Friday Fleece Fun

After making this cowl, (also featured here) I decided it would be really fun to make my family and friends some fleece gifts this year for Christmas.  My budget is really tight this holiday season, and I found some great deals on fleece both at Hobby Lobby and Jo Ann Fabrics.  And since my entire family resides in Pennsylvania, some warm fleece gifts would be well received.


I know this isn't really beauty related, but I thought eventually this could turn into a fun fleece fashion post.  For today, I am sharing with you the beautiful fabric I purchased so far.

From Hobby Lobby, I picked up a yard and a half of solid black fleece and a half yard of camouflage fabric with deer on it (for my dear old dad).


From Jo Ann Fabrics, I purchased a yard and a half of purple argyle fleece (for myself!), as well as three yards of solid maroon and four yards of solid green.


I was really excited this morning to get started sewing some beautiful, hand-made fleece items.  However, the world was against me.  First, my printer wouldn't print.  Turns out it was out of blue ink and when my crummy printer is out of one kind of ink, it won't print anything at all.  That was fine, since there were a few items that I could either make my own pattern for, or didn't need a pattern to make.


So I started out making the fingerless gloves my mom wanted out of the green.  I got the pattern all cut out and ready to start sewing... and then I realized I had forgotten to pick up coordinating thread for the green and maroon!  I even remember thinking in Jo Ann that I needed to get it, but then I got busy helping my friend pick out things, and forgot all about it.  Sigh!  More delays!


I was able to use the purple argyle to make myself some things though.  I made a poncho, a practice set of the fingerless gloves, and a hat.  I was really happy with the first two, but the hat I ended up really disliking.  The pattern just didn't turn out with a hat in a style I liked.  But that's okay because I'm sure I could find someone who would love the hat and tomorrow I will try a different pattern for my dad's hat.


Finally, I headed out to Walmart after the Black Friday traffic died down and picked up the thread I needed, as well as the ink to get my printer going.  It looks like I'm going to have another day of patterns and sewing ahead of me tomorrow.  I'll let you know how it goes and hopefully take some pictures of the things I make to share with you.


Oh, and if you are a sewer as well (and love fleece!), check out www.fleecefun.com.  Angel creates amazing, printable FREE patterns, including the cowl capelet I mentioned above.  The directions are really easy to follow and you don't have to spend your whole day searching the web for free patterns!


So I'm kind of left wondering, is there anyone else out there who knows how to sew?  It seems to be a bit of a dying art these days.