Last minute gifts

I've been planning on making gifts for teachers this year instead of the usual bottle of wine or box of chocolate.  Something a bit different from the run of the mill teachers gifts out there in the shops.  Over the years I have been very lucky and I have had many lovely pressies from the children in my many classes but I still remember the year when I received 27 boxes of chocolates! (Needless to say it was my duty to eat every single chocolate in every single box during my 6 week holiday - and yes I was sick of it by the end of August!)

So armed with a selection of scraps, felt and a bit of linen along with some lobster claw key ring type things and some stuffing I have come up with these:

Now I know that little keyrings are not an entirely new idea, many people out there are making them in various forms but this is something new to me.  I usually like to work with larger pieces of fabric so working with small scraps and my machine embroidery foot caused a few choice words to slip from my lips.

This little bundle was meant for my youngest daughter's pre-school team, however on the way to Brownies last night the eldest informed me that it was the last one and when we arrived all the Brownies were bearing gifts for Wise Owl et al.  So a quick trip to the supermarket and a mad dash home to finish off 3 of the keyrings resulted in this:

So I now have to make 3 more and a little something for my eldest's teacher - though I'm not entirely sure what yet.   I have enjoyed working on these, something a little different to what I usually do and pushing my boundaries a bit more.