Peaking Too Soon

I have already received - and been using for six weeks now - my Christmas present from Andy - a fabulous Singer sewing machine.  After bowing to pressure from my sewing classmates, I have given her a name - Elsie-Mary.   Apparently all machines should have names and, after discussion with Andy, she is named after my two Nans.   So, Elsie-Mary she is.
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Already I love her and have made a lot of Christmas gifts with her, although I can't post blogs yet because I'm waiting for the recipients to open their presents first!  The one thing I can put up here though is the bag I made for the Knitters with Attitude Secret Santa.

I wanted to play about with the stitches to see what I've got available so Viv at work and I came up with the design after playing about with the different fonts and sizes on our PCs one lunchtime.   I chose two different fonts and three different sizes and printed them all out to try and work out which would suit the bag best.   The material I used was all given to me by a fellow sewer at work (and now I've typed that, I can see exactly why sewing bloggers call us "sewists"!) so everything has been recycled/ upcycled/ and cost less than a fiver, the only stipulation for Secret Santa.

I was rather pleased with the way the bag turned out and was half hoping that I'd pull it out of the Santa Sack myself - no such luck though, Mum got the bag.  I got a lovely mug warmer instead which Shirley made.  Because we're never really sure who's going to be at the monthly meeting, instead of picking out a name of someone to make for, we bung everything in the sack and use a "lucky dip" principle instead.

Not sure what these two were up to, but it was evidently no good!  (As usual!)

Amanda got a carrier bag holder which Michele crocheted. (There is a lot of hiding of faces going on - blinking comedians.)

Elle got a knitted cowl (Amanda) and Shirley got some Christmas tree crocheted snowflakes (Elle) but came up with a rather novel idea for them.  See below!

Michele got felted tree decorations/ pin cushions from Sarah who has done some sewing classes at Makeplace - I love her apron so much, that I'm planning on signing up for a class myself.

Sarah got a beautiful pink bag - crocheted by Shannon in spaghetti - not literally, but a massively chunky yarn made from ripped up jersey/ tee shirt fabric.

And Shannon got a bottle of mulled wine with its own little Christmas jumper and hat, knitted by Mum.

And, by the miracle of modern technology, this is the picture of Mo's gloves that she sent me after she'd got home.  Mo had been so busy remembering to bring the apple crumble for the meeting, that she had forgotten her Secret Santa present, so she got to keep them herself.  They are rather gorgeous - I'm thinking I might have to commission her to make me a pair!