Stripey Beach Dress - Burdastyle Anda 7969

Source: romwe.com via Kim on Pinterest

My inspiration was this stripey dress above that I saw on Pinterest. I needed a beach dress for my trip to Hawaii in October and happened to have some fabric in my collection already that was similar. What luck! Of course, I made it at the last minute, so I decided to buy Burdastyle's Anda 7969 pattern partly because it was a similar style to my other beach dress (no sleeves and an empire waist), but more importantly because I could download it immediately and print it from home.

Considering I ended up wearing this almost every day of the trip, I think I would call it my second most successful piece of clothing next to the cowl neck t-shirt.

Pattern adjustments: I omitted the neck facings and lowered the neckline a lot, probably a bit too much, but it is the beach, so who cares. I also used elastic at the waist instead of the front tie. It was just easier to pull on and off that way.

I've noticed that the need/urge for new clothes or accessories for an upcoming trip is my greatest sewing motivation apart from making gifts for other people. I wish I could channel that motivation throughout the year instead of being rushed before a trip.

Whip it up.

This little wine cover (or champagne to be precise), was made the morning of Thanksgiving. I have never been one to just whip something up, but I've always wanted to be that person. Things always seem to take much longer than I expect most of the time. Not in this instance, though.

I owe it all to my new narrow hem foot, which turns the raw fabric edge under and sews it down in one step. This thing is amazing! I just cut out a rectangle of fabric more or less to fit around the bottle and then narrow hemmed all the edges, even the vertical seam so that it looks like a fake French seam inside. Couldn't have been more than 15 minutes.

Fabric Wallet

Our family had Christmas early this year so this wallet I made for my sister was finished up on the morning of the event, hence the terrible photos. Sorry.

I cobbled the instructions together from several online tutorials to get the desired design elements. I learned a lot from making this. I would use thicker interfacing next time for the main body and less in the zippered pocket. I would also make the snap shorter. It's a bit loose right now.

Santa out sources.

You may not be aware of this, but Santa out sources quite of bit of his production each year, particularly in the stocking stuffer arena. Makes sense, really. How else could he deliver so much great stuff?

I was lucky enough to become a vendor for him this year with these cute little pencil pouches. He even sends a follow up note to let you know how your product was received. Santa is so nice.

Christmas stockings

This was our first Christmas in the house because we were in South Africa last year for most of December.  I had grand plans to decorate with new placemats, napkins, felt garland, a winter door wreath, and stockings. Unfortunately, the stockings were the only thing to survive the time constrained to-do list.

We hosted the festivities this year, but celebrated early on December 17th because almost all of the family (medical professionals of one sort or the other) had to work on Christmas weekend.

I used this Fabric Worm stocking tutorial that I saw on Pinterest and it was super quick and easy to make. I used the remains of the red wool fabric from this skirt I made. I had no idea there was so much left. For the cuffs, I used different Christmasy fabrics, mostly from Joann's, to differentiate them. I didn't feel like assigning names like normal stockings.

Can you tell which one is mine, though?

There are no kids in the family yet, so these are all adult stockings. I know. Kind of pointless, but it was nice to have some sort of decoration up since this was the only thing I got around to. I did fill them with adult goodies, though, like tiny bottles of alcohol and delicious cookies.

The rest of our decorations were pretty minimal: a tree (of course), an extra string of lights, some branches, and the Evil Santa candle holder that my mom made. I kind of love his look. He's very stern. Very tough on the naughty kids.