What the curtains?

Between Eve being sick and then me being sick, I've been stuck inside a lot lately. Two things have gotten me through this month of rain and pestilence however: Christmas music and sewing. I know it's only October and I should be doing season appropriate projects but when you feel the Christmas spirit and you're planning on doing homemade gifts for everyone, you've got to take advantage right?

To my credit I also included a non-Christmas but essential sewing project in my list as well. Our bedroom windows have been in dire need of curtains since we moved in last June and yesterday I buckled down and finally made them. The fabric could be more funky and stylish but it was free and that's the best kind of style for us at this point.

Enough of the curtains! Let's get on to the more exciting stuff. Here's some pictures of this year's projects. I only have pictures of things I've made for Eve because I don't know who all will see this. Actually Scott hasn't seen any of these either but he doesn't look at this blog anyway.

So here we go. First we have the yearly tradition of homemade pjs. This year's model is red flannel with sock monkeys. Scott has a matching pair the lucky guy.You can't see it in this photo but I put cuffs on the bottom which not only look pretty darned cute but they make the fabric hang a bit better too.


Next is a pair of pants out of brown with green polka dot fabric (think mint chocolate chip ice cream) with a pink floral "e" applique. I tried having the outside seam of the pant cuff come up a bit like I'd seen in a catalog. They actually turned out really cute though they're a bit big; I may save them for her birthday.

For St. Nicholas Day I wanted to make Eve an apron so that she could use it during the holiday season. Scott has always wanted Eve to have an apple shirt (as in the forbidden fruit/Adam and Eve thing). I thought an apron would be the perfect for it.

Growing up my Mom would always make us an outfit which would be laying out unwrapped Christmas morning. To carry on the tradition I made Eve this skirt. It's made up of three horizontal panels which get progressively longer as you go down. The top one has an elastic waist band and then the two bottom ones are gathered so that it poofs out oh so nicely. While I was in Utah sewing a skirt for my sister-in-law (for Christmas as well) my Mom showed me this slick way of gathering. You set your sewing machine to the widest and longest zig-zag stitch possible. Then you pull out a lot of thread from both the top spool and the bobbin and sew the zig-zag stitch over the pulled out thread. Then you pull the sewn-over thread and it gathers like a charm.

Anyway, that's what I've been up to lately. Merry Christmas!