new ornaments

My Christmas present from Adam was a full set of ornaments from The Forgotten Carols:

Let Him In

Homeless

You Were Not There In Bethlehem

Handel's Dream

Mary Let Me Hold Her Baby

The Dance

I Was Not His Father, He Was Mine

I Cannot Find My Way - Three Kings

 I Cry the Day that I Take the Tree Down

Aren't they AWESOME?!?!?! He ordered the wood flute, the quill pen (it came with ink), the corsage, and the treble clef precut but the rest he made himself. The last two ornaments are for me and Tawnia. The mirror says "The Star of Bethlehem" and he actually got the idea from an Amelia Bedelia book. The treble clef was for Tawnia because she spent Christmas with us this year. Next year, we need to figure out Adam's ornament - something with Scouts like a fleur de lis.

bags and bags and more bags

Christmas presents for a lot of ladies in my life.  I added a pocket to only one (with the button), for Cupcake, otherwise they are just simple tote bags.  I may add pockets on future bags, just not with flaps and buttons - I think the pocket took more time than the whole rest of the bag.  It was fun to do, even though I had to switch machines in the middle (my machine died, I'm borrowing my mother-in-law's), but I'll take a break from sewing for a little bit.  Looking forward for spring though, to make more ruffle dresses for my baby girl!

 

As a side note, I think Cupcake has messed up my camera.  Right side of the picture, sharp and clear.  Left end is blurry and yuck.  I'll see if a good lens cleaning will help, otherwise I'm going back to my old camera.  Sad.

LDS ABC

I made Cupcake a little book to keep her distracted during church.  She loves to flip through picture books and albums, so I figured one with a church theme would be just perfect.  It'll be in her stocking to open on Christmas morning.  I came up with my own set of words and scriptures, and used a mix of my own pictures and ones from lds.org.  (I did not alter the photos in any way - no cropping, no adding words on top, etc., to obey their copyright laws.)  About half the letters were double  pages - one page for the scripture, one for the picture. 

 

 

Atonement, Baptism, Creation, Divine Nature, Eternal Family, First Presidency, Golden Plates, Heavenly Father, Iron Rod, Jesus Christ, Kneel, Last Supper, Missionary Work, Nativity, Oil, Priesthood Blessings, Quiet, Resurrection, Sacrament, Temple, Utah, Vision (first), Word of Wisdom, Xample, Youth, Zion

I can sew!

Who knows how long ago my mom had put together the top of a crib quilt, a checkerboard of floral blue and yellow stripes.  She had a plan for it, but it didn't turn out, and so it was never finished.  I came across it this summer and decided to finish it, even with my limited sewing experience.  I liked the simplicity of the top, but felt like it needed a little something, and figured a heart in the lower corner would be perfect.  I sewed it on with the sewing machine before putting the rest of the quilt together.  It looked HORRIBLE, but I kept going anyway.  I tied the quilt with two different colors of embroidery floss and used some purchased white binding for the edge.  It took a few days of hand-stitching the binding to the back, and it is far from perfect, but I'm pretty proud of it.  Except for the heart.  So I ripped it off (all hail the seam ripper!) and started over.  I was smart this time and borrowed an embroidery hoop to get everything tight and even before attaching the heart.  I could have done a different stitch or used invisible thread or whatever, but it is done and I like the fact that you can see the stitching on the back of the quilt.  Again, NOT perfect, but it has charm. 

 

Not sure what I wanted to do next, I settled on making myself a Christmas skirt.  I just did a simple rectangle skirt, so it isn't super fabulous, but it is relatively even and is basically the length I wanted, so I'd say Go me!  I realized that of all the fabric I was given there was very little that was actually in a piece large enough for me (at least of the Christmasy patterns), so I worked with what I had.  I was going to do a ruffle on it for some added flair, but ended up cutting it too narrow.  Instead I attached the ruffle to a denim skirt of Cupcake's so we could be coordinating.  I'm certain that all the ruffles took longer than my skirt, but I think it was worth it.

 

At least a week had passed, and I was looking around online and found an adorable tiered dress.  I had seen a lot of tiered ruffled skirts, but Cupcake does not need any skirts right now.  (Not that she needs any dresses either, but whatever.)  I loved the idea of using a t-shirt for the top because sleeves intimidate me, and since I had already dealt with ruffles I figured this would be easy enough.  And it was!  Everything was in straight lines, and I can tear those, so I didn't even have to deal with cutting much.  I was generous with length so the dress is basically floor length (without her tripping over it), meaning she can probably wear it next year too!  (I can always move it to a bigger shirt if necessary.)  Not bad for a few hours before church!

first Christmas skirt of the year

SM gets only one church outfit per season because we've learned the hard way that one is all she'll wear. No sense in filling the closet with pretty dresses that she won't wear to church and she's not allowed to wear at any other time. When she wants variety, we'll add variety. But for now, she's 7 and wants the same thing every week, and this has been her pattern since she was about 4.

She was still wearing her Easter dress after Halloween so we went straight for Christmas. She wanted it made rather than bought, and she wanted a skirt rather than a dress. We did buy a top to go with it - I'm not quite that brave. We went to Kohl's with the skirt and she chose the top. Here's the result:

(Now to work on posture.)

The fabric was actually ordered online last year but I never did anything with it. It's 2 pieces because she wanted a double layer skirt - the ruffle is attached to white lining fabric rather than being the green all the way down. The green ruffle could have been attached to the red and would probably look better, but she's happy with it so whatever.

And now for A LOT more sewing in the next 23 days, so see ya later! I've got 12 days to make 5 nightgowns for the Polar Express themed church Christmas party, where the kids are supposed to wear pajamas.