Want Tutorials?

So, I wanted to clue you in on the two crafty things that I did discover this Christmas season. 

One, I've figured out how to turn my multitude of wrapping paper into paper bags.



Not the most useful thing this year (except it works for cookie deliveries), but I suspect that when I have a child at grade school, it'd be neat to send in lunches made out of wrapping paper or such at Christmas time.

Two, I finally learned how to make a damnable bow out of wired ribbon.



For years I've lusted after this ribbon, only to reject it, because it was nearly useless in my wrapping efforts. Now, I buy this ribbon ALL the time. That's my new Christmas wrapping rule.

Any one want tutorials on either of these items? If so, let me know. I think I'd enjoy putting those online.

Stories For Memories

I want to add some more memories to my life. Some of these are Christmas related, others not:

1. N has been really worked up about Christmas this year. He has some grasp of what is occurring and realizes things are working up into a fever pitch of cookie making, Christmas lights, and presents. As such, we've started to let him on to the fact that Santa brings presents for good boys and girls. Now that he realizes that Santa brings stuff, he's started to think of Santa as a slightly scary but mostly awesome individual. The first time we met him this year, he was SUPER excited. It was chat, chat, chat. However, since then he has not wanted to sit with Santa.

We'd beg him to look at the camera with a smile, and he'd just look over at us slightly peeved that we had interrupted his conversation. Anyway, Santa came around to visit on a fire engine, and then we went to visit my brother-in-law and his darling wife and Santa was there with a fire engine. Each time, he screams "Hi, Santa! HI! Hi, Santa!" His hand is out waving and he is yelling. The second time, Santa came and visited the children and would sit with them. I asked him if he wanted to sit with Santa and I got a resounding NO! Then, I pointed out that Santa was giving out candy canes and books. He paused.

Again, I asked. This time, the answer was a muffled yes in my neck. He watched fascinated as the other kids sat with Santa and got candy canes from Mrs. Claus. I told him that Santa's wife was giving out candy canes and he said, "Grandma give out candy canes."

I asked, "Grandma?" He confirmed it, "Grandma Santa!" He sat with Santa and got his candy cane and was excited.

2. We've also been hyping up the 'giving Santa cookies' routine. We have told him that he has to leave cookies for Santa, a carrot for the reindeer, and his book told him to leave a piece of cheese for Santa Mouse. We quiz him on this since it does help him with the concepts of giving and that Santa won't be around when N is awake. However, it's very important to him now because people will ask him about it. At the library today, the librarians and security guard listened to him talk about Santa. Then they asked him what he'd give to Santa and he told them cookies. I asked him about the reindeer and he told them about the carrot.

I walked away at that point, while holding him. Over my shoulder, he yelled out to them, "Mouse cheese!"

3. N has managed to grasp the concept that "I love you" means something. He will deny loving me if he is angry at my brazen dictatorship of the household. However, sometimes when he's sleepy, and we giggled our way into tired napdom, he'll hug me tight while blinking his eyes open and say several times, "I love you."

Or, he might just say, "No kissing! Sleep time!" if he is annoyed with snuggles.

4. There is some severe cookie making love in this household. Apparently, nothing beats mixing up dough, pouring in sugar and butter and eggs and flour, and eating dough. However, an extra loved step is rolling out cookies for the most difficult cookie I make -- the rolled sugar cookie. Today, after his bath, he came out to find me making cookies, and he was shocked and dismayed. "Make cookies?" he asked.

He began to tug on the chair he uses to stand on while we cook, and he was yelling, "Chair! Chair" at me. After we mixed up the cookies, I laid some out to roll out, and my husband came over. N graciously allowed his daddy to push him up to the area to see the rolling out better before telling him, "Living room, daddy. Watch football." That's right -- he told him to get out!

Forget Resolutions

Look at this face, at this child!




We haven't been blogging because we're too busy to blog! Always on the go, always moving about!

Okay, that's not true, unless you count the pediatrician's office as a destination. Our household has been fighting illness since September. My husband and I are tired of, and N is definitely tired of it. I don't blame him. I feel horrible on the nights he wakes up in pain from ear infections. He feels horrible because he is in pain. I can't take the pain away so I just have to sit up next to him while Motrin or Tylenol start to work.

I mean, imagine him making this face at night and crying and without the adorableness of the Batman costume to mitigate it.




But I keep thinking about my blog. I want to blog. I'm dying to blog. I internally made resolutions for the new year about blogging. Then I realized this was dumb because I was waiting to blog. So, I said to myself, "Self, just blog." So, that's what I'm doing.

What am I up to nowadays? Cookie making like you would not believe.




In the last two days, I've made a batch of snickerdoodles, a batch of chocolate chip cookies, a batch of meringue cookies, a batch of peanut butter cups, and a batch of rolled sugar cookies (which I need to ice). I'm cookied-out! Not really. And the house smells delightfully of cinnamon.

What have you all been up to?

Amazon, You Know I Already Love You!

As anyone who knows me in real life can tell you, I'm obsessively in love with Amazon. The phrase "If you love Amazon so much, you should marry it" has no meaning to me, because if I could marry Amazon, I might try.

