Merry Christmas

I've done so much sewing and crafting and cooking and cleaning and decorating and socialising in the last week, but of course all of that leaves no time for blogging! But something has to give, and blogging was it which I'm sure you'll understand. I've managed to find a few quiet moments to do a quick post before we start wrapping presents - I have no idea why we've left this to Christmas Eve but at least we do have paper and tape so there won't be any last minute disasters.

So to everyone have a safe, happy and restful or fun (whichever you prefer) holiday time and I'll be back next year with more words of wisdom.

From my family to yours

Merry Christmas!

It's very cliched to say that Christmas has snuck up very quickly on us this year, but I cannot believe it's already Christmas eve!!  Thankfully all my Christmas shopping has been done and mostly wrapped and the decorations are up so that's the bulk of my tasks done. But what a week I've had - put in three days at the office, did a gestational diabetes test (negative woo hoo!), hosted a party with our neighbours at our house, went to carols by candlelight, braved some late night shopping, babysat four kids for a few hours with a friend while we tried to get them to sit for a nice group photo (exhausting and fruitless) and cleaned my house (including my sewing room) from top to bottom.  No wonder I feel about 90 years old at the moment!

Of course I didn't get everything done that I had on my to do list.  My swimmers are about 75% done, all that I need are some straps and to sew the leg elastic on, but apart from that they look pretty awesome.  I did think about saving the fabric for post pregnancy, but I think I've bought enough fabric to make a maternity swimsuit as well as a normal sized one - swimsuits really do use up so little fabric.  Hopefully I can squeeze in some sewing time tonight after an overexcited little girl goes to bed. 

After Vicki commented on the last post that Snapfish were having a 50% off sale on their calenders after she had bought one at 40% off without free postage I spent ages uploading photos and ordered 4 calenders by the cut off date for guaranteed pre Christmas delivery.  Well here we are on Christmas eve and they are nowhere to be seen, but I guess I should have paid for the express post option and not just settled for the free standard shipping.  Vicki I hope your calendar turned up in time - it will make up for not getting that extra 10% off and free shipping!

I did however manage to finish these Christmas decorations I started last year:

Better late than never right?  I also slaved away over a gingerbread house, seriously it was so fiddly to construct and decorate that I decided halfway through that I would probably not make another one of these again, and then when the kids I was looking after managed to destroy it in 2 minutes and eat most of it in 30 minutes I definitely decided not to make one again!

I also wisely decided not to sew any Christmas presents this year because I knew I would only stress myself out and not finish them anyway.  But I did make some cabbage patch doll clothes of all things for a doll I'm giving Anna for Christmas.  It's actually my childhood cabbage doll that I've cleaned up and am gifting to her - possibly cheap, but I like to think it's nostalgic and sentimental.  I seemed to have kept the doll (and my sister still has her identical twin doll too), but for some reason the clothes have gone missing.

I also spray painted an old cane basket I had in a red gloss paint to store all the clothes in.  Far out sewing those little bitty clothes are fiddly, but it's a good use of fabric scraps. It's also really hard to find cabbage doll patterns - Butterick have stopped selling them, there are no free patterns on the web and the ones for sale on ebay are exorbitant.  I bought one pattern for a shirt and jumper dress, but I ended up drafting a pattern for a simple a-line dress, pants and a skirt.

And that it is it for my crafty adventures for this year.  I doubt I'll have time to sew or post again between now and our annual trip to the inlaws, let me say now thank you all for following along with my adventures this year and sharing your own too in your comments and on your own blogs - I really love being part of our sewing community.

I hope you all have a happy and calm Christmas and new year.  Darwin residents - I hope the cyclone doesn't eventuate, and Christchurch residents my fingers are crossed that your ground stops shaking for the next few days at least.

All the best intentions....

As I said in my last post, I had so much I wanted to get done for Christmas this year but I only managed in the end to get a little done. Oh well, the good thing about Christmas is that the next one is only 12 months away....

I did get all my Christmas shopping done and wrapped, travel plans arranged and booked (no chance of snow related delays here) so the major things are ticked off and all is well. But this year I wanted to get more into the Christmas spirit now that Anna is cottoning on to what it's all about, and I did want to make some child friendly Christmas decorations for the tree, using this tutorial:

*image from retro-mama.blogspot.com

I bought some blue and white felt, dug out some buttons from the stash but this is as far as I got:

Hmmm, maybe I'll finish them for next year! In the meantime, unbreakable baubles from Ikea came to the rescue.

I also planned to make some wristlet style zippered purses for the carers at Anna's daycare centre instead of giving the standard chocolates or gift box of sweet smelling toiletries of which they must get heaps. Wristlets are very simple to make and there are loads of tutorials out there like this one. I went through my stash and pulled out some pretty fabrics, linings, zippers and even embellishments and this is what I came up with:

Success you might be thinking? Well sort of - I think these two are gorgeous, but I was planning to make seven of these! I ran out of energy and time to make any more, so instead went and bought seven boxes of chocolates. Life is too short to spend time sewing for people you are not sure will like what you've made. I think I'll give these two to my mum and sister instead.

This is starting to sound like another 'oh dear' post isn't it? But wait, there's more! When I'm away from my sewing machine and fabric I still have to keep my fingers busy, so I get into papercraft in a big way. Seriously, in my office I quite the collection of origami since I like to fold paper when I'm stressed or bored (beats mediation) and I have access to an endless amount of paper in the office. I found these cute paper partridges in little bird cage decorations available for free download at this site. All you have to do is print, cut out and glue, and you should get this:

But I only managed to make two from the eight I printed (I was making these at home and two year olds + paper = disaster), and even those two look a bit, well, if I'm being honest, crap:

And my final best but failed intention: I bought a gingerbread house kit from Ikea because I knew I wouldn't have the time to bake gingerbread as well as assemble and decorate one. All I can say is thankfully the kit has an expiry date of August 2012, so there's always next year!

I did manage to get a little Christmas frock done for Anna in time for Christmas (no less!). It's just a simple a-line shift dress that is fast becoming my TNT pattern (McCalls 5916) for her since I've made it several times before.

My very talented photographer friend Vanessa and I set up a Christmassy photo shoot to take some photos of our kids and we tried so hard to get them all smiling or at all least looking in the same direction but it was absolute chaos to say the least. There were a few funny photos to come out of it though!

Merry christmas everyone, hope you have a lovely holiday season. Thank you all for reading along with me this year, and leaving wonderfully supportive, helpful and funny comments. I'll be back in the new year.

*Yes that is my christmas tree, minus any handmade decorations.