snippets of Christmas so far

 Christmas hexagon made on night shift, a tradition of mine now it seems- making hexagons on night stinking shift.

 My best friend and I have sewed up a storm of Christmas singlets this year, which we have mostly sold!

Lots of Christmas singlets

 The ladies version.

 Lilly's Christmas dress and Christmas cupcakes.

This orange and pink turned into a bag for Lilly's teacher and matching zippered purse, the colourful fabric at the bottom of the pile turned into a wrap skirt for me and Lilly with enough left for Lill's teacher who wanted one too- just have to actually make that one yet!

Gingerbread Christmas trees, just for the fun of it.  We also made gingerbread teddy bears, about 50 of them actually.  They were pretty yum!

Pretty Christmas

Here are my pretty Christmas decorations I've got happening in my busy kitchen.  Rather than spend a fortune, I decided this  year to work with what I've got!  I've got quite a few cupcakes stands, so I put them to good use!

So beautiful, and with $3 LED battery powered lights from Kmart, they look super special.

Gingerbread House

We are still here!  We had a great Christmas, we made heaps of stuff including this unreal Gingerbread House using a special recipe that is guaranteed not to collapse and that it didn't!  The kids decorated it after we did the roofing. 

I will be back soon with pictures of all the stuff I've made, lots and lots including new stuff for me.

Happy 2010 to all my friends and family out there in blogland!

Christmas Time 2008 Overview - this is long!

Me and my kids at Carols by Candlelight wearing our homemade goodness.
Lilly's singlet said 'nice' and Joe boy's said 'merry'.

My excited little kids on Christmas morning.

Santa had brought them exactly what they asked for- real baby chickens hatched by Mrs Claus in the North Pole for Lilly and a 'water feature' for Joe boy! Both items chirping and spurting water in the bedrooms when they woke, don't ask!!!!!!

Been a bit slack with blogging lately! Well, I've been busy. We had a great christmas followed by a little holiday to Bargara where we saw the most amazing spectacle of nature that has been occuring since the Dinosaurs. Of course I am talking about the nesting and hatching Sea Turtles that come back to their birthplace at Mon Repos to lay their eggs but not before they reach breeding age of about 30 years of age, so for every 1000 hatchlings only ONE makes it to breeding age. Loggerheads and Leatherbacks (I think) are critically endangered but thanks to the work and research that started over 30 years ago, hopefully the future will improve and we are doing our part by making a resolution for no more plastic! I was thinking, when I get some spare time, to make some more of these (I've done one), or at least form a group to make alot and do my part for our world. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

The amazing Loggerhead we saw laying her eggs, what a priviledge to witness this!
In front of the stats for the night so far with their turtle shirts I made them.
Mon Repos beach in the morning, we could see the tracks from about 5 turtles from the night before, but there was many more.
I'll have more on the turtles in another post as we are going back to see some hatchlings in a few weeks.

...Back to Christmas!
This year I made something I have been thinking about for a few Christmases but have never gotten around to doing---a Rocky Road Christmas Tree. It was delicious and so easy, yet looked a million bucks!
I also made a baked ham using a treasured secret recipe from my old friend Renee's Dad. It was delicious as well.

And when I returned from our holiday I had some very lovely mail! Elissa from Kelani had sent me some Sandi Henderson Farmer's Market Apple Dot in Spring, which she completely didn't have to and I am so touched at her generosity. So there are no pics of that, but when I make it into something or other I will blog it and send it into her inspiration gallery for all to see. If you haven't checked out Kelani Fabric Obsession for the best range of designer fabrics around with free postage then you just must! Thankyou so much Elissa, I am yet to spend my latest gift voucher from you, but I am feeling some of this is in order!

So for this year, I am hoping to continue sewing, helping in some way continue renovating our house, send Joe boy off to Kindy, start Miss Lilly in Grade 1 and keep enjoying life and my family.

The next sewing projects are a couple of UFO's, including appliqued singlets to go with some sets and them get them on Etsy or MadeIt, a glam green bag for a gift (1/2 done) and a whole lot of those fantastic Burda shorts for Joe boy for kindy and of course kindy sheet sets.

Unity and Peace

Here are the first Christmas singlets for this year, actually second, Joe boy's was first! I love doing these, each year, Kimmy and I make them for our kids, this year we decided to branch out! We are having trouble getting enough red singlets so we've done a few white ones which look great luckily, so watch this space for more creations!

These are for my lovely cousin's boys, she asked for the meanings of her boy's names on their singlets. So Unity and Peace are just perfect!

On the back is a tiny present.

SHFMOCD...

...nope it's not a mistake!!!

Those letters stand for:

Sandi

Henderson

Farmer's

Market

Obsessive

Compulsive

Disorder/Disease

It's a very serious condition I've developed and probably will never recover from! I just love all this fabric so much, so finally I've made something for myself in it.

I've ordered some more Vintage Cherries from Kelani, since she's just got a new shipment in stock, to make myself another wrap skirt and canvas some for my bedroom wall so I can stare at it forever. Is that abnormal!?! Make sure you check out Kelani, there is an excellent competition on there at the moment, which is really easy to enter.

So anyway, this is my second Make It Perfect, Versatile Wrap skirt, and the info on the back of the pattern is 100% accurate in that this skirt would indeed have to be one of my favourite items of clothing. It is so comfortable and you get to wear your favourite fabrics. I've got another cut ready to sew in Anna Maria Horner Garden Party and so does my second best friend, I'll be blogging her creation as well. For this skirt I cut the 5 panels to make the contrast trim and tie an inch wider than the pattern says, I think this gives you a little more of a look at the contrast fabric!

give...LOVE

Singlets ready for Christmas!

This one says " give (heart) " which is supposed to mean: give love!!!

I hope everyone gets it. I used a gold thread which was tricky and probably won't use it again. This one is a size 6 and is for Joe Boy.

...and here is my little bloke wearing it at Lill's Prep Christmas Concert, which was soooooo cute. They did a fantastic job, the kids were so good and the teachers amaze me every single time with the effort and time they put into things.

And while I'm on the topic of singlets, here are a couple more we've (-Kimmy, my second best friend you've heard all about before) done. On the back on one of the corners they have a little applique square and heart.

Strappy Sundress Christmas Dress

Here is my most favourite fabric of the year Sandi Henderson's Farmers Market, in particular Red Vintage Cherries. Love it!

I got the last piece from Kelani and also the co-ordinating Apples in Spring and Red and then made it into the Strappy Sundress, all purchased from Kelani, my favourite online fabric shop.

This is a great dress for twirling!

This pattern is so simple and yet the finished dress is really very special with the elastic back and pretty straps tying in a bow attached to a loop. The skirt part is 2 rectangles (or in my case strips joined together for lack of enough cherries) joined together to make 88 inches of fabric which you need to gather, i.e. lots of fabric involved!!

This is the size 6 and I cut the bodice a little bigger and added an extra row of casing for the elastic back. If I make it again for Lill, I'll have to cut the bodice even bigger as this is a squeeze as it is, great big 5 year old unit she is!

Also, I have to mention my sewing friend Novy, who made this exact dress completely in the cherries for her little girl. It is just gorgeous, check it out on her blog. Thanks Novy for the inspiration!