The Every Year Christmas Crafting Crunch

The doll house wasn't
the best idea.

It happens every single year.  The slow creeping suspicion that I've bitten off more than I can chew when it comes to Christmas present crafting.  

Gradually, as we get closer to Christmas, the suspicion will begin to blossom into something like panic, although usually actual panic is staved of by the fact that I can remain in denial for a ridiculous amount of time, reasoning that if I stay up all night for the next dozen nights I can surely finish everything that needs to be done so that everything that I planned on making gets finished in time for Christmas morning.  

And at the very end I can at least proclaim "Christmas is a season!  It's not just one day!" which implies that that present that was being made on Christmas Eve will be finished before Epiphany, when in reality I probably will collapse on that first night of Christmas exhausted and not pick up that particular project again until the next year when I think "hey this could fit (insert the name of next smallest child here)" and finally finish it, thankful that I had something halfway done.  

I actually wouldn't be worried at all at this point if it weren't for the incredibly grumpy baby, who actually isn't all that grumpy with dairy eliminated from my diet, but who still thinks that the sound of the sewing machine being fired up means it must be Mommy and James time... and who can refuse cuddles like that, even if they do tend to be a little frown filled, because I'm not Daddy and Daddy gets all the smiles.

I'm not even kidding.  Paul picks up James and James beams at him.  Paul says "Oh look!  He's smiling at me for the bazillionth time today at ME!" and I rush over and get this look:

So today I will sit down to make the list of things to be made.  I'm a little behind.  I think usually The List is made in September.  I think James can take credit for the fact that it hasn't been made yet this year, because my to do list in September was heavily focused on what needed to be done before he arrived and so Christmas craft planning took a back seat.  

A more ambitious Christmas
when I sewed Sadie a
Sofia dress and built
that doll house in the
back ground.

Despite all the rush that usually happens at the end, I still love the homemade holidays we've had these last years since Paul started law school.  Because while there has been some stress when I think of getting things done, there's also been, by necessity, a sort of simplification that has helped us focus on the reason we're celebrating.  

Sadie's first Christmas was jam packed with presents.  I'd been shopping for the entire time I was pregnant with her and then through the six months until Christmas.  When I opened the closet and saw how many presents had accumulated, it was ridiculous.  

I love these homemade Christmases.  This year I'm debating whether or not to go with the three presents per kid strategy we've done in the past or the "something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to read" strategy, but I guess I'll figure that out when I make the list today!  

Can you relate to the yearly feeling of a Christmas crafting crunch that always seems to sneak up on you, no matter how much you plan ahead of time?  

I sometimes feel that even when I do start sewing and knitting in September I still run out of time before Christmas morning!

Let the Crafting Begin: Getting Ready for Birthdays

The girls' birthdays have been steadily sneaking up on me. I know I need to find time to kick into birthday present making high gear before I'm completely blindsided by the fact that Sadie's birthday is now in less than two weeks and Mae's birthday is less than a month away.  

So tonight, after doing everything else that needed to be done, I made the first thing that popped into my head.  It's a mermaid costume for Mae's doll.  Mae's doll (which I didn't make) hasn't gotten a huge amount of play time since Mae has fallen in love with all things mermaid (at the expense of anything that doesn't have a tail), so I thought I would fix that by making the doll about a million times more interesting to our little mermaid fan.

I'm planning on making a few outfits for each of the girls dolls, along with a few other presents (like mermaid outfits for each of them) that I'm still working up plans for in my head.  I have all the mermaid costume fabric... and the dolls will be the test runs before I make the real things (which are actually totally different from the dolls, but I thought the dolls would be good practice for the bottom part of the fins, which were what I was the most worried about making).

Also on the list is a new weighted vest for Mae (made out of the same material I used to make the mermaid outfit) and an idea I'm playing with for a weighted fish, since all things aquatic seem to make the cut when it's playtime.  

Here's the start of my birthday preparations! Hopefully there won't be a huge last minute rush... although it seems to me that even when I've started much, much earlier there always is!

Just Keep Sewing, Just Keep Sewing...

I took a quick break from the nightly routine to post a few pictures of my projects from the last three days.  The piecing quilts are done for the day.  Maybe.  Unless I finish everything else before midnight, which may or may not happen, depending on how efficient I am.

I've pieced 30.  20 to go if I'm going to meet my goal by the end of the month (I'm not yet admitting that that might not happen).

Now to get on to the actual work from my stores!  I hope your having a good Holy Week!

Little Dolls for the Girls

Last night, after making the front sides of one and a half quilts out of a cute little russian inspired doll print, I began taking the leftover scraps and started cutting out the little dolls.  I backed them with cuddle fabric and stuffed them with rice and voila:

This is the beginning of my Easter basket sewing!  They're perfect for fitting in Mae Bae's hand (she loves carrying little dolls around in her hand) and they're snuggly and soft!  I can't wait to see her playing with them!

The Office: Ready to Craft!

 Over the course of the last few days I have been obsessively focused on finishing my office, unpacking everything that needed to be unpacked, and building a special work center that could store the ridiculous number of supplies that I use while running my three shops.  You see, because I pretty much stalk the sales at craft stores and have to have a large stash of my fabric fabrics (because the same snoods tend to be popular all at once and it helps to have more than one yard of a fabric when it's popular), things can get a little crazy around here if I don't stay organized.  And I was more determined than ever to organize my new space, which is a bit smaller than the office in Florida.

