8 presents in 3 hours

Or how to do down and dirty fast and easy handmade gifts.  My original thought this year was to do matching sets of hats, scarves, and gloves all around, plus toys for the kiddos and the Christmas dresses.  It didn't happen.  Between illness and rescuing presents from the baby, I haven't managed much this year.  I managed to get my SIL's request done, do all the Christmas shopping, cut out Bit's set of undies for her dress, make up Boo's, get the embroidery done for the dresses, wrap everything...  But as for handmade presents, well it's a stretch this year.  Until I decided to do something easy.  I made 8 scarves for 8 adults in three hours.  Yep.  Easy.  Minimal sewing.  Mostly measuring and cutting.  And I forgot to take a picture before I wrapped them up during my wrapping marathon.  When you're wrapping for three people, and it's Christmas for 14, that's a heck of a lot of gifts!

This can probably be done with 1/4 yard of fleece, but I'd allow a bit extra for straightening the edges.  Which was the first thing I did--using my rotary cutter, mat, and ruler, I straightened up the edge, and then cut an 8 inch strip the width of the fabric.  Next, I cut off the selvedge edges, and measured four inches back for the fringe and marked it on the wrong side of the fabric.  Then, from the end, I measured 1/4 inch increments and marked them for the fringe.  I sewed down the horizontal line to mark the end of the fringe for reinforcement, and hand tied off the thread ends.  Then I cut the tails of the thread off and followed my fring marks to cut fringe.  Voila!  A scarf.  Now to repeat!

We're a Georgia Tech family--my sister, two brothers, and a brother-in-law all graduated from there.  And honestly, the idea originated from the fact that I can currently buy Tech fleece.  Since large heads run in our family, I thought it'd be a fantastic idea to make them Tech hats that actually fit.  But lack of time and they got scarves instead!  I'll be talking about my SIL's project for me... After Christmas because my brother knows where this blog is, and I don't want him to know since it's sort of for him. 

Oh!  He wants a Georgia Tech bowtie.  I told him that if he found silk, I'd make it.  So if anybody knows if there is such a thing....  ;) Cotton and fleece both make crappy ties!