What to make for the menfolk in my life?

[Flubba]

I've been getting all crafty with my sewing recently, and although by no means an expert, am becoming more and more confident (and more and more addicted!) and am doing mostly homemade presents for Christmas presents this year. I have oodles of ideas for the women/girls in my life, but am really getting a bit stuck for presents for men (DH, BILs, dad and FIL, as well as my own baby boy and 7yo nephew). Any ideas?

Ooooh Flubba, I have lots of suggestions as am always trying to sew things for the men in my life!

roll-up spanner case, or you could addapt it to hold screw drivers or whatever other tools your men might use (not that all men use tools, I am not trying to stereotype)

for car-loving boys, obviously

muscle car t-shirt

personalised drawstring bag

boy's shorts, for the summer

boy's bow ties

dapper little ties, even if just for the dressing up box

men and boys' wallet

and there are also manly wahsbags

Loving all the ideas on here!

Thank you very much over - like the look of the spanner case and the drawstring bag in particular. I've done a car roll already, so am planning on using that for my nephew once my sister confirms he's still into cars (they live abroad so I don't see them all that often) . I've not yet ventured into doing appliqué but have been swotting up so ready to give it a go. Might need a bit of practice on scraps first mind!

Not sure I'm up to stencilling yet though although having said that, I do have some fabric paint and fabric pens, so could give that a go?! Need a printer at home so I'm not drawing templates freehand!

i am making OH an ipad cover and a kindle cover. I had a search on etsy for some ideas and have ordered some very masculine fabric from spoonflower.

for DS and nephew i haw got some pirate fabric and apliqued their names and ages to some plain t-shirts i bought.

Thanks jjgirl I'm going to give the kindle cover a go for FIL - will have a look at spoonflower, and last night I designed a star wars thingamy to have a go at painting onto a t-shirt for my nephew. Will post a pic if it turns out okay! :)

How easy is it to do appliqué? I've not tried it yet but it looks quite complicated to try out on letters as I've not tried it before even with big fat blobs of material.

flubba get yourself some bondaweb and appliqué is easy!

1. cut out a bit of bondaweb slightly bigger than your final shape

2. using a pencil, draw the shape onto the paper side (shape needs to be a mirror version of your finished image)

3. iron the bondaweb onto your fabric

4. cut out the shape following your pencil lines

5. iron the shape onto the bag, tshirt or whatever

NB i always do a little test bit first to check the iron temp on the fabrics i'm using

6. you can leave it at this point and say 'ta daa, i'm finished' but if you prefer, you can sew a zig zag stitch around the shape

good luck, you'll be fine!

Ooh, sounds easy when you put it like that! Is bondaweb a bit like iron-on interfacing but gluey on both sides?

it is easy!
it's similar, but there's no fabric bit. it's a fine layer of glue on paper

Does it stop fraying? Most of the fabric I use seems to fray a lot if not turned in.

Applique really is easy Flubba! I wouldn't just use bondaweb, as I'd worry it wouldn't last and you'd get fraying and falling off in the wash etc.

Once you've followed Hippy's great instructions, just sew a small zigzag satitch all around the outside of the appliqued bit, or use the straight bit of a button hole stitch setting on your machine (essentially a zigzag ttich that is small and very close together) or just sew around it by hand ?

Play around tonight with attaching small scraps on top of big scraps with zigzag atitches, you don't need a bondaweb to experiment, see what stitch you like best. I don't use bondaweb except for small things and letters and numbers, usually I just hold the top fabric in place and go slow.

this!! I've been looking for this link for ages! Top of my make list!

Wow that's an impressive piece of Boy Kit. It might have to be my project for my own boy when he's a bit bigger - the author says it took her about an hour, but guaranteed that would take me a few hours to do, and the finish wouldn't be nearly as good! Thanks, will def. add that to my list of projects :)

Forget the bandolier - i want the goldfish container!!

LOL - I only saw bits of your posts on "threads I'm on" and thought you meant cotton buds :o

Well I have done my first bit of appliqué-ing - looks like it's my first time too! :o
I got bored of waiting and couldn't get to a shop for bondage-webbing (:o), and had made an apron for one of my nieces, so I ironed a bit of interfacing onto the material I wanted to use, then drew and cut out the name (kind of handwriting stylee) on card, then stuck it onto the material with sellotape, then cut around it (thought it was a better way than drawing round it), then stuck the material name onto the apron with a bit of tacky glue and then did a kind of blanket stitch around it. There are a couple of odd frayed ends here and there, but on the whole, it ain't half bad for a first attempt :)

Now got my FIL's kindle measurements thanks to lots of secretive texting with MIL, so think I'll design a cover tonight and give it a go. Thought I'd try and use denim, so am hacking into an old pair of jeans that belong to DH :)