Have a Very Merry Christmas!

Just a quick pop in to wish everyone Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.
Sorry if this post seem rushed and disjointed. I'm being distracted left, right and centered by friends and family teasing me about jumping on the computer "for 5 minutes, I promise".

I feel just a little guilty for abandoning the blog, but it seems as though Christmas has arrived early at our household. My husband took 2 weeks off, and as soon as Friday school let off on the 17th, it was full on party mode at our house.

So far, it has been skating, making snow forts, toboggan races and lots of hot chocolate. We also had a fantastic pre-Christmas dinner at our dear friend's house. Adults only! Let's just say, it was so great not to have to worry about my kids, and being able to sip champagne in peace. Let's hear it for babysitters.

Last night, for the first time in my life, we went caroling. My new neighbours are the bestest. I even had my sister, who was here for Christmas hols, caroling with us. Admittedly, we were the worst bunch of carolers ever. The only songs everyone could agree on was, 'We wish you a merry Christmas' and 'Jingle Bells'. Um, really, we had a few 3 year olds in the pack, so that were the only songs they knew. And it really was all about the kids. It was a lot of fun, though.

Today, we had a big Christmas eve dinner. As it is a tradition in our house, the kids get to open one Christmas present each on the night before Christmas. They had a good time. Christmas morning is going to be great as my husband will be making a huge breakfast. Yes! I love breakfast made for me. Um, I meant the kids.

Ok, I'm rambling now. Gotta run join everyone before they notice I'm gone. I think a game of crib is in order. I'll show my sister that I've still got it.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Pattern Review: McCall's 6121

I'm not really a fabric collector. Granted, I have a lot more fabric sitting on my shelves now than compared to a year ago. Once in a while, I do snag some pretty fabric, just because it is pretty. And then, it just sits on my shelf until I find a pattern that I think would be suited to that fabric.

Not too long ago, I picked up this McCall's 6121 pattern for $1.99. I almost did not buy it, because I sometimes can delude myself to believe that I can effectively design something similar. However, common sense prevailed and I snagged the pattern.

Cute:

So, I managed to make a simple top. Really, this is a very simple top. There are only two shoulder seams and two side seams. The only "complicated" part would be finishing the collar and the armholes. This makes it an ideal knit fabric pattern for a beginner sewer.

I did it again, didn't I? I keep forgetting that I'm not 6'2". Yes, I'm only 5'1", so this top is more like a dress or tunic on me. Don't get me wrong, I really do like this top, er tunic.

It sure uses a lot of fabric:

It's a very forgiving garment. It's great to wear to dinner parties, as there is no need for me to discreetly loosen my belt. Although....
It does look good with different types of belts. Like this thick black one:
Or even this casual gold-link chain one. I knew gold would come back in style. Good thing I did not throw that one out during one of my closet purges:

Click here to jump to the formal review of this pattern on patternreview.com

Crafty ****Burnout**** ?

That's what it feels like to me.

Last year, we threw my daughter a cooking class birthday party. While that was a very easy party for my husband and I, it lacked a certain personal touch that home parties have.

So this year, my daughter and I decided to have her party at home instead. Well, not just any party. A Swinter Luau party, baby. Summer-winter, s-winter, swinter.... get it? Er, never mind. Seeing as we could not possibly invite her whole class to her party, we decided to invite just the girls. Actually, I was going to limit the number of girls too, but could not bear to leave any girls out, so every single girl was invited. Wouldn't you just know it? Everyone show up.

So, I had to plan for a luau with 14 girls. Yup, it required quite a bit of planning on my part.

Before you think that I have too much time on my time, I made all these things as part of the quality time with my youngest daughter. My little girl who is home with me most of the day got to do quite a bit of crafting with me as a result. Sneaky, sneaky mum. In fact, we crafted so much that by the end of last week, she said, "Crafting again??". Hahahaha.... this is from a girl who loves arts and craft.*

So, what did we do?

Well, we made an Aloha banner, from stuff we had on hand (crepe paper streamers and drawing paper roll):

We also made these beautiful Martha Stewart pompom flowers:

Cute, right? Actually, this was not easy to craft this with a four year old, but she had a really fun time playing with the clippings and making a giant mess in general :) But be had fun nevertheless.

This was fun too, we made a coconut ball filled with candies. We covered a balloon with paper mache, filled it in with loads of candies and confetti, and decorated the coconut:

Actually, we made 3 of these coconuts. After all, we had to have some practice runs. :D

And yeah, we also painted a coconut for the "Pin the Coconut on the Coconut Treat":

Anyway!!

Happy 7th Birthday to my BIG GIRL:

Awwwww....

I need to do something different now. Like SEW. Yes, where's that sewing machine. I miss it.

* Don't worry, the little one crafted again today. No burnout afterall!

How to Sew Ruffles Without Pulling Thread

So here's how I was taught to make ruffles.

1) Set your sewing machine stitch length to the longest setting

2) Sew a straight line right down the strip of fabric to be ruffled.

3) Start pulling the thread that you just sewed on the strip in order to create ruffles.

That works really well, but what if you have yards and yards of ruffles to make.

Say, like a tree skirt for your Christmas Tree:

Yup, that's a lot of ruffles*. A Lot.

Anyway, how did I do it without pulling thread and in the process saved myself hours of work?

And without a ruffler foot for the sewing machine?

Well, I was watching this sewing video where this girl was talking about the trick her mum showed here. (I wish I remembered to bookmark that video because I could not find it, despite googling like crazy. In fact, I couldn't find this trick anywhere online, but I'm pretty sure it's been blogged about.)

So here's what you do:

1) Set your stitch length to longest.

2) Set your upper tension stitch to it's highest.

3) Sew right in the middle of your strip.

The strip will magically ruffle! Make sure you test this first. To reduce the number of ruffles, you just have to reduce the upper tension.

Here's a strip about of sheer fabric ruffled using the cheater's method:

The lighter your fabric is, the more ruffled it will be. As a result, I think this method won't work on really heavy fabric.

Anyway, what a great short cut for when you don't have to be very specific on how much ruffles you end up with.

* I oscillate between "Eeeeep, awesome ruffled tree skirt!!" and "Oh, that's so tacky!!". Hehehe. I am keeping this tree skirt, hardly anyone beside my family sees the tree. My daughters, they are over the moon about the ruffly goodness of the skirt. That's all that matters.

Rae's Snowblossom Hat

I had to show you these, because they are stinkin' adorable.

Aren't they cute? I made another set in red and white for my older daughter, but I did not get a picture of it as she rushed out the door to her bus stop. The red hat and mittens had a comfortable fringe scarf to go along with it.

This set is for my little one. She also has a neck-warmer to go with the rest of her winter ensemble, but it was all I could do to get her to let me take a picture of the hat and the mittens. She refused to take off her neck-warmer.

In fact, she had been walking around the house like this the whole morning.

These has got to be the easiest winter hat evah! They took less time to make than the gloves. I think they are SOOOOOO cute, and I just wish I can get away with wearing a giant flower on the crown of my head. Hmmmmmmmm.... for a second there I was going to do it, but I think I can't pull it off.

If you haven't guessed from the title of this post, the tutorial is from one of my favorite bloggers, Rae of Made By Rae. Click here to go to the tutorial.