These past few weeks have been spent in a HURRICANE-FORCE-BLUR-OF-CRAFTINESS-AND-BOOKS, and I’m quite happy about it!

First, I decided to make my own dress for the Curtis Brown Christmas party and for New Years, opting for a retro taffeta party dress. I had this pattern:

and made this dress:

front

back

A Few Things People Will Not Tell You Until After You’ve Bought Five Yards of Taffeta With Only Three Weeks Until Your Christmas Party:

1.) Taffeta has to be hand-basted before you can put it in the machine. As in, you Sew. All. The. Seams. By. Hand. First.

2.) Even with the zipper foot on your machine, and the hand-basting, and the fact that you’ve already done it three times — it still might take you four times to get the zipper in the way you’d like. As in, not attached to anything it shouldn’t be, or with enough material around it that it looks like you gathered it on purpose, which you definitely did not.

3.) Taffeta stains as soon as you look at it.

Anyway, I’m still pretty pleased with it, and it was a hit at both parties. (The belt in the picture isn’t what I actually wore with it, but was just a placeholder.)

The next project (also part of Totally Crafty Christmas) was a messenger bag for my sister, using directions I found on mmmcrafts. I’m sure you’re well aware of how much my sister and I love the Elephant and Piggie books, so I recreated a scene from Are You Ready To Play Outside? for the front flap.

Here’s the full bag:

The bag open so you can see the lining:

And a close-up of the flap:

I made the bag in royal blue corduroy with a pale pink lining, and, because I am a rebel, free-hand embroidered the facial expressions of the characters, the lettering in the speech bubble, etc. (Plus, pre-marking anything that fine on felt is nearly impossible.)

Speaking of rebels, the next project I made was a floor length, red flannel nightgown, complete with long poofy sleeves and a ruffle. I will not be sharing pictures, because that will doom me to catlady-dom almost instantaneously. But, I put it on and immediately laughed, and then my sister told me I looked like Mrs. Claus. (Seriously though, it’s ridiculously comfortable/awesome.)

Moving on!

I visited an old friend from high school who just had her first child, so I made this Christmas bib as a gift:

I used the yoke piece from my pajama pattern, altered the shape, cut two (front in the tan material, the back in extra red flannel), decorated the front and sewed it all together, adding red straps.

And lastly, I made a friend double-sided placemats and linen napkins using directions from The Long Thread:

I don’t have pictures of the napkins, though one should note that 1/2 yard only gave me three adult-sized napkins, prompting a gift of four placemats and two napkins, and the promise of two napkins in the future.

Holy crow, and we didn’t even get to the books!