Sorry to disappear like that, but there hasn’t been much sewing around here lately. Actually none. This dress is the last thing I made (the day before christmas of course).  It’s a simple enough dress, but the gathers were a royal pain in the butt. Velvet isn’t one of the suggested fabrics for a reason. It never gathered enough–the fabric was just too thick–and I had to put the button waaaaay over so it would stay up on her shoulders.  And that is button, not buttons, because I got the flu and five button loops and five covered buttons just seemed like a lot more than I could handle.  But she wore it to christmas dinner and was just the cutest (and that was really the point right).

I will be back Monday with the Mobile Swap 2009 sign up. Last year was a huge success and a lot of fun to boot. Check out last year’s flickr group just to see the amazingness and check back next week to sign up!

I suppose I should have posted this yesterday, seeing as 2008 is now over, but I’ve been busy doing absolutely nothing.  This week has been post holiday recovery. I finished everything I had to do by the time we left to go to Grandma’s house for Christmas and then I promptly got the flu Christmas eve, so I could barely enjoy it. Poo. I’ve actually heard of a few other people getting sick on Christmas this year–maybe we’re stressing out a bit much about Christmas these days? maybe next year everyone will get a kiss and a pat on the back. Anyway, things are slowly getting back to normal: the tree is on the way to the curb and the kids have stopped asking about the advent calendar everyday. And though we did whoop it up with hors d’oeuvres and chocolate milk at 5:30pm last night, the new year came in pretty quietly. This is the time of year when I am very happy to have a blog, because I can look back and actually see some of what I accomplished this year. I was never the sort of person who could keep a journal past January or remember what happened last week, much less last year, so it’s nice to be reminded that sometimes I can get shit done and sometimes it’s not half bad. Most, if not all, of this stuff would have never come to be if it wasn’t for you, dear readers. It still seems silly to me that someone I’ve never met can say something nice about my work and it pushes me to make more and better things. Before I started this blog, I thought my creative vein had dried up, but somehow you keep inspiring me to push through those crappy creative dry spells and keep making. Thank you, thank you. I wish you boundless creative energy and piles of amazing vintage fabric (for cheap!) in the new year.

Happy New Year!

this is just to show off the amazing cake plate I got from a friend for christmas. It’s a cup and a plate epoxied together, but it’s so much more than the sum of it’s parts. I’ve always wanted a fancy fancy cake plate.  Those are chocolate caramels on it, made for little christmas gifts. I made the gingerbread version too (which were surprisingly good) and they’ve all gone to our neighbors on this snowy, snowy day.

…a few warm things I made for the kids so far this winter. The scarves are made from the sleeves of an old felted cashmere sweater and the kids love them because they are so soft.  The flannel pillowcases were supposed to be their St. Nicholas day presents, but I completely forgot about St. Nicholas day.  So they were whipped up in 10 minutes on St Nicholas night right before bedtime. A couple french seams and a big hem and voila! a custom pillowcase. I might make some linen ones for myself after Christmas. And the hat is from an old Martha Stewart pattern.  I’ve used the pattern a bunch of times before, but the sizing is always tricky. I set out to make one hat and suddenly the whole family has them. Usually I just make them from felted sweaters, but for this one I made two hats (one from a sweater and one from an old stripey knit shirt) then fit them together right sides facing, sewed around the edge, turned it out, topstitched and ta da.

This is a Martha idea from a few years back. Super simple and it makes the whole room smell like gingerbread. My reindeer are pretty wonky (one somehow became a boy reindeer in the oven and one gained some christmas weight) Martha would not approve. If you make this, the gingerbread dough’s best quality should be sturdiness, not deliciousness.  There was an obscene amount of butter in these, so we will be eating, not decorating with, the rest. Though I’m sure these reindeer will have their feet nibbled off in no time.