Childbirth

If you any children, you know the pains of labor fade into the sunset once the baby is delivered. Well the same is true with making the Amy Butler Weekender Bag. In my quest to give more handmade gifts this year for Christmas, I decided to make my SIL and daughter each a Weekender Bag. Well what the heck was I thinking???? Apparently I don't vividly remember all the blood, sweat, and tears it caused me when I made myself one in January. I need to be declared insane!

Now after starting the bag, I'm not fully committed to finishing it in time for Christmas. I'm reconsidering this might be a good graduation gift for when she graduates nursing school in March (that gives me a little more time). I think I suck at big projects. I like more instant gratification projects. Possibly I'm longing for a few new things for me, so I will set this aside for a bit and bring it back to the machine soon. I will finish it, the question is whether it will be in time for Christmas - that is still to be determined.

Here is the bag in it's sad state~

Now onto my other sewing projects that I promised to share in my last post. First up is the outfit I made to wear to DH's work Christmas party. Of course you can just call me "Last Minute Lucy" on this one. I seem to have this theme every year. I want something new to wear and don't start it until the day of the party. I had purchased a black knit with subtle silver sparkles in it when my local indy store went out of business in January. I never knew what I'd do with it. It's a pretty stable knit with not a lot of give, but something kept drawing me back to it so I got 2 yds to toss in my stash. Well here is the end result, a Jalie Crossover top and a little A-line skirt I quickly drafted out of the scraps. I lightened the picture to help see the details better, but it's still hard since it's black. What I liked about the outfit was that I wasn't freezing. They always have the air cranked up and if I had any sort of sleeveless dress or top on I'd freeze.

I also recently made myself two black skirts. One I still need to photograph, but here is the other one. Forgive the lack of a full body shot; the ones my daughter took were horrible and there was no way I could post them. The skirt is from Simplicity 3631. I had Marta fit this pattern on my at my class in October because I really wanted to have a flattering straight skirt. She seemed to think the size 12 was perfect, however once I had the fabric cut and got started, I found this skirt too big. I ended up shaving it down to about a 10. I still wasn't happy with the result so I pegged the hem in about 2" and I like the look better. I'm happy I have a basic black skirt, tho I'm not sure if I'll sew this again. Quite frankly I think that A-line skirts look much better on my shape than straight skirts. The other one I made is too straight too, oops!

So here is the front view (btw, my knees are even tho the picture looks like one knee cap is way higher than the other, must have been how I was standing)~

And the back view (nice bruises on my leg, huh?)~


Here is my middle son in his new Kwik Sew 2894~

And pj's galore~

And finally I have a few bibs for my son's teacher. All my children have had the pleasure of having this wonderful lady be their teacher and she's finally bringing home her baby from Vietnam! The little girl is almost 11 months old and figured a few chenille bibs would be a welcome gift. As a mom, I know you can never have too many bibs. It was a good way to give my embroidery machine some love too.

Up next? Good question. I should be working on that darn bag, but I think I'll set it aside. I have a pillow that needs a cover and I am in desperate need of some tops.