Anyway, this leads me into the fact that they're giving away $3 to be used for MP3s on their site. I know it is not much, but it's more than nothing, so click away!

Slow Song Of Calming The Hell Down

My husband is obsessed with the TED talks. Just as I'm always babbling about what some mom blogger said or what some sewing blogger did, he's always going on about some TED talk or other. I tend to listen with a bit of interest, but rarely do I listen to the talks. The other day, he basically begged me to listen to a tidbit of one of the talks, and am I glad that I did.

We listened to the story of Ze Frank making a song for a young girl who was scared of something or other. Her father wrote in to Ze Frank, who made a little ditty for the girl to sing to herself. I was immediately taken by the little song, but didn't think much of it.

My husband asked me to listen to just a tiny bit longer, so I could hear of a song that Ze Frank had done for a girl who needed to calm down due to depression and stressing. It was a little slow, and a little sad sounding, but it was gorgeous. Then, when I thought I knew where it was going, a young girl's voice kicked in.

See, Ze Frank had put a call out to people to sing this and record it, and he took their voices and put them into the final song. It's beautiful. The lyrics are something I have been singing to myself when I'm stressing about the day I'm having. "Hey, you're okay. You'll be fine. Just breathe."

I recommend giving them a listen if you need to take a breather and you feel overwhelmed. (And if you, like me, have an obsession with songs that have a different lyrical connotation than the tempo and key would normally indicate.)

Wordless Wednesday #16 -- Not Caught Up Yet!

CHOO CHOO!

Ugh, so much to say here that I feel overwhelmed! So, this is the choo-choo shirt I bought material for about eighteen hundred years ago. In fact, when I originally planned to make it, it was going to be size 2T. Guess what? I made it 3T!




Why do I have so much to say about this shirt? Because, it is my sewing introduction to many things such as collars, buttonholes, plackets, and setting in sleeves! I mean, I just learned so much about sewing and so many things I did with this shirt came out well.

The pattern is from Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing. I am going to admit that I like the finished look of this shirt, but this pattern was kind of a bitch. The collar was all kinds of messed up and you can tell when you look at this shirt!

It took me four or five tries to get that collar done and I'm still not pleased with it. Also, though I did not find any errata, I could not at all get the collar and shirt to line up. I had to undo the sewing I did on the collar and cut it up prior to attaching it to the shirt correctly.

And the drawings Ross did in the book don't really look like the pattern pieces. Occasionally, I'd look blankly at the instructional drawings and just pause and examine the pieces I cut out. I'd re-open the pattern pieces to make sure I had really cut everything correctly!

In other news, I'm not recommending this pattern. Try to find another button down shirt pattern for young boys. I hear Oliver + S is offering one, and I'm considering buying it since I do love the look of my son in a button down shirt that I've made him.




I am pleased with the sleeves since this was the first time I've set in sleeves! I was most worried about doing that and I flipped out while pinning since I was sure that my machine was going to walk the sleeve faster than the body of the shirt such that I ended up with too much sleeve. However, it all looked great in the end. I think the sleeves might be the nicest part of my work on this shirt, though the placket also turned out pretty.




I'm rather tired right now, so I'm going to cut this a little shorter than I originally expected. I finished the work on Sunday while Nathaniel was awake. He was fascinated by my sewing machine, begging to sit on my lap. He talks a bit about the shirt, telling people that his mommy made him a choo choo shirt. In fact, one evening after a nap, he woke up and stared at the scraps of fabric I had thrown away, and he panicked! He said to me, "Choo choo shirt!" I had to reassure him that his real shirt was in the living room, waiting for him to wear it.




I really enjoyed sewing this, but I'm getting a little gun shy about sewing from this book. I think it might be time to move to some Simplicity patterns.

I Finished Something But This Isn't About That

I promise that I'll be posting about my finished (sewing) project this week, and I might even have teaser pictures tomorrow, but I have a link to a great tutorial for hand picked zippers today. I've been hearing a lot of my dressmaking blogs talk about hand picked zippers and I'm always made WTF face at my computer screen trying to figure out how you would even do one.

Turns out Sewaholic could practically see my WTF face and she decided to tutorialize the heck out of the sewing!

Oh, I can't resist a grainy, blurry teaser pic of the finished project that I shall parade before you later!




Do you appreciate the way that my son is already hideously embarrassed by this all?

Coming Out Of Hibernation

To tell you that I'm excited about three things.



One is my new secret obsession. Japanese washi tape. I mean, I'm obsessed with office supplies in general. However, the cuteness that is washi tape kills me. Seriously, the store Cute Tape is making me flip out. It sells cute stickers. And cute labels. And cuteness. It might as well sell kittens.

Oliver + S is going to publish a book of patterns. I'm no secret admirer of Oliver + S. I think the children patterns they put out are adorable, modern, and sweet. I just can't justify the cost of one or two or EIGHT BILLION when I don't sew enough.

Turtlegirl has posted a tutorial for an adorable twisted garter cuff for a sock. It makes me want to knit that pair of socks right now. Maybe if I didn't have two pairs of Cookie A socks on the needles right now.

Wordless Wednesday #15 -- Catching Up!