Swap Recap: Christmas Kitchen Swap
It seems crazy early to be thinking about Christmas sometimes, but I just finished a Christmas Kitchen Swap and am in the middle of the Bee Creative Stocking Swap!
I found the Christmas Kitchen Swap through Lizette on Instagram. It's the first time I'd done a sewing specific swap so I was nervous and excited. I had to make 1 tea towel, 1 pot holder, and 2 placemats. First I'll share what I made and then what I received.
I found this fat quarter pack at a local fabric store and immediately fell in love with their vintage feel and knew I wanted to used them for this swap. I also took a huge leap on the Christmas tree style piecing on the placemats. I'd never done anything like that before so there was a huge change I would screw it up, but I really love how it came out.
My partner also specified that they really loved Santa Claus specific Christmas items so I made sure to use lots of extra Santa Fabric on the oven mitt and the pot holder.
I found these vintage Christmas postcards at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore over the summer. One was blank and one had clearly been saved after being mailed to someone. I thought it was such a fun find as I've always enjoyed collecting vintage ephemera.
I couldn't think of many super creative "extras" to send with this swap especially because in September there isn't yet a ton of Christmas items in stores. Instead, I decided to make extra things to send. I included an extra oven mitt and tea towel so my partner would have a larger matching set of things for their kitchen.
The oven mitt and towels I've made before from a class I took and have them several times for other people, but overall this swap was a really excellent opportunity for me to flex the sewing skills I've learned to try to make something from my own brain for someone else. Much of my sewing up to this point has been working with an instructor, following a pattern, or looking up tutorials of some kind. This time around, I found my initial inspiration and then just went for it. I'm really excited to keep exploring ideas and continue to teach myself new skills.
Up next is what I received!
I was so excited to finally receive my Christmas Kitchen Swap items! I'm still very in the Halloween spirit so I'll be tucking these gems away until after Thanksgiving, but I can't wait to take them back out! The person making items for me was Pat (@patspera9 on IG) and she did such a beautiful job on every detail.
She sent me so many things, it was hard to fit it all into one picture! The overall theme was Christmas elves/gnomes. I had a big winter gnome photo in my original inspiration mosaic on IG so I appreciated that she really stuck with what I liked.
The swap requirement was 2 placemats, 1 tea towel, and 1 pot holder. She sent so many extras!
This fabric OH EM GEEEEEE. I had been coveting this at the fabric store, but didn't purchase it because it was a splurge I didn't really "need." I was SO EXCITED when she threw some in for me as one of my extras! Now I gotta figure out what to make.
This swap was SO MUCH FUN! I'm hitting the breaks on other swaps for a bit so I can focus on Bee Creative Swaps and what I've committed to for the Maker Mob (@maker_mob on IG), but oh man this is addicting!