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.

 

Pumpkin Science and Dead People

I finally bought one of those beautiful Fairytale Pumpkins for Halloween this year. I just couldn't bring myself to carve it into a Jack-O-Lantern, so it's been sitting on the counter with other decorative squashes waiting to become pie for thankgiving. I cut into it Monday afternoon and look what I found!

No, those are not tapeworms! They're pumpkin seedlings! I let the pumpkin sit on my counter for so long the seeds sprouted right inside! How cool! They all had big healthy roots and a couple even had fully developed leaves. None of them had any color, though, because they've never seen sunlight. This is called etiolation. Science rocks!

I was very excited about my Fairytale pumpkin seedlings, and I thought for a second about trying to grow them, but I decided to just wait to grow pumpkins until Michael and I have some dirt of our own. At least I have pictures of them. They won't be forgotten.

After roasting my Fairytale pumpkin, I finally put my Dia De Los Muertos fabric to good use. Kimbra gave me the perfect apron-sized piece of some GORGEOUS fabric called "Los Novios" (The Lovers). I used my favorite apron pattern . And, as usual, I made it even simpler.

I bound all the edges in bias tape, and I also used it to make the neck strap and ties. I rounded the bottom corners, so the bias tape would go on easier and I added a pocket for my cell phone. Although the pocket is not too easy to find because of my ninja skills in matching the print! :)

First Christmas Gift Done!

 

Last night I completed my first Christmas gift for this season! I made a Ruby Doll for my Grandma. Ruby has turned into quite a sensation with the online sewing community. She even has her own Flickr group. In case you haven't heard of Ruby, she's an adorable little soft doll that was offered as a free pattern from the very talented Jhoanna Monte Aranez at One Red Robin.

I love stopping by the Ruby Flickr group every once in a while to see what kind of cute Ruby creations people have made.

My latest Ruby is a Christmas Angel for my Grandma. I added some sequin holly berries with felt leaves, I stitched some beads and sequins on her green shirt to give it some sparkle, and I gave her wings with a little bow-shaped button in the center.

 

The 7th Annual

The 7th Annual Halloween Party was great! The night before, which was actually Halloween, Lindsey and Cornbread and Justin and Kelly came over for some pizza and Jack-O-Lantern carving. I was hoping we'd get more trick-or-treaters than last year, but we only got one. :(

This year's party set-up went really smooth and stress-free for me. Thanks to Michael for making me take a nap so he could play garland elf, and Kelly for getting all the decor up to Esco in one turbo trip, and of course Lindsey's magical spiderweb skills. It was so nice to have the party all set-up and ready to go with plenty of time to get our costumes on. Thanks to everyone who made it happen!

We didn't have a huge turn out of party people, but what really matters is that the RIGHT people showed up. We got to be treated to a quick little appearance by Elliot in his monkey costume from his beautiful and talented Fairy Godmother. Alex and Kimbra won their second Pussy Award and brought the most delightfully awful-looking meatheads! And we had lots of new-comers to the party; even Aunt Gina Lola Zappa and her fortune-telling cards.

The pictures will be added to website soon!