Christmas Household Accessories!

Christmas in July has been around for a while now. And while I love Christmas time, it’s hard for me to get into the holiday spirit in the middle of the year. Even more so living in Florida where the average July temperature is 90 degrees! But, I decided to get a jump on things and sew up some much needed household accessories using the new Classic Christmas collection from J. Wecker Frisch.

This beautiful collections comes with 26 prints in three primary colors, green, red and black and two panels. I wanted to use several of the different prints, and panels, so I decided to make a few different household items. The first item is a reversible kitchen towel.

Around the holidays, I spend a LOT of time in the kitchen. And for me, it can be hard to sprinkle bits of Christmas around the kitchen without also getting in the way. But one thing I always use, is a kitchen towel. Normally I hang mine on the oven handle so I started looking for a pattern for a hanging kitchen/tea towel. I found a cute, and FREE, pattern from Treasurie.com that was just what I was looking for. The only change I made was I used magnets inside the towel instead of a snap.

Doing a reversible towel with a directional design did require some planning prior to cutting and sewing so if you opt to do the same thing, plan it out beforehand!

The next item I made was a card and tag pouch. I normally keep all the Christmas cards and gift tags in a tote with all my bows, gift bags & tissue paper. But they end up getting bent, torn, and messed up since they are usually scattered throughout the tote. To combat that, I made an 11″x11″ pouch with clear vinyl on one side and one block from the Christmas Patch Panel.

For this make I did not use a pattern. I simply cut one of the blocks from the panel and cut out the same size block from the Ornaments Multi fabric and my clear vinyl. I used the Clear Vinyl from By Annie which is 16 gauge vinyl. It’s sturdy enough that it won’t rip or tear in my tote with the other Christmas things but still soft enough that you could fold it if need be. I also added Pellon SF101 stabilizer to the back of both fabric blocks to add a bit more sturdiness to the pouch. The Red Stripe fabric provided the perfect binding for the pouch.

The last items I made were drawstring gift bags with a sort of reverse applique accent.

Using the easy tutorial from Whitney Sews, I made two bags. I added a reverse-like applique accent to both sides of both bags. While I really liked the shape of the tree in my smaller red bag, the shape was a bit more complicated due to all the curves. I opted for a more “basic” triangle shape on the other side of that bag, which still looks nice. I finished off the bags with 1/2″ white twill tape for the drawstrings.

All of these items were pretty easy to make and can be sewn together relatively quickly. I do plan on making more gift bags and pouches as you can really never have too many of those!

Can you see yourself stitching up these easy makes? If so, which will you make first?