Christmas sewing

I guess nothing gets you in the mood for Christmas quite like sewing a few gifts. I've been spending a little time in the sewing room lately, making small things.

First of all, here are the Christmas aprons I sewed. I made two each of the green/white and red/yellow aprons and one of the black/red apron. They are gifts for four girls and one boy. A quick and fun project to make!

 

And, again on the small side, I've made two coffee cozies (they will be accompanied by Tim Horton's or Starbucks cards as gifts for colleagues), a gift bag, and two sets of Christmas pillowcases.

 

Nothing big, nothing exciting...but at least something Christmassy is happening around here.

Trying to get in the Christmas spirit

Oh, Christmas Spirit, where art thou?

We've had snow since October. Decorations have been up in stores for over a month. Christmas music plays on the radio.

I'm just not feeling it yet.

Too busy, I suppose. Too focused on other concerns. I told Mr. P not to buy me any presents this year. I don't need anything and I don't want him spending money needlessly. I'd rather go on a trip than have "stuff". We agreed not to go overboard with each other or the OnlyChild, but I think he ignored me. And the OnlyChild - well, she has a list as long as my arm. And on that list, among the requests for purses and face cream and clothes, is a trip too. I told her she can't have all that junk AND a trip. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm trying to find the Christmas Spirit.

I've made a couple of presents:

 

Aprons for my friend Kim's little girls.

Here's the reverse of them:

 

I have enough fabric to make one more of each and a friend at work wants me to make them for her girls. She says she'll pay me, but I have no idea how much to ask. I mean, my time alone would make them unaffordable. I think I'll just make them and give them to her rather than ask too much (or too little).

I've made a couple of other things too, but I can't really show them on here. You never know who's watching haha.

If you have any extra Christmas Spirit (or jolliness in general), send it my way please. I really want to get into this season!

Finished!

I can't believe it!

I actually finished my Swoon quilt. The last stitches went into the binding last night, then I popped it in the washer on gentle and, this morning, I took it out of the dryer and hugged it tight.

I think I'm in love.

 

It's snowing quite hard right now, but that didn't stop me from taking it out in the front yard to snap a few photos. I was looking for nice, unblemished snow (which cannot be found in the backyard with two dogs) and wouldn't you know it, yesterday was the day Mr. P chose to put up the Christmas lights. So, excuse the footprints and focus on the loveliness of Swoon.

If you're with me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, you've probably seen the constant updates. Still, I'm thrilled that I actually completed this before the end of the year.

Took me long enough!

Quilted!

I haven't been on my own blog for so long, I almost forgot how to get here.

But I have exciting (to me) news...

Swoon is finally quilted!

Here's a teaser photo of the back. Very simple diagonal straight-line quilting 4" apart. Took me forever.

So, now for the binding, which shouldn't be a big deal. But considering how much time I've actually spent in my sewing room lately, you might not see it - or me - until Christmas.

My goal is to have this finished by the end of the year. I can do it!

Basted!

I know, I know...I fell off the face of the earth again. I've been sort of busy. Sort of. But really, I haven't done much sewing or anything really exciting worth posting about.

But yesterday, I basted Swoon!

Finally!

I packed up everything and took it to work so I could lay out this monster (92" square) on a classroom floor. And then I realized I'd left the backing fabric at home on my ironing board. Duh.

So, I brought it home and laid it out on the dining room floor - after removing the furniture! I had to work very carefully because I didn't want to poke pins into the hardwood floor.

I managed to keep Abby and Derby out of the dining room for most of the basting event, but when I was done...

 

She's claimed it as her own. Ha!

Now to quilt this... See you in about 6 months.

Rainy Sunday Sewing

Last year, on this long weekend, I drove the OnlyChild to university in a city 5 hours away. It was hard, remember?

This year, she decided to transfer to a school which is about a 10-minute walk from our house. Hurray!

Not only will it be nice to have her around for the year, but it will save us some money since we won't be paying residence fees.

In celebration of her new school year, I made her a back-to-university present: hedgehog pillowcases.

 

They're pictured here on the spare room bed. The OnlyChild needs to clean her room and change her sheets before she can make use of her new pillowcases. And, even then, her room is never in photo-op shape. I guess maybe there are some disadvantages to having her home... ;)

Back to School Sewing

School started up again on Thursday. The students don't come until after the long weekend, but we teachers had staff meetings, department meetings, planning, organizing, etc. to take care of.

I wasn't thrilled to return to work. I know, I know...I had the whole summer off. I hear that all the time. But remember back in June I mentioned some ugliness that occurred at the end of last school year? Well, that's why I wasn't looking forward to going back. It hasn't sorted itself out and my cross-your-fingers plan hasn't amounted to anything (yet), so I pretty much had no choice.

To cheer myself up, I decided to make a back to school dress for Tuesday.

