Advent Calendars, done slightly differently

Back in 2009 I made two quilted advent calendars, one for me and one for my brother. So for December of 2009 I had my advent calendar, excitedly taking a chocolate out of it each day in the lead up to Christmas. Then in 2010 disaster struck! I couldn't find my advent calendar. I was SO upset, I'd spent so much time making the advent calendar to only be able to use it one?! I was gutted! So I turned into a bit of a scrooge that year. Again in 2011 the story was similar, my advent calendar hadn't turned up and I wasn't quite ready to make a new one, so again, no advent calendar.

Then, earlier this year when I was moving it turned up! My Christmas decoration had been stuck inside another box so we hadn't found them when looking! MASSIVE thanks must go out to Darren, who is the one that actually found them. So this year I'm very excited to have my advent calendar back again! Also, since I'm now living with my brother the two advent calendars are reunited, so of course they've been put up on the wall next to each other:

In celebration of having my advent calendar again, I am doing something a little different this year. Rather than just getting some chocolates and having one a day, I've teamed up with a friend and I've filled her advent calendar and she's filled mine. The friend in question is the talented Kristy of HandmadeRetro.

We set ourselves the guidelines of:
- Weekdays get a chocolate goodie
- Weekend days get a little gift
- Every day gets a task of some description.

So Saturday afternoon I popped into Kristys and we filled each others calendars. Even though I took a photo of her advent calendar after filling it with the stuff I got for her yesterday, I won't post it as she needs to post about it on her blog, so keep an eye out over there to see hers, I'm very excited to find out whats In all of the pretty packages that she's prepared for me though! (pictured above)

So far I've opened two packages, both of which were weekend packages so had gifts! The first had a set of cable needles, which is great as I don't have any of them, I've been using a double pointed needle for cabling. The second had a spool of fancy silk thread, I'm not sure if it's meant to be used for anything special (Kristy? Pardon my ignorance!), but it sure looks and feels beautiful!

I have to confess, I haven't actually done the task for day 1 yet, as I was headed to a wedding and had already planned my hair, and today I was just bumming around at home all day, but I will definitely do it ASAP. The second task however I happily followed! And this evening I baked some Raspberry and White Chocolate muffins.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the packages hold! Do you have an advent calendar?

Advent Calendar 2010 - Happy Early Christmas Vicki

I showed you this sneak peek of a gift I'd made a while ago, but couldn't show you the whole thing until I'd given it to its recipient. Thankfully this gift was given today, so I can finally share all the gory details!

It was an advent calendar for my friend Vicki, hence the over a month early Christmas Pressie - I think giving it on Christmas day would have been a bit mean and stupid as she'd have to wait almost a whole year to actually be able to use it.

I used Elizabeth's advent calendar tutorial with a few variations to make the advent calendar, including a panel with printed numbered squares for the pockets, and not off setting the pockets in the sashing (although I wish I had, but I didn't have time)

As I mentioned before, It was made on my Grans Bernina, and quited using the stich regulator (although the stitches weren't that regulated as I had the wrong settings).

Christmas Gift: Pin-up Girl Embroidery

As a pressie for one of my housemates I thought I'd try my hand at some embroidery.

A small pin-up style girlie.

Of course, wearing a sparkly red swimsuit with matching hat and heels; it's summer here at the moment after all!

However, as I suck at drawing, it's based on this picture that I found on the internet. Sadly I can't give the artist true credit as I cannot for the life of me find where I got it from (if you know where it's from please tell me and I'll credit accordingly):

Christmas Gift: Fold-up Fabric Bag

I made a fabric bag for mum for Christmas. I followed this tutorial to make a fold-up bag. The fabric is from the quilting section at Spotlight.

The front and back of the bag:

And once it's folded up:

I found some steps of the tutorial a little confusing; like where the 'top' is mentioned but there is no indication as to which way around to put the fabric to get the 'top'. However I muddled through and the bag is great. I have some different fabric that will be made up into another one of these for myself.

Thanks Gran & Jo!!!

Before I continue posting the gifts I made for other people I wanted to show you what my Gran and Jo gave me for Christmas.

Two jelly roles, some charm squares and two fat quarters of various Moda fabrics.

Now I need to decide what to make with them. I'm already having fun running ideas through my brain, especially since I've never made anything with jelly rolls or charm squares before.

So Thanks again Gran and Jo, it's a great gift and I'm looking forward to using it.

Christmas Gift: Smiley PJs

For my brother for Christmas I made a pair of Smiley PJs out of some fantastically fun jersey fabric I found at Spotlight.

For the top I used the basic T-shirt pattern from "sew u home stretch" in Large but with 3" added to the bottom to make it long enough for Marcus' 6'4" height. If I were to make it again I would also have added some length to the sleeves, as they're really very short. Actually, if I had been making anything I would expect him to wear out of the house I would have added at least 2-3 inches to the sleeves.

As you can see I used the red from the bottoms for the neck band. I thought the Smileys might stretch out if I used it and didn't want to risk it.

The bottoms were from Simplicity pattern 3947, which is my standard 'PJs for Marcus' pattern now. I made a Medium but using the long length. I love this pattern as it has pockets; In my opinion all PJs should have pockets. I altered the waistband slightly so that it had a separate part made with the contrasting smiley fabric containing some nice chunky elastic (1" wide I think).

