A Dress with See-Pose

I started this dress in November but put it on the back burner until the holidays were over. I modified two pieces of an existing pattern then drafted the rest from scratch. I think it took 4 tries to finally get the collar right, and 2 for the cuffs. Not shown is the bias bound neckline inside. I'm working on seam finishes and that's my favorite for necklines at the moment. I was going to make the front pockets functional but decided I'd rather just be finished with the dress and move on. So...pretty much the zippers--or see-pose as Lana says--on the front are just decorative but she doesn't know the difference.

The Last of the Decorations

One of the favorite Christmas decorations in our home this year--and the last one to be taken down--was the advent calendar I made. I started it at the end of November, took a break to make a Christmas dress and suit, then finished it with only a few days left until Christmas. The kids don't seem to have a solid grasp of counting down anyway, so in my opinion the calendar did its job since Clark played with it all month long on my sewing room floor. I based it off of the pictures and templates from a sew-a-long that homemadebyjill did a few years back. The background is linen from Ikea and the backing is heavyweight muslin. I made three original ornaments unique to our tree: a cat (Lana seems to LOVE cats), the pinecone (I might replace this one next year with a robot for Clark), and the baby Jesus in a manger. The ornaments were fun to make and I had lots of help from Clark. Sometimes a little too much help when he accidentally ripped some of the hangers off. I'll keep my fabric glue handy next year. 

Consploding Into the New Year

We're starting 2015 off with a bang. bang, bang! I let the kids do some party poppers with some help from Dad. Lana didn't care for them, but Clark liked the confetti and "consplosions." Then we admired our gingerbread houses one last time before taking them outside and smashing them to smithereens.