Sewing gifts

On Saturday we went for a lovely drive through the countryside and ended up in quaint Berry. This is an historic town a couple of hours south of Sydney and a favourite place for weekend shopping. This is the middle of winter here and can you tell what lovely weather we've been having? There's one patchwork shop and this is what I came out with . The bird fabric is starlings by Alexander Henry. There's also a fabulous toy shop and the best needlework shop.

This is what I've been up to, the strawberries are very quick and easy to make from the free pattern on the Moda Bakeshop blog.

I filled these with silica sand, I didn't have any turnovers so used 5 3/4" squares and cut them once on the diagonal and that makes two. They'll make nice little gifts for friends.

I made the little gift bags from another pattern at the Bakeshop as well.

I have an idea to put some small gifts in these bags for my granddaughters. I changed the pattern in a couple of places by trimming down the top seam and top stitching the pleat in place. I also sewed fabric sleeves for the bottom insert instead of taping fabric to card. I used template plastic instead.

I'm not good at shopping, I'm a failure really, it gives me a headache but the exception is when I shop for birthday gifts for the little ones.

Only a grandmother would fork out and buy something like this. It's probably what I would have loved as a little girl, all sparkly and twirly and pretty.