Never go with a hippie to a second location!

I hope everyone has properly recovered from their NYE hangovers and is already ditching their resolutions! My resolution for the year was to sew one garment per month- so hopefully at the end of the year, I will have 12 wearable garments. Or some wearable ones, and some disasters. I joined Karen‘s 2013 Sewlutions to help keep me on track. Notice my sweet button on the sidebar. There’s still time to join, but the chance to win a prize at the end of the year if you complete your resolution has passed. It’s cool though, because it will help keep me accountable.

So here’s a quick glimpse of the tradition that The Hubs and I do each year- we buy each other  a Christmas ornament! Can you guess who got which one?

It’s a fun tradition because each ornament comes with certain memories of the year. It’s really our only tradition, but I love it.

And here is what I made him for Christmas!

I don’t do a lot of cross-stitch, but I was given a metric shit-ton of embroidery floss by my MIL, so I’ll have to start using it! This is a lyric from Lonely Island’s “Lazy Sunday”- this song always makes me and the Hubs laugh.

Stay tuned for Sunday- my Pattern Pyramid is going live!

It’s a Saturnalia Miracle!

And by miracle, of course, I mean that The Nugget’s dress ACTUALLY FITS. WHAT?! But I’m getting ahead of myself…

So, I’m newly returned from a whirlwind adventure in the Twin Cities and to Western States with Mountains, got sick, and have been pooped. Gah! No time for blogging when coughing and sleeping! Anyhoodle, right before we left, I finished knitting my christmas stocking, which is the same one I made for The Hubs earlier this year, but in cream. I added hangy loops when we got back and WAH-LA (as they say on etsy.)

I used a pattern I found on Ravelry. Both stockings are on my personal Ravelry page. These stockings are my first experiences with stranded knitting, and honestly, it’s not that hard! It takes a little fiddling to figure out how not to have holes when changing colors, but it’s pretty easy. These were a joy to make- important in a hobby, amirite?

Next, onto Nugget’s Birthday Dress, aka I Totally Lucked Out that This Thing Fit, aka I Totally Bit Off More than I Could Chew Here, People. I think I said in a previous post that if it didn’t fit, I wanted to burn it. Prior posts on the subject showed that slippery-ass fabric stinks for newbie sewasauruses like me (term from CationDesigns.) Putting in the zipper was a mess to do and it’s a mess to look at.

Monstrous.

Have you ever seen anything as hideous as that? Like I said, I’m a newb, and this project with this fabric was just too ambitious for my current skills. Oh well, on with the show…

Front

Bodice

Ribbon roses to cover fabric snags/flaws

So, with this….thing that I had before me, I was a little nervous. With much trepidation did I wrap and give this….thing to the Nugget. Luckily, she, as an almost 5 year old, adored it.

Look at this cheeser!

I tried to get pictures of her twirling, but….

Funny, but fail.

It’s kind of hard to corral a young child who just got a giant stack of presents from her grandparents, even if it is to take a photo of her in her birthday dress whilst twirling (she’s a New Year’s bebe.) Everytime the flash went off, she’d take off back to the living room to her pile of loot, haha.

Anywho, it’s certainly not a grand success, but not quite a failure either.

In other news, I won a Pattern Pyramid giveaway from CharmofMagpies, woot! She’s located in NZ, so whenever my goodies get here, I’ll host my own! (and probably add a pattern from my stash that I’m clearly never going to use.) Thanks, Joy! I hope she got my email… 🙂

In OTHER other news, I got two great gifts related to crafting for Christmas.  Sew U Home Stretch by Wendy Mullin was from my BIL, and my dearest Hubs gave me a pair of Gingher dressmaking shears (for lefties!) Pretty stoked about these two gifts! I also got some video games, nail polish, and the game Cards Against Humanity. Pretty awesome Christmas!

Coming soon- the gift I made for the Hubs for Christmas, and one of our Christmas traditions (late- I wanted to post during my trip, but I was just too busy!)

Hope everyone is have a lovely end-of-the-year!