I started by explaining to Paul that I needed three of the book shelves that were formerly covered with books for my office (since the majority of our books were going to be in the basement anyways, that wasn't a problem).  Then I added that I needed a 3' x 5' piece of plywood for a table top.  The table was beginning to take shape:

The bassinet is in the sewing room at the moment, partially because I'm fairly certain Mae Bae would use it as some kind of climbing/surfing device if it were in the baby room.  It's just safer in the sewing room.

Some of the lace from the awesome discount warehouse we found in Tucson this summer is over the door, and you can glimpse the greatest closet in the entire house through the other doorway (although that's not too difficult a title to claim, because most of the closets in our little 1928 house are pretty tiny).

Here's a close up of the closet.  The fabrics on the left hand side are sorted by type, with an entire shelf devoted to unfinished projects of all kinds.  Shipping supplies are above the hangers.  Seasonal items are cut out of the picture, but are on a rack at the very top.  

From this angle you can see the table top a bit better.  It's holding most of my rosary supplies on the top, along with a huge amount of sewing notions, my iron, a cutting area and some sewing books that I like to keep handy.  Underneath the table two sides are dedicated to fabric and one is dedicated to yarn:

Here's a look at the yarn side.  My yarn stash doesn't seem quite as extravagant these days.  Maybe it's because it's so close to the fabric stash though.  The fabric stash could make anything look small.

The tulle was taking up too much space.  So it's a curtain.  This motivates me to use it quickly, before the sun bleaches it.  One the floor sits my serger and a basket of ribbon/thread that couldn't fit anywhere else.  And see the table half cropped out of the picture on the right hand side?  That's my painting table. I was spending too much time bringing my paints out every single day when I'd work on my dolls.  Now the paints can stay out on the table in their own little works space.  That saves a lot of time:

This sewing machine nearly caused a nervous breakdown this week.  I could not find the box with the sewing machine foot in it.  I spent two days nervously searching for it.  Thankfully it turned up today in the last set of boxes (somehow it was the only office box I hadn't labeled, and so it had ended up in the master bedroom).  It was such a relief to have my sewing machine set up and ready to sew:

Now to get some sleep!  There's still more work to do tomorrow (which is actually today now that I stayed up past midnight working!)!

This Week's Work Link Up Party: #3

It's time to share another Week's Work and I can't wait to see what you've come up with!

Here's what I've been up to:

This week I felt much less rushed.  There's no more birthday present creating going on in our house, and so I could take a deep breath and only focus on the shops.  

And that meant quite a few more saint dolls were painted:

And here are a few close-ups of some of my favorites.  First there's Saint Philomena:

Our family's patron saint: Saint Martin de Porres

Another favorite, Saint Michael, took forever to paint!

Then it was on to snoods.  Quite a few didn't make the cut for the link-up party, mainly because I don't want to post the same snoods, which sell every week, over and over again.  So here are some of the one's I photographed last night to post:

Purple Lace and Crepe

My first snood made from knit material.  Cuddly for winter and autumn!

This one was finished last week, but didn't make it into the photograph pile:

I love the color of this one!

Blue Dupioni Silk!  I love sewing silk!

 The dress:

A custom snood for a baptism (it's teeny tiny!):

More brocade:

Cotton:

And finally black silk!

So that's what I've been up to this week!

Now for the link up fun:

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This Week's Work Link Up Party- #2

I survived finishing up Mae Bae's presents, despite a freak illness striking the birthday girl the night before her birthday, which meant that very little got done in the way of preparations that night.  Thankfully she was feeling much better in the morning.  Her favorite present seemed to be the felt play oven mitts I threw together last week.  

Here are some of my other projects this week:

Mae's Bracelet (this was a big hit too)

Mae's Necklace (did I mention that she's really into accessories at the moment)

Mae Bae's Completed Saint Catherine Doll

A Custom Order!

The last piece of one of my most popular fabrics was used to make this convertible cover:

I love brocades.

White stretch lace is finally here!  It only took two years!

And since I was on a roll I finished a brown stretch lace cover too.

This one is so incredibly soft.  It was my first try at sewing chiffon!  And it was a success!

More sparkling organza:

Some coverings I haven't photographed for the shop yet.  A convertible lace and dupioni and a narrow dupioni headband:

Three more convertibles just waiting to be photographed and listed.  Can you tell that I'm trying to efficient by sewing a bunch of coverings with the same bobbin thread at once so I'm not wasting a ton of time changing colors?  Hence all the blue and purple.

I used the leftover flannel to begin making a rag rug (something I'd never tried before).  After the flannel ran out I began scrounging up linen scraps.  I'm not sure how this is going to turn out.  I think it might be a little too tight since I was too impatient to wait until I had an appropriately sized crochet hook:

Before I could write tonight's post I had to cut off Paul's rapidly growing hair before it turned into a giant curly puff of spirals.  After cutting his hair for a couple of years we've saved at least a couple hundred dollars.

Sadie in her birthday apron (from a few weeks ago) eating tonight's creation, my personal (and easy) cheese enchilladas.  I'm planning on posting the recipe soon.  

Mae Bae, who has suddenly become a finicky eater (did I really think I could dodge that toddler stage?), will only reliably eat beans.  She loves kidney beans, black beans, white beans, pinto beans and especially chickpeas.  She likes them with chili pepper, garlic powder and cumin.  Kind of strange for a two year old!

The finally finished blanket (my pinkie has been numb on and off all week since I finished it!  It was a LOT of cutting!).

Now it's your turn!  What have you been up to this week!

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