gift from my neighbor

My neighbors Carol and Abbey brought me the coolest gift that they made. It's a pin cushion and thread bag to sit by the sewing machine. I promptly put it to use. This is great for me because I make a mess when I sew. Threads go everywhere. I like that the pin cushion buttons on. When I want to take just the pin cushion upstairs to do a little work, I can just un hook it.

If you want to make one for yourself, or a last minute gift for a sewer on your list, here's some details: The pin cushion is double lined and filled with sand. The straps are sewn into the pin cushion, but button onto the bag. The bag contains boning to make the circle. This one is made from tea towels from Target.

I also had Carol (who has her etsy shop, Shop Sew Cute here) make a small rag bag for a birthday gift for a party Bee went to last weekend. We filled the rag bag with one of our crayon rolls and a coloring book from Elsie Marley. I don't think Carol has any rag bags listed right now in her shop, but I know she has several in her sewing room to be listed. They are just the right size for little hands.

Here's the packed bag. We threw in some tissue paper and were good to go:

Here's more of that adorable bag:

The coloring book has the cutest hand drawn pictures. She shared one picture per day during the month of December on her blog, or you could buy the pdf file and print them all at once from her etsy shop. I purchased it and found the printing to be so easy. We gave one copy to the birthday friend and Lou and Bee each have a copy. They have been working on it while waiting for dinner the past few nights.

I tell hubby that I need to support other people's etsy shops because so many people have supported mine. This is really just an excuse to shop. I think I'll do a post soon about my favorite etsy shops.