Row Experience, everywhere I went, I saw kits for these cool Pop-ups.

There’s a spring that is inserted inside during the sewing process that makes the baskets Pop!

Here’s what it looks like when collapsed.

The fabric on the outside is part of the range of fabrics designed specifically for this year’s Row by Row Experience.

And last but not least, I had to make her at least one item that was Christmas/Winter themed. These foxes sledding seemed like the perfect choice.

I hand embroidered the snow falling in the sky and did simple straight line quilting on the side for the mug to rest on.

In addition to the handmade gifts, I included two packages of specialty coffee, a tin of pins and some Christmas buttons.

Here they are all together before I wrapped them and mailed them to Pauline.

I’ve had a lovely email from Pauline and she seems pleased with the gifts I made for her.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you the gifts I received from Pauline as they deserve a post all their own. She really did spoil me!

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