I’m always delighted when I come up with a gift for one of the dudes in my life — they are so hard to sew for.  My sister-in-law suggested that I make my brother a shoe bag for him to carry his gym or work shoes back and forth.

This was a very simple project.  It’s an easy drawstring bag made out of soft grey wool and lined with ripstop nylon to keep wet or soiled shoes from getting everything else in his bag dirty.  I monogrammed the bag with a bit of embroidery.

 Love this.  So simple and classy.  AND my brother actually used it!

A number of years ago, I made this drawstring bag and little pouch for my sister-in-law out of too-cute strawberry and polka dot seersucker.  For Christmas last year, she asked for a ditty bag big enough to hold the family’s toothbrushes when they travel.  Since she uses the drawstring bag for her toiletries and I had a bit of the seersucker left, I decided to make a matching set.

However, I did the math completely wrong, so she ended up with two ditty bags instead.  The strawberry one on the right was the first iteration and I accidentally made it short and tall, so I whipped up the second polka dot one to go with it.  Luckily, my SIL agrees with me that one can never have too many ditty bags.

Continuing with our belated Christmas review:  

For my littler nephew, my sister and I made this fun little picnic set.  I love love love the knitted food that my sister made!

This nephew was just 20 months in December, which is a good age for learning to button and zip, but also an age when both boys and girls seem to love little bags with pockets.  We spent a lot of time on Christmas packing and unpacking the picnic and spreading the checkered tablecloth on the ground.

This was structurally one of the most complicated bags I’ve made, with the two different pockets, but it’s cute enough that if little Jed gets tired of it, his ma can find another use for it.

Let’s hop in the way-back machine and head to December 2011.  Among the gifts given and received was this cute police set for my one of little nephews.  I made a police badge out of embroidered felt along with a nifty holster out of corduroy.  My sister knit the handcuffs and a walkie-talkie.

The holster has a velcro closure so it would be easy to take on and off but also would enable him to wear it as it grows.  It could also double as a tool belt or rock-climbing belt  (pretend only, of course).

Over and out.

A personal record, dear reader…THREE pies in one day!  Holy deliciousness.  I had a housewarming/graduation party last night with my lovely Trojan friends and dished up a Derby Pie, a Lemon Chess Pie, and a Pumpkin Pie.  Superyum.  The best piece may be the pumpkin I had for breakfast — pie for breakfast is divine – but all three were great.  I’m gonna bust out a piece of lemon in a bit.  The Derby won the pie race by a nose since there was none left.