This years presents from me were almost entirely handmade by me. I confess that I bought one present for someone, but I did buy it on Etsy.

I made 3 sets of napkins, 2 pairs of pot-holders, 8 cloth shopping bags, 3 flannel pillow cases.

Also, 3 hats from recycled sweaters.

Napkins in progress-

And dish towels. I had a project near-fail here… I mean it wasn’t a complete failure, but I was disappointed in the outcome. These are the towels in progress- the bleach pen doing it’s thing.

I got inspired to try a bleach pen project from this post on Angry Chicken. My first experience was not a complete success. I used a nice soft linen fabric that had dye flaws in it already. That cut down on the stress factor, but I have to admit I was nervous. The fabric reacted very quickly to the bleach- the color was all gone in about 15 minutes- very different from what Amy described.  I need to note that I did a test on another piece of linen that did not react so quickly at all- much more like what was shown in the film clip. Anyway, I rinsed the dishtowels and napkins as I made them. When I was finished, I threw everything into the washing machine. They all came out with blue shadows where the fabric folded onto itself. Clearly the dye on this fabric was way too sensitive to the bleach. Oh well- they are usable. I just don’t like the blue with the green. I might try doing an over-dye experiment sometime, since I gave the napkins to Ben… so sort of to me!

Napkins-

Everyone else who gets presents will get cookies. I’ll be going down to Connecticut to do the cookie delivery on Tuesday. While I am there, I have plans to see this show about Mrs. Delany at the Yale Center for British Art.