A while back, I bought some nice grey fabric (a real score at $4/metre!), planning to make a dress from Simple Modern Sewing. I made a shirt from that book instead (I forgot to take a picture), which meant that I had some fabric left over. I knew just the dress to make from Sew Serendipity.

With a bit of finangling and head-scratching, I managed to make 2m of fabric work for a pattern that called for over 3yds.

And here it is:

 

Please excuse the dorky picture, the dirty mirror and my bare feet (I actually have a killer pair of shoes to wear with this dress).

Hey, I started and finished something - in ONE day!

p.s. Blogger is being a pain. Apparently, I have used up all my photo capacity. I had to delete pictures from a Picasa album in order to upload this one photo. What I didn't realize (but should have) is that those pictures are now deleted from my blog, and they were my Paris pics from last Christmas :(

And another week goes by...

The day after I got home from New Brunswick, Mr. P and I took off to Jasper.

What a beautiful place!

Mr. P was there for a conference, but I was on vacation. I went hiking around the lake, went swimming, walked into town, took a yoga class, and one afternoon we went canoeing together.

 

I wanted to show you a couple more pictures from New Brunswick, too. On the last day of reunion festivities, a group of us went to TreeGo in Mactaquac Provincial Park. I didn't even know what this was when I signed up for it.

What fun! Ziplining, climbing through the trees, obstacle courses, ladder bridges.

 

I didn't even know I could do all that. We had such a good time - I can't wait to go back!

Sorry about the picture overload. It was a busy two weeks, but now I'm on the downslide. Back to work in a couple of weeks and I am so dreading it.

But, never mind that. Today is the OnlyChild's birthday. She's 20!

I am the mother of a 20-year-old!

 

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl!

New Brunswick Summer Sojourn

I'm baaaaack!
Back from my visit to New Brunswick.
Back from visiting old friends and driving the back roads.
Back from my 25th high school reunion.

And I had a great time!

I met up with my university room-mate who I haven't seen since the day I got married.

Here we are on that day way back in 1991:

 

And here we are a couple of weeks ago:

 

We spent a weekend together, yapping until 3 in the morning, going to the beach, watching a sand sculpture contest, going out for dinner, hanging out at a campground (no, we didn't camp there) and just catching up. It was wonderful - like we'd only seen each other yesterday, which is the way it should be with old friends.

Here's our favourite sand sculpture (and the overall winner) from the New River Beach competition:

 

Pretty amazing!

I also spent some time in the village where I grew up:

 

This is a picture of the village looking from my mum's house across to the hill where our old house sits (top right-hand corner).

I went out to the lake to visit my best friend Cheryl. There were drinks:

And gorgeous sunsets:

 

But we also had some work to do for the reunion:

 

And we took a trip into the city. Cheryl had a hair appointment and I got to traipse around the university.

 

 This is the main library. I spent many, many hours here when I was taking my BA.

 

 The Registrar's office. The building has a "real" name, but we've always called it the Old Arts Building. It dates from 1785.

 

 Gorgeous view of the city from the Student Union Building (SUB).

 

 The Education Building where I did my B.Ed. degree.

 

 The residence where I lived for 2 years (and met Mr. P waaaaay back when).

 

 And, finally, the daycare where the little tiny OnlyChild went while I was back in school getting my education degree and Mr. P was working two jobs out here, far away from us, to support my education addiction.

 

Last weekend was my 25th high school reunion. I didn't go to the 10th or to the "Millennium Gathering" in 2000 so it had been a long time since I'd seen most of my grad class.

Friday we had a meet and greet at a bar in town (it didn't even exist when we were in high school):

 

With Cheryl in front of the banner.

 

With my sweet friend Lyra.

 

 And my long-lost buddy Ann Marie.

 

Catching up with everyone.

 

Old friends, Joe and Wally, with Kathryn.

Tyler and Scott.

 

Venessa, Lori and Claire - happy to be reunited.

 

Heidi and Patrick with Cheryl's husband, Peter.

On Saturday, we had a picnic down by the river:

 

People showed up with their kids. We sat around and chatted and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

 

I had to get my "tourist" photo taken in front of the World's Largest Axe. This didn't exist when we were in high school (nor did the park where we had our picnic). All the grads take photos in front of this monument now.

Saturday night was the big party. I went to Cheryl's house in the city to get ready and our friend Roxanne met us there:

 

We got all dressed up:

 

And everyone wore their fanciest shoes:

 

Roxanne's

 

Cheryl's

 

Scott's (haha)

We did a bit of decorating at the Lodge, but not much:

 

We chatted, played some games, and listened to music (but nobody really danced - are we too old for that?):

 

Jennifer, Michael, and Ben.

 

Cheryl and Jeff leading us down Memory Lane.

 

With Lyra and Cheryl, my two best friends from junior high and high school.

The reunion was a great time spent with old friends!

So...that's what I've been doing for the past few days. How about you?