…quilt camp – what I gave…

I love giving handmade gifts. If you’ve been around the blog for any length of time, this is not exactly news. New baby? Make a gift. Birthday? Make a gift. Quilt Camp shenanigans? MAKE ALL THE GIFTS.

I started a secret Pinterest board a few months ago, because I’m a shocker for coming up with The Best Gifty Ever…and promptly forgetting it. This year I was determined to not forget, and started pin pin pinning. And laughing myself silly in the process.

In fact, I was so organised, in fact, that I bought AJ‘s gifty alllllll the way back in January, when a far-too-perfect item popped up in my local Facebook BSS group. You see, our sweet little AJ has a wee bit of tool envy. Whenever I post a photo on Instagram of a project, generally speaking, whatever tools I’ve been using are also there. Sometimes it’s just a rotary cutter. Sometimes it’s a hammer. Sometimes it’s a dropsaw or an awl or, or, or… and I can generally guarantee a comment from AJ regarding the presence of MORE TOOLS. In fact, I now even have a hashtag for my tool-inclusive photos – #lookAJmoretools – over on instagram. So a Stampin’ Up tool set?? PERFECT. Even if it isn’t handmade.

Alley‘s gift I decided on quite early. But being the organised sort that I am, I didn’t start it until the week before camp. Then the thing I had, I didn’t have. And I couldn’t buy it. So I tried to work around it, and then THAT thing I needed I had used in another project and forgotten about it. So then I went to Plan C…which turned into Plan D when I couldn’t find the fabric I wanted. Oh, and then as I added the final couple of things to my bag? I found one of the things I thought I had but couldn’t find. Of course.

The short version is – Alley is a people watcher, and finds the most interesting things to report back. So I made her a stalkers notebook, complete with one of my favourite raw-edge doris in a cute bird fabric, which inspired the the label on the insert. It reads “ALLEY’S BIRD WATCHING …definitely not snooping… …just boring boring birds and nothing else…” – that would surely keep out inquisitive eyes, yes?

Seriously, how cute is that fabric?? I need to buy more and make…I don’t know what. A quilt maybe? Because I totally don’t have enough of those on the go at the minute.

Bec was one of my hardest ones to work out. I stalked her Pinterest, but didn’t have the skill to pull off almost anything she’d pinned. I went back and forth on a few ideas, and inspiration finally struck a few days before camp. Something she pins a lot is art trading cards, and she was also one of the original group with the card of the week challenge, so I decided to make an ATC mini book. I pulled a stack of paper pads from my stash, picked out a pile that co-ordinated, and cut them down to 3×4″ each. A few project life cards to pad it out, a chipboard cover and some book rings, and voila, a super cute little book.

{and guess who forgot to take a pic!! BEC!! Help a dork out??}

Car. Oh Car, the queen of the comedy gold. So many ideas, so little mojo to start more than a week out. Another case of “oh I have the stuff for that…oh no I don’t” which also became “of course I found what I needed as I finish packing”. Of course I did. But that just means I can use that idea for next year! Then I went to plan B, being a collection of hand made journaling goodies she and I had kicked around, with some linen she had slipped into a parcel of mine. Except the scale of the fabric wasn’t as friendly to that idea as I’d thought. So it got nixed. Plan C, I thought, was a winner. Well, aside from the fact I needed a computer and mine was DOA at the computer doctor. Once it was refurbed and I had it back (and managed to punch out three photography jobs in one very late night!), I was able to do a cheeky 1am design session and create a super fun dori insert for our challenge queen

And Kylie, well, this one was the easiest ones, and the one I decided on earliest (aside from the anomaly that was AJs). As soon as I saw it, I knew it was what I wanted to make. Conveniently for me, the husband decided to build a deck a couple of weeks back, and the saw was out and I was offered free reign of the offcuts, so off I toddled to Bunnings, and I grabbed some strap nails (I think that’s what they were called), to keep the weight down, and got to work. And because quilt camp isn’t quilt camp without the resident unco dork damaging some appendage or other, I managed to slam the hammer full force into my thumb and gave myself a ripper blood blister. I’m such an awesome handy woman!! But the end result was so worth it, in my opinion

And that, friends, is a wrap on quilt camp 2017. So much fun, so many laughs, so can’t wait to do it all again in 2018!!

More quilt camp fun: this years projects and gift haul, 2015 projects and gifts I made and received, quilt camp 2014 round up, camp coochie round up, 2012 round up, and gifts  1 2 3 4, Camp K round up.