T minus 6 days

My kids are daily reminding me how many days are left before Christmas. They've been doing this for weeks. Now that all my gifts are mailed, I don't get the same heart-restricting feeling I did a few weeks ago every time they gave me the number, ha!

I wasn't able to do a lot of Christmas sewing this year, unfortunately. I did not make ornaments this year *gasp*! The few people I told acted really bummed, so I didn't tell anyone else. Christmas really snuck up on me! Not only have I been really busy with essential oil classes and things, the fact that it still feels like Summer here just was not giving my brain the necessary indicators to get on the stick about Christmas prep!

At any rate, I did sew a few little gifts for my own kids and a few others. And I've sewn two tops over the last month and a half. That's pretty much it!

The first is out of a beautiful vintage print that I found at a thrift store. It feel like a cotton sateen and I'm pretty sure it has silk in it, it's just gorgeous.

 The pattern is McCall's 6755, which most people probably picked up for the awesome skirt pattern, but I had my eye on the top too. I really love the button detail in the back.

 That black scalloped skirt has been one of favorite things to wear since I made it!

The other is another of my new favorite t-shirt pattern. I grabbed this leopard print knit in a remnant bin at Fabric Mart Hawaii. In general, fabric shopping here is pretty hit or miss, but sometimes I find a gem. I just last weekend found a tiny shelf of great rayon prints! My favorite fabric to wear, by far. I already sewed up one dress, but I wanted to do some shirring at the waist rather than elastic and my elastic thread has gone MIA (because I'm pretty sure Natalie thought it would be great as jewelry string). Hope I can find some more soon!

I hope you all are having a relaxed week-before-Christmas!

Dressy

I know I promised a bathroom reveal, um, like two days ago, but I have learned not to make promises like that, because in reality, I probably won't have that bathroom ready until, maybe, Tuesday. But, I do have other stuff to share. Casey has had a 4-day weekend, yay! And, we bought a Denver Zoo membership, so we have had a FUN couple of days!!

Since Casey has actually been home in the daylight, I had him take some pictures of a couple dresses I've made. This is the one I wore to the zoo yesterday:

This pattern is Butterick 5348. Let me tell ya, this dress is soooo comfortable! However, it's a little big for me up top, so next time, I'll make a size smaller and also probably eliminate some of the fullness from the skirt.  I originally made this dress floor-length, but with the largeness of the print and because it is slightly too big, I felt like it overwhelmed me a little bit. So I cut it off and now I think I will get a lot of wear out of this this summer!  If you are looking for a dress pattern that is sure to fit, I truly think this is one you should try. It ties on the sides to cinch the waist, so I really think it would flatter all body types, including pregnant ones :) OH, and also, I found the zipper unnecessary because there is plenty of ease, so I left it off.

Yesterday in Target, someone complimented my dress and I resisted my usual urge to shout, "Thanks, I made it myself!!!" Very proud.

Next, I bought Butterick 5456 a few months ago and put it aside until I found a decent knit to make it with.  I stumbled upon this awesome black leopard print on the clearance table and knew it would be purrrfect (hehe).  This dress literally only took a couple of hours from start to finish and I am in LOVE with it!!! Here's the front: (I can't remember what I'm pointing at, ha!)

Pretty cute, but, oh my goodness, check out the back!

I love it and I want to wear it every day, haha!  A little note, I added some length because as is, this dress is short--I actually doubled the width of the hem band so that I could fold in half to attach it--this added a little bit of length and it eliminated the need for me to hem it--cause I don't like hemming knits.

So, after the zoo yesterday, since we had to park a bazillion miles away (note to self: don't go on a holiday weekend) and because by the time we got back to the car, my $3 Old Navy flip flops were actually feeling like exactly what they are (cheap flips flops), I determined that I will need to some good walking sandals this summer.  I bought these:

Ahhhhh, Tevas, I heart you. So much better.

Have a GREAT long weekend! And, FYI, JoAnn's is giving %20 off to military all weekend long! YES! :)