Necessary Chocolate

The gifts that did get done: part 4 (allison's skirt)

Some snow days are just merciful. I was able to complete this skirt because a snowstorm closed the office for an afternoon. I complicated the simple Ottobre pattern by creating four layers of fabric: brown corduroy, two layers of fake chiffon, and a lining. The hems were, amazingly enough, easy to sew, using knife edge hems. The waistband, with four layers of gathered fabric? Not so easy - I had to sew it four times, not including basting.

I think that, when I was 9, I'd have loved a skirt with lots of layers and twirlability.

The gifts that did get done: part 3 (very twirly dress)

The clothes I make at Christmas are rarely holiday-like. I did once make a snowman dress, but other than that I tend to create dresses suitablr for January-February, when you want springlike colors with a little warmth. That may be because I doubt that I'll finish my sewing in time for the holidays!

I've wanted to make this dress for Christina for a while, and I knew that I'd need to get it done before she grows out of the pattern. It's yet another Ottobre pattern, for a dress with a tiered skirt AND a tiered underskirt. When I saw the blue and green 28-wale corduroy matched with a floral lawn on Farmhouse Fabric's website (NAYY), I knew that it had to be this dress. The corduroy is fine and soft; so finely woven that it doesn't fray. The lawn, on the other hand, has a lot of stretch, so it proved to be a bit more difficult to work with.

This year, this dress arrived almost one whole week early. Woohoo!

The gifts that did get done: part 2 (pajamas)

Last year I planned to make pajamas for the Arizona girls. I even bought a sheet from Garnet Hill for the flannel pants. I'm happy to report that I managed to keep track of that sheet, and, one year later, they're finished!

(I took this picture while Allison's flannel pants were lost somewhere in the house. I found them a day later. On the dryer. Probably on top of the lost sheets, if I'd looked closely.)

I couldn't find a third color of fleece to go with the flannel, so for Laura I decided to cut up a pair of Old Navy pajama pants that were just two low-cut for me.

These were all Ottobre patterns, so of course they went together well. But they still seemed to take longer than I'd planned for, and next time I'll probably buy cute pajamas and put the time into something else. Like decorating the house. Or sleeping. Something like that.

The fleece shirts are made of microfleece from Wazoodle (NAYY, but the fabric is great stuff), and embellished with wool felt:

I used fusible interfacing to place the appliques, and then machine sewed around them and did a little bit of hand embroidery. This picture is the perfect lesson on why you shouldn't hold an iron down on fleece for too long. I ended up just ironing the entire front of the shirt.

The gifts that did get done: part 1 (sheets)

Need I mention that it's been a hectic few weeks? Probably not. All of you have been just as busy, after all. I had a lovely Christmas with family and friends - in the last week I've been to Virginia twice, and I'm off to Utah later this week. I plan on getting a complete day off, in my home, on January 5th.

The list of projects that I wanted to finish was so long that I couldn't facing typing it up, let along posting the list. Reality was too real to face, and I had to live with the hope of finishing those projects, at least for a while. But I did make some of my dreams real.

My favorite? These sheets:

I gave Laura a quilt from Pottery Barn for her birthday, and for months I've planned to make sheets to match. I know that I could just order sheets from Pottery Barn. Really, I know. People told me that I could, and I believed them. But I bought sheets back in September to embellish, lost them, and then bought another set. So, with two sets of white twin sheets somewhere in the house, I didn't want to order more. If I had, you know that I would have found the first set that same day.

Anyway, I did the sewing and embroidery in two nights. Considering the time the other projects took me, this project was a joy. I love handsewing, and sitting for two nights, watching TV and sewing yo yos, was the perfect bit of therapy after the entertaining I'd helped with this month.

Oh - and I did find the first set of sheets. On top of the dryer. Five minutes after wrapping and packaging these sheets. See? I knew that I'd find them.

And Christmas is here again!

Merry Christmas to all of you! Thank you for all of your support, your kindness, and your creative ideas. My life is so much richer because of you.

Ummm, I skipped the church Christmas Party this year

Yep, I did it. I skipped the church party and went to hear the reading of "A Christmas Carol" at Williamstown on Saturday. It's the highlight of my Christmas season so far. Jonathon Epstein, from Shakespeare & Co., read the story, and it was all that I hoped for.

My favorite part, besides the first paragraph, is when Scrooge looks out of his window after Marley leaves. Luckily, Mr. Epstein didn't cut it out. Somehow I missed this passage when I read it as a child:

Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.

Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep- The misery with them all was, clearly, that they  sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.

I'm not sure that all that gingerbread was necessary for good in human matters. Maybe I should have pulled out the Fezziwig's party chapter instead. Bah. What does necessary have to do with Christmas, after all? We were generous, we celebrated, and we kept Christmas well.

Now I just need to pay a little attention to my family...

400 reasons for not blogging

You may be relieved to know that Sunday night was the Christmas concert, the 400 servings of gingerbread were served, it's over, and you won't hear about it anymore.

Those cookies up there? No one believes me, but they were the easy part.  I know how to make little cookies. Decorating them took all of one hour - the length of this year's "Monk" Christmas episode.

Here's how the final servings looked:

That's brown sugar whipped cream - you just use 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar and 1-1/2 teaspoons of vanilla per cup of whipping cream. I also made a large pot of orange sauce that people could add to taste.

Imagine wonderful friends covering three long tables and every kitchen counter with these bowls. At the end, there were only 7 bowls left. Rave reviews all around! Woohoo!

There were also bowls of store-bought ginger cookies and candy canes, and lots of ice water to drink. We had Christmas lights lighting the gym, and poinsettias, white cyclamen, and red dogwood twigs in the chapel. The back of our chapel opens into the gym, so that you could see five of my small Christmas trees (yes, I have five - two from the front porch, one in the entry, and two topiary versions at my mantel) decorating the tables glowing at the back of the dark gym. I love little lights so much.

And now the fun really begins...