Yule Tradtions and Naked Dolls

No- naked dolls are not the Yule tradition I wanted to show off. I'm working diligently to clothe them. Here's the doll I made for my niece keeping watch while I sew her dress. It will be done tomorrow even if I'm falling asleep in my Figgy Pudding (which IS one of our Yule Traditions.) After I get her dress done I just have to sew clothing for James' doll and I'm done- whew, just in the nick of time. Next year I am starting earlier, I swear. I'm sure I've said that every year, maybe I could predate a blog post that says "GET TO WORK ON HOLIDAY GIFTS!"anyway...

 

What I wanted to show off is the ornament I made for Michael. One of our holiday traditions that we started when we first got married is to make each other an ornament each year.

 

In April of this year we got five hens (ha! or so we thought.)As it turned out one was a rooster. As it also turned out our big black menace...err dog found chickens running around in the yard sufficient motivation to push open our screen door. So just when we were asking ourselves what we should do about the rooster- she took care of it. I learned how to pluck and butcher poultry and the resulting meal was quite tasty and well earned and this is the wishbone from the rooster with "wish" embroidered behind it. Yes it's a little odd. I think it'll make us laugh when we pull it our years from now.

OK, the doll is getting impatient. She's just staring at me. I better go finish up.

Sling Instructions- Done!

I've finally finished writing out my instruction sheet for the ring-slings I've been selling. Having no instruction sheet to give out has really held me back on even wanting to sell any slings, but now finally they are DONE. Whew. One thing off my plate. Still yet to be accomplished- finish sewing gifts for Solstice.

 

I'm feeling a little discombobulated with the holidays approaching. I have a custom apron order to sew, dolls to finish for the kids and no decorations up yet. My husband moved his office into the back of our house a couple weeks ago and that's just been a bit odd. We're working out the kinks still. Leland is getting in molars and just screams at anything that doesn't go his way, and being that his way is the fickle way of an 18 month old, screaming happens a lot. As my grandmother would say- good thing he's cute.

 

Making the Holidays Meaningful

We're really focusing on cutting the stress and enjoying our family this year for the holidays. The gifts we're giving are simple, handmade things like cards or baked items. We decided to make our own little family the priority then look outward. This way the neat things I've wanted to make for my husband and kids or the fun activities we want to do don't get buried at the bottom of the list. So my kids are getting mama made dolls and my husband can read, and just might read this blog, so he doesn't get to know what he's getting. A link to a really great guide that talks about avoiding the Holiday Hype came in my email today, and I thought I'd share it: Commercial Free Childhood's Holiday Guide

Thanksgiving

There's also a section on their website with lots of fun and creative ideas for Gifts in a Shoebox that you can put together possibly with things you already have. I'm thinking for my niece I'll make a shoebox kit of the Paper Dolls that James and I had so much fun decorating.

We started things off yesterday with an advent calendar- I was going to get complicated, but instead I took out the calendar that I forgot about last year and wrote little activities on the back of each flap, so when they open the flap it says things like "pancakes for breakfast" or,"make cookies."

We also swapped family advent calendars with my siblings and my mom, but I'll post about that later.

Raisin Pie Update

Well- the pie below? Wrong pie. It wasn't the one my mom ate growing up. It tasted alright, even though it was very unattractive and we didn't even serve it at dinner (not like we were lacking in the dessert category anyhow.) The good news here is that when I got home, I looked at the recipe I had from my grandmother (I'd forgotten it here) and even though the one I found online looked similar, they're not the same. So I may yet be able to recreate this family favorite. For the moment though, we're rather satiated as far as pie goes so I think I'll wait a bit on that experiment. I'd post a picture of the pie I did make, but my camera's gone a little bit missing in all the Hoopla.
ETA- found the camera:

Oh- I've also decided that I just don't like that vodka pie crust recipe. I'll stick with the Cooks Illustrated (other) best pie crust instead.

Sour Cream Raisin Pie

My mother has often told me about a raisin pie that she and my grandfather loved. The other night I was at my grandmother's for dinner and asked her if she thought she still had the recipe- and she did. We dug through her recipe box and eventually found a little slip of carboard from the back of a SunMaid Raisin box with a recipe for Sour Cream Raisin Pie. So I'm baking this today for Thanksgiving!
I hope it turns out well enough to evoke the memory of the pies my grandmother used to bake. I'm at my mother's and forgot my usual pie crust recipe at home so I did a search online. I like to use the best pie crust recipe from Cooks Illustrated, which I did find a version of HERE but I also have tried their recipe with Vodka in it a couple times. I'm not totally sold on it (the dough is really soft, thus sticky), but it's so interesting that I have to try one more time to see if I like it or see if I for certain DON'T like it. I'll chill it for longer than I have in the past I think... I'll let you know how the pie comes out!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Button-down Shirt Sleeve Pants

Leland's got some new pants made from Papa's old shirt. I made these just like you'd make pants from a sweater, though of course, with cotton shirts there's no felting involved. Leland wears about 18 mos. clothing and I don't think you'd be able to make these much bigger than that. Well, nevermind- with MY husband's shirts I couldn't make them much bigger.I'm thinking these would be cute with a pocket on the side- maybe from the shirt front?

Really Easy Applique

About a year ago I read instructions on Melissa Haworth's Blog, Under Construction, about how to applique by sewing your applique piece onto iron on interfacing. Though I left an enthusiastic comment I still didn't get around to actually trying it out until recently while decorating some bibs. When I wrote Melissa to tell her I'd finally used the idea, she told me that her new favorite way of doing applique is to just sew the piece onto another piece of that fabric, then stick it onto whatever she's decorating with a bit of wonder under if she wants to stick it on. This has become my favorite way of making little decorative patches (though I have yet to use the wonder under tip. I think that'd be quite helpful for hand applique though.) Here are my own little instructions.

James wanted to get in on all the sewing I've been doing and dug through my scraps to find this cowboy. He told me he wanted it on his stripey shirt so I created this little tutorial in case you'd like an easy way to add a bit of decoration to...anything fabric.

• Cut out your image- this can be much rougher than I did in the picture.
• Choose a fabric for the backing- interfacing works, a piece of the same fabric, or for this one I just chose a scrap of black fabric.
• Right side to right side, sew all the way around your image. All the way, closing the gap.
  

• Cut out right next to your sewing line. I find using pinking shears carefully works very well.
• Cut a slit in the back fabric that you will turn the piece through.
• Turn your piece inside out and use a finger or bonefolder to press out the seam.

• Iron.

• Sew onto intended item. You can hand applique, top-stitch or use your machine's applique stitch. Some patches look really cute when sewn on with a decorative stitch.
• My model was none too cooperative. He's trying, in this picture, to hide the cowboy and take the camera from me, but it's the best one I got.

Another blog tutorial that was helpful is on Stitch Rip Repeat.
Thank you Melissa and Beth!