It’s been an inspirational first week of Gifting Handmade projects! If you’ve been following along each day on Instagram you’ve already seen images and learned the details of the projects posted so far. This blog post will give even more details about the maker and their gifting idea, project links, and fabric selection.

Plus, it’s on this blog post is where you enter into this weeks giveaway prizes—keep reading to the end!

The Sponsors

In the spirit of giving, I’ve teamed up with sponsors to be able to offer you a chance to win some fabulous, generous, exciting prizes! Last week, in the introduction blog post, Piper Autumn Fabrics gave one lucky winner a 10-piece fat quarter bundle as our kick off gift to get the party started. This week, as things ramp up, you’ll be entering into a chance to win one of two giveaways!

Keep reading till the end for the giveaways prizes and how to enter!

The Makers

I’m so honored to host such a talented group of makers in this special Thank You tribute to the kind, generous, and skillful ladies that test for me during the year. This is my chance to showcase and feature each of them as artists—not just testers. The parameters of the Gifting Handmade - Maker’s Showcase was for my testers to use any of my fabrics from any of my current Art Gallery Fabrics collections and make whatever they wished and what they thought would make a wonderful gift for friends, family, home, or for keeping for yourself. Many have selected patterns from other designers and I’ll include links to those patterns in my week end recap posts on 11/7 and 11/14. Some of my Tester group are pattern writers and are using a pattern of their own design which I love and will be linking to their beautiful work. This gives you an opportunity to explore new patterns and techniques as well—and is our gift and inspiration to you as our followers.

The Gifting Handmade Projects

Day 1

To start off the first day of the 2023 Gifting Handmade - Maker’s Showcase, Jen Cannon of Piper Autumn Fabrics created a thoughtfully made, comfort Get Well gift set. Nothing’s better than something quilted to covey love and kindness. Visit Jen at her ETSY shop HERE and on Instagram, HERE.

Jen made the adorable Hot Water Bottle Cover with the free pattern by Made Just Sew. How cozy is that quilted hot water bottle cover for warming cold toes in the winter or easing aches and pains!?!

The fabrics used by Jen for her two projects are all from my new Juniper collection for Art Gallery Fabrics.

The Quilted Tissue Box Cover pattern is a fee tutorial by Wellspring Designs. Customizing your own tissue box cover is such a brilliant idea! I think these are such thoughtful gifts you may want to have several made up in advance for when a friend or family member is under the weather—they’ll be much appreciated by the recipient!

DAY 2

On the second day of Gifting Handmade, Elaine Satterfield brought us a Kitchen Gift Set trio of projects. Elaine is owner of Create Joy Quilt Co and you can always skip the sewing and buy beautifully handmade items from her ETSY shop, HERE. You can also find Elaine on Instagram, HERE.

Elaine used prints from my Juniper and Fanciful collections for Art Gallery Fabrics and created a kitchen set that would be right at home fall through winter.

These charming Round Potholders are great for tucking a small gift inside when gifting! The pattern is from Polka Dot Chair and are as pretty as can be!

Try these Embellished Towels with Prairie Points! They’re made using store bought towels—simply embellished for that special handmade touch in your kitchen. The free tutorial for the tea-towels is by Lindsey Weight of Fort Worth Fabric Studio.

The third project in this trio is a Large Trivet (for casserole dishes). Scrappy patchwork squares were quilted with Insul-brite and Soft and Stable with an extra wide bound edge, inspired by a project by Tamara @remivailstudio. The pattern for this hot pad is available from Ten Cow Quilts on Etsy, HERE. These are definitely items you’ll want to have on hand as hostess gifts or to refresh your own kitchen linens!

DAY 3

On the third day of Gifting Handmade, Brittany Tunison wowed us with her Sprout baby quilt! Shop the Sprout version of her Spring Awakening pattern on her White Plains Quilts website and follow along on her quilting journey on Instagram, HERE.

You may be thinking you don’t have enough time to make a baby quilt before Christmas but the large pieces of this quilt would be a fast make and would make an incredible treasured gift!

Brittany used a mix of my prints from my Juniper and Kismet collections for Art Gallery Fabrics plus Light Gray in AGF Pure Solids.

This Sprout baby quilt is paired with a classic Christmas children's book, Holly & Ivy for a cozy gift to give to little hands. I love how she “wrapped” this gift!

Day 4

On the fourth day of Gifting Handmade, Joyce Ulm delighted us with gifting ideas of a wine tote and reversible apron. Joyce is the owner of Eva Maes Custom Quilts and sells handmade items as well as long arms quilts (The quilt I made for Day 7 was quilted by Joyce). Find Joyce on Instagram, HERE.

This lovely Wine Tote is made from a pattern found in the “Let’s Do Lunch” book by Atkinson Designs.

If you have an avid cook on your gift list, this Crisscross Apron Pattern is a must-make! The pattern is by Mary Mulari Designs and is fully reversible.

Joyce used prints from my Juniper collection for the Wine Tote project and prints from my Shine On collection for the Crisscross Apron.

DAY 5

On the fifth day of Gifting Handmade, Tracey Taber-Perry showed us how to beautifully incorporate patchwork blocks into Christmas Stockings. This talented maker can be found on Instagram, HERE.

Any quilt block or patchwork base can be used for making stocking and Tracey shows us a variety of designs and variations that coordinate through common colors and prints from my Juniper collection.

