It’s the holiday season once again, and for many of us that means gathering together, sharing meals, and exchanging gifts. Sewing handmade gifts can be pretty ambitious (especially if you haven’t started yet!), but we’ve got some great ideas and some good news: sewists of any skill level can customize these gifts for everyone on their list and complete an entire set in just one weekend.

Home goods make great gifts! Handmade home accessories like pot holders, oven mitts, bowl cozies, and table runners require just a few materials (cotton woven fabrics, Insul-Bright interfacing, cotton batting, and matching thread) and are so easy to personalize. Friend of the shop & talented sewist Kim Heggins sewed these samples for us—you can see them in detail below and in person at our Berkeley store. Kim is the creator of the bowl cozy pattern, and has given us permission to share her free pattern with you. We can’t wait to make up a set in our favorite team colors for game day snacks!

Whether you’re planning a big holiday meal, heading to a winter gathering, or want to update your own table for the new year, we think you’ll love working on these quick, easy, and satisfying sewing projects!

We know that it can be a challenge to build a palette, so here’s a bit about how we created our sample palette (and two more for the coming months!):

Harvest Palette

For our harvest-inspired set, we started by listing colors that would suit our theme—in this case, rich shades of green, orange, gold, and caramel. We then selected a few cotton prints that worked well together, added some yarn dyes, and then swapped solids in and out of our pile until the palette felt like a good balance of light, dark, print, solid, and texture.

Winter Palette

For our winter table, we built our palette with colors that suggested winter but not a specific holiday—this allows us to use our accessories all season long! We started by selecting a wintry print and a coordinating yarn dye, and then identified the colors we wanted to focus on: icy blue, cool grey, dark green, and silver. We brought it all together with a leaf green cotton solid that matches a color in the poinsettia print. For a Christmas-specific set, swapping in a rich red would definitely do the trick!

Love Palette

We had a similar strategy for building this palette—we wanted to make a set that would feel appropriate for Valentine’s Day, but not limit its use to only that day. This combination of solids, yarn dyes, and printed quilted cotton come together to make a harmonious, Valentine-inspired composition.

Be the Designer