For the various hems I used a double needle which made it turn out really well (although I think I need to buy a new double needle as it missed a few stitches).

Marcus was also the lucky recipient of a superbly and lovingly cooked Christmas dinner (even if I do say so myself). We had a full roast with all sorts of different veges, lamb for me and a vegetarian thing for him, complete with perfectly cooked Yorkshire Puddings of course! Too stuffed to manage desert we've decided to save that for tomorrow.

I hope everyone else had an enjoyable and hopefully relaxing Christmas!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a lovely and enjoyable day tomorrow (and all the days after that of course). May you stuff yourselves silly with food, have great company, and get all you wish for.



Thankfully, despite a halt in productivity today due to me coming off my bike while cycling to the supermarket and thus taking a nap this afternoon to rest my injured knee rather than sewing, all my planned gift sewing was done on time. I have photos and details of everything and shall post about them after tomorrow once they have been gifted. Next week shall be a week of sewing things for me. I'm going to be ambitious and try for 10 things next week, as that's how many items I still need to do to get to 52 crafts. Not sure if it'll happen but I can always try.

Now it's off to bed for me so I'm alert and ready to cook my first ever Christmas Dinner tomorrow. It's just me and my brother and I may have horrifically over catered by buying enough food in Coles today to feed a small army, but hopefully it'll be enjoyable :)

Super-Star!

You saw the beginnings of Mindy's Star costume for our Christmas party the other day, here is the rest.

After cutting out the star shape it was sewn together:

Then tried on:

And a face hole promptly added to allow for breathing (sadly essential):

After adding a cardboard cone to keep the top point of the star up, and some fantastic silver make-up the costume was complete:

Mindy even took the tram down to the party with us:

*three cheers for Mindy's star*

She didn't win the costume contest, but was in the top 5. In my mind she should have won!!

Sailor Scout Costume Details

As promised, some more details of the sailor scout costumes.

(images are clickable to see bigger versions)

The base pattern that I used was simplicity 7808 (which appears to have been removed from the simplicity site, and replaced with this one). I used the bodice and skirt from pattern C - the Glenda the Good Witch costume, but shortened the skirt quite substantially. Thankfully the princess seams allowed us to cut the same size for all of us and alter the pattern on each person rather than work out exact sizes for each of us. I then drafted/draped my own sailor collar and sleeves with a little fold in.

White ribbon was added to the edges of the sailor collars and bows were added to the front and back - the back being bigger than the front and being attached on one side of the zip with a little snap. Finally I added a covered button to the centre front:

Of course, all superheroes have their various accessories. We had gloves that coordinated with our outfits (we bought the gloves but I added the colour to the top, along with a strip of elastic to keep them up):

Chokers:

And tiara type thingys for our foreheads:

And Sally even had a little red bow for her hair:

Lastly, we each had different shoes, with me and Becky needing coordinated knee high boots:

The boots were made by wrapping the fabric around our legs and attaching velcro up the centre back seams. We then wrapped the fabric around our chosen shoes (excluding the heel) and hand stitched it to shape. Lastly the top of the boot was hemmed into the pointed shape and white ribbon added along the top edge.

All of these items together yielded some very fun costumes:

The Sailor Scouts

Last night was our big work Christmas party, which is always fancy dress. This year the theme was "Out of this world and into the future: a space adventure".

Me and four other girls from work went as Sailor Moon and the sailor scouts:

As none of the other girls in the group sew I made all 5 costumes (with help cutting and pinning from them). It took quite a long time, but I'm very happy with the result and think it was worth the effort.

I will post proper pictures of all the details in the near future.

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...

This evening I had another sewing date, this time with my friend Mindy, who I have assisted (mostly by the use of my sewing machine) to make her costume for the Christmas Party. On the weekend we went on a field trip to spotlight and bought this fantastic holographic silver fabric:

We drew around Mindy and fashioned a Star shape on of the fabric, which was cut out and sewn together. Not much more to do to finish it!!

I've been instructed not to post photos of the actual costume until after the party ;)

Christmas Party Costumes...

I had another sewing date on the weekend and my rainbow of fabric started to be made into some costumes for the work Christmas party.

So far we have Sailors Collars:


And big fabric bows:



And, in my best Ralph Harris impersonation - "Have you guessed what it is yet?"

PS: Please don't tell people at work, as we're not telling everyone, and yes, that means you too Amelia ;)

Christmas edging closer and closer!

My advent calendar is hung and filled with yummy chocolatey goodies (bought from the Lindt shop that opened in the city a few months ago).

With the remaining fabric from my advent calendar I decided to make some Christmas decorations for our living room.

I used the extra squares, and made some more out of the extra strips, folded them in half diagonally and stitched some red ribbon down the fold to make them into bunting... until I ran out of ribbon when I just chain stitched the triangles together.

Very rough and very simple. If I had pinking shears I would have cut them with that to stop any fraying.

The living room is now looking very festive, and a little bit circus-like.

Oh, and how superbly fantastically tacky is my Christmas tree! I got it in Borders last week, I just couldn't resist!!