The Wish Stocking pattern by Craft Owl Handmade comes in 2 sizes and is a great way to create the perfect way to give a gift this holiday! Tracey also used the star block from the Prairie Quilt Co table runner pattern as a stocking block.

Because there’s always fabric scraps, Tracey made some no-sew Woven Star ornaments using Tina1802 directions—what a great way to use up scraps and make some fun ornaments!

DAY 6

On the sixth day of Gifting Handmade, Terri Neil has us all wanting to make Hexie Pillows! This talented lady is a long arm quilting artist of Quilting Rubies. You can see her beautiful work on Instagram, HERE.

Terri made 2 pillows using fabrics from my Juniper collection for Art Gallery Fabric. The Hexie Pillow pattern from Modern Handcraft and Terri says, “The pattern is concise and includes a number of linked YouTube tutorials that clearly show the process of making hexies and the pillow.”

The pattern makes a 20” pillow with envelope back - which means no zipper!

Some of the fabrics in the Juniper line lend themselves nicely to fussy cutting for the 1” hexies which makes these extra fun.

DAY 7

On the seventh day of Gifting Handmade, Sharon Holland (me) dropped the Tall Pines quilt pattern into her Shop! I had to join in on the fun and was inspired to do a winter quilt! I’m so glad you’re already here, reading this blog post and you can sign up for my email newsletters and when I have a new post, you’ll get an email. You can follow me on Instagram, HERE.

The Tall Pines quilt pattern comes in just one size for an oversized throw. This pattern is priced at only $5 during the month of November and is a very quick make! Purchase the PDF pattern from my Shop, HERE.

I used a mix of my fabric collections for Art Gallery Fabrics that include prints from Kismet, Willow, Kindred, and Juniper. The colors are traditional for the season but not Christmasy so it’s the perfect look to keep out all winter.

This would make a festive topper quilt to add to a guest bed, drape onto a cozy armchair, or for a quick decor idea, use it as a wall hanging for a seasonal look! The beautiful ivy pantograph quilting pattern was longarm quilted by Joyce Ulm of Eve Mae’s Custom Quilts.

The Giveaways

As the first week of Gifting Handmade ends, a new giveaway begins! This time, there’s a first and second giveaway prize you’ll be entering to win a chance for one of two. One lucky winner will be randomly chosen for the 1st prize and one lucky winner will be randomly drawn for the 2nd prize!

First Giveaway Prize

The lucky winner to be drawn for the first giveaway prize gift will receive an Oliso ProPlus Iron with 4 of their new Oliso ProPress Link wool pressing mats! The ProPlus Iron has an auto-lift feature so the iron rests flat when not in use. Pair this iron with the pressing power of 14” square wool mats that have a unique connector system for configuring just the size mat you need!

At Oliso, they believe in the human-centered design process. San-Francisco based team of inventors, engineers and researchers know that great ideas are best inspired by listening to people. See how their products can change your home and lifestyle for the better.

Oliso | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Visit Oliso to see all their fine products.

Second Giveaway Prize

The second giveaway prize is a Tall Pines quilt kit and batting! I’ve made a quilt kit for a Tall Pines quilt top and binding that includes the pattern, a spool of thread, and all the fabrics I used in my Tall Pines quilt (minus the backing). Hobbs Batting will supply the batting for the quilt by sending this second giveaway winner a twin size batting of their wonderful Tuscany Supreme 100% Unbleached Cotton.

Hobbs Quilt Batting has manufactured high-quality batting for hobbyist, commercial, art and show quilters since 1978. They're proud to come from a family of quilters and are committed to providing the same quality Hobbs batting that provide to their own family of quilters. At Hobbs Batting, they never forget that quilts are gifts from the heart - an expression of love, commitment and caring for a specific recipient - or an expression of artistry and skill- artistry and that's submitted and judged in quilt shows and events around the word - or both! At Hobbs they're committed to doing their part to enhance our #JoyofQuilting!

Hobbsbatting.com  *  Blog  *  Instagram  *  Facebook 

Please be sure to visit Hobbs Batting for all your batting questions

Giveaway now closed

Congratulations Jaylyn 1st Place Winner and Stephanie F 2nd Place Winner!

*Note: This giveaway is open to US addresses only, sorry no international shipping. If you're a "no reply" or anonymous commenter, please remember to include your email address or Instagram or FB username in your comment--you can't win if I can't contact you!

Entries sent via email as replies from the newsletter email are not counted as entries—please click the link at the top of the newsletter and enter directly on my website on this post.

1. Simply leave a comment in the comments section for this post and tell me your favorite project(s) for the first week of Gifting Handmade! (Counts as entry number (1) one.)

2. Leave a comment and tell me what’s your most favorite handmade gift that you’d ever received—it can be anything but has to have been handmade. (This comment counts as entry number (2) two). 

3. Be following me (Sharon) on Instagram @sharonhollanddesigns and/or be signed up for my blog post newsletters and be following both Oliso on Instagram or FB as well as Hobbs Batting on their IG or FB account (counts as number (3) three entry) when you let me know in a comment.

That’s THREE possible entries and up to three chances to win either one of the prizes! Enter now through Friday, November 10, 2023. I’ll be drawing one lucky winner for each of the two prizes from the comments pool from this post. The winning comment will be picked at random around 4 pm Central. I’ll post the name of the winners on this post once they've been notified and responded to my email.