Wedding Dress Construction Has Begun

I started my wedding dress the day after Christmas. I'm starting with the petticoat, so it really doesn't matter that Michael is around for it, because it doesn't look like anything right now. I'll be documenting my dress construction along the way, but I won't actually put anything up on my blog until after the wedding.

I've just been hanging out on the couch watching movies and gathering 50+ yards of net with Judo's help. All by hand because my sewing machine won't have anything to do with it. It's lots of tedious work, but it's worth it because it's looking beautiful!

A Christmas Doll For Elliott

I found this retro doll pattern at Joann during the Veteran's Day sale. It's Simplicity 2729, a reprint of "learn to dress" dolls from the 70's. I'll post my pattern review with more details soon, but this is a really great pattern.

I named him Herbie How-to-Dress. Herbie has snaps on his shirt, buttons on his overalls, and laces on his shoes. I know Elliot isn't quite ready to start dressing himself, but Herbie can just be a good friend until he's ready.

I gave him a red shirt and plaid overalls because it looks like something Elliot would like to wear. You can trim his hair if you want because it's the same length hair as the girl doll, but I thought his hair looked good long and shaggy.

Elliot wasn't quite interested in Herbie at first. But then Jess made him clap, and Elliot decided to give Herbie a chance. After a couple claps Elliot was grabbing Herbie by his hair and looking for more clapping. :)

Herbie turned out a little bigger than I expected, but I think he'll be a fun doll for Elliot to play with. Boys do like dolls too even if they need to call them action figures. :)

 

Christmas Sewing Catch-Up

Christmas was great this year!

Michael and I managed to stay healthy (last year we were sick for nearly 2 months), and we both got lots of great gifts. Too bad someone hit his car in front of my Mom's house and just drove off on Christmas Day. Well, what goes around comes around...

Anyway, now that gifts have been given and we're all getting ready for the new year to start, I can start posting some of my sewing projects. Early in December we had a wonderful dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Castillo. Alex and Kimbra had their house decorated beautifully for Christmas and Michael and I took them some more ornaments for their tree.

Since this was Alex and Kim's first Christmas as a married couple, I made them a "Our First Christmas" ornament out of the wonderful Los Novios fabric.

They made a really great dinner with roast beast and potatoes and veggies. Kim made some wonderful homemade biscuits and she out-did herself with the spice cake for dessert!

 

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Last weekend we put up all of our Christmas decor. Once again I pulled out the junky $15 WalMart tree and thought that maybe it was time to replace it. But once all the lights, garland and ornaments are on it, it looks pretty good. You can see Michael's custom robot stocking that I made for him last year, and our tree skirt that doesn't actually go all the way around because apparently I forgot how to do simple geometry. We even saved the Christmas slug last year and it went up in the window again this year. I love all of our silly Christmas decorations, even our weird, mismatched nativity set. This year Michael added an angel. No manger scene is complete without a Lego Spock angel.

 

 

I also put up the Christmas decorations at work. When I moved over to the big building almost 7 years ago, I found lots of strange stuff thrown in the darkroom. There was a fluorescent pink little kid's BMX bike, a ceramic jack-o-lantern, about 15 ancient computers and monitors, and a box of Christmas decorations among other non-biology lab related things. So I started using the Christmas decorations. There was a little tiny table top tree with lights that blink amazingly slow and funny Styrofoam decorations, lots of fake plastic holly candle rings that I think someone was using as wreaths, little rocks painted like christmassy animals, and two of those old fuzzy felt stockings from the 80's that have Santa screen printed on them. I used to tape the stockings to the fume hood like it was a chimney, but I don't do that any more. Now I just put the little tree on top of my balance with the rock animals sleeping underneath it. A couple years back a work-study student made a star for the top of the tree with a piece of construction paper and a wooden applicator. Everyone that comes into my lab loves the silly little tree and asks who painted the rock animals. Christmas time in the lab is fun.

 

The John Wright Gingerbread House

 

I just couldn't wait any longer, I made my gingerbread house this weekend! A couple years ago I got the John Wright gingerbread house cast iron mold for Christmas. One side of the mold makes a traditional log cabin style house, and the other side makes a Victorian house. But I never got a chance to use it because my cute little mama kept getting me those neato complete kits.

 

This year I finally told her that I want to use my mold. I decided I would make the traditional log cabin style house for my first time using the mold. I went to Dollar Tree and found all kinds of gingerbread house candies and I planned out how to make candy windows with a real light inside. But I ran into all kinds of challenges. In the middle of actually baking the pieces we found that we had a pond in our backyard because the sprinkler system had a major leak (for a couple days). Then, I tried to make candy windows and I completely did it wrong. So the sides of my gingerbread house actually have melted candy all over them. So I piped lots of icing on the walls to cover it. Then when I tried to assemble the house both side walls fell and smooshed my pretty icing job! I finally got the house together and the roof on and I realized that I bought enough candy to make at least 30 more gingerbread houses! Wow, did I learn a lot!

 

But, the house is cute, I really like the roof and the chimney. And you all know how I love a challenge. I can't wait for next year's house. I have lots of gingerbread house type candies in the freezer and now I know how to install candy window panes. :)

 

Here's another picture with the lights on.