It Was a Good Day…

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day?  I’ve been a little quiet as we’ve had (what must be) a final 2012 incident but I wont bore you with it here!  Suffice to say whilst I know 2012 has been really really good to some of you, I’m done with this year.

A massive positive though was that all the hard work me and Husband had put in on Boy’s new bedroom paid off.  He absolutely loves it and disappears upstairs to play in it and have adventures!

I suspect his favourite bit is the lights under the bed – it’s an LED ribbon and there’s a remote control that you use to change the colours, or make the flash!  He’s mastering climbing up and down to the top bunk too, although I’m quite pleased that he’s sleeping in the bottom one at the moment…  I don’t want to hear a crash in the early hours when half asleep he gets it wrong!  Lots of practice first I think!

There’s a lot of ‘Me Hearties’ going on too as he has a pirate outfit which he loves – a last minute ‘impulse’ buy by me in the Early Learning Centre the weekend before Christmas.  My sister bought his some foam cutlasses and if I can I’ll get you a picture of Pirate Boy on his hobby horse brandishing a sword.  He tries so hard to look fearsome, but is just too darn cute to pull it off!

I got the blind and curtains done, finally hanging the curtains Christmas Eve (so late partially due to some idiot moments on my part during construction of the blind and having to re-do the header tape on the first curtain as it was too close to the radiator when hung).  I am so pleased with how they came out though.  It was definitely worth the effort and I hope they’ll have a long life as they’re not babyish…

I was a very lucky girl and got some lovely sewing goodies as well as my swap items!  I now have the Alma Blouse pattern by Sewaholic which will be made up with some leopard print lawn with a black peter pan collar.  Perfect for Pretty Grievances Jungle January!

I also now own some pinking shears – Gingher ones no less too and oh my, they do cut beautifully!  Also some gorgeous lengths of fabric which will be pre-washed today as I fancy some very selfish sewing.

I hope you all had a wonderful day and were spoilt rotten.

Christmas Swaps Reveal

I’ve had so much fun buying for other crafty bods this winter as part of two swaps:

My very own Sew Merry Christmas Swap and Krafty Kat’s Sewist Secret Santa.  In mid December I received two parcels to put under the tree.  The parcel from Kat was hidden away and opened this morning, my Secret Santa swap parcel was opened when it arrived as it didn’t dawn on me until I’d opened it what it was!  So, do you want to see what I was lucky enough to receive?

Sewist’s Secret Santa:

All I know is that all the items are vintage and French, as is my Secret Santa!  There is 4 metres of that beautiful plaid and it’s 60″ wide!  I wanted to make a maxi for the summer and I think that is what this fabric is destined to become…

It was neatly tied with some tape and there was a bundle of gorgeous braid insert which I intend to use like piping.  Maybe around the edge of a Peter Pan collar?  Also a cute little buckle and the most gorgeous card.

I have no idea how my Santa managed all that for the € equivalent of £5!

And for my Christmas swap with Kat I received these goodies:

The fabric is the most beautiful shade of blue and I love the lime and chocolate accents on it.  It feels almost like a lawn.  This will definitely become a Sewaholic Cambie!

She also included some sweet treats (chocolate and a candy cane), some fabulous polkadot bias binding, gorgeous butterfly ribbon and a lovely handmade felt pompom brooch.  The bias binding is destined to be used where it can be seen!

It’s such a lovely thoughtful little bundle of items, I love them all.  Thank you so much Kat!

I hope everyone who took part in any swaps this year were as thrilled with their presents as I was!

Sew Merry Christmas Swap

I hope you’ve all had an absolute blast shopping for each other!  Can I ask that you make sure you email me when you’ve posted to your partner?  Last international posting date is tomorrow…

Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap – You’ve got (e)mail!

 

To everyone that signed up, you should have an email!  If you don’t, please get in contact!  Have fun!

Last Shout for Christmas Fabric!

Just a quick reminder that the last day for signing up for the fabric swap is tomorrow…  I’ll be sorting the emails out on Saturday.  There are a few who have said they want to join in but I haven’t had the details from yet…

Please email me at vickikatemakes[at]btinternet[dot]com so I can pair you up!

And… the fabric has been ordered (yesterday) and arrived today for Boy’s curtains!  I just need to steam the heck out of it and press it.  Then get brave and start measuring and cutting!  Any recommendations on what I should tackle first?  The curtains or the blind?

Another Christmas Swap

The sewing blog community is coming over all Christmassy!

KraftyKat is organising a Sewing Secret Santa over on her blog – just for a little something to the tune of £5 or the equivalent of your local currency.  Pop on over and throw your name in the ring if you want!  I have…

And on the note of Christmassy Swaps; there’s just 5 days left to send your email with your details for the Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap!  It should be a lot of fun and you can nab a blog button here!

Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap Button / Widget!

I have finally got round to sorting out a widget button thingy for the swap!  It’s not very fancy as I am still trying to sum up the courage to spring for Photoshop, but I hope you’ll like it?!

 

Here’s the code you need:

<div align=”center”><a
href=”https://vickikatemakes.wordpress.com/category/sew-merry-christmas-swap/&#8221; title=”Vicki Kate Makes”><img src=”https://vickikatemakes.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/svmcs1.jpg&#8221; alt=”vickikatemakes” /></a></div>
<div align=”center”></div>

I’d love it if you could share the button on your blog!  I’m really looking forward to this swap, it’s shaping up to be a good-un!

 

Sew Very Merry Christmas Swap

Hurrah, I’m so glad that you guys like the idea of a Christmas swap!

I’ve done a bit of research and the earliest last date for Airmail international postage (that I can track down) is Wednesday December 5th 2012, so here’s the plan:

Sign-up for the swap will be open until Friday November 16th 2012.  The weekend of the 17th and 18th I’ll pair people up and email out details of who you’re swapping with.

Then it’s time to do some research, read your swap partners blog, send them an email to help guide your choice on the fabric you think they’d like – and then of course go shopping!  I thought a budget of £20(GB) / $30(US) (by today’s exchange rate provided by Google) was a manageable figure?

Feel free to shop your stash if you have something that you know would be perfect!  The main aim is to provide enough fabric for the person to make their garment of choice, but if you want to include notions, trim, patterns because you scored an awesome deal then that would be fabulous!

It would be lovely if we could all gift wrap whatever we’re swapping to make opening our ‘present’ a little more special on Christmas Day.  And it prevents early peaking (well it might…)

Then it’s time to post your parcel by Wednesday December 5th 2012 and send me a quick email so I know that it’s been entrusted to Royal Mail / USPS / AusPost / whoever your postal service is!

I’d love it if we could all do a show and tell by New Year’s Eve and I can then do a wrap up post on New Years Day sharing what everyone received.  I was vaguely thinking that we could do a ‘finished item’ share at the end of January?

If you’d like to join in please send me an email to
vickikatemakes[at]btinternet[dot]com
with the following information by Friday 16 November 2012:

• What item you’d like to make and therefore the yardage you’d like to swap; it could simply be that you want to make a dress, or a skirt or top, or that you’re hoping for the Cambie Dress Pattern for Christmas and enough fabric for that would be amazing! (I estimate that 3 yards for a dress / 2 for a top or skirt would be about right assuming 44″ fabric)
• If you’re happy to post internationally
• Your email address
• Your postal address (If you’re in the US, please provide the full ZIP Code as international stuff can go AWOL without it!)
• Your blog address (if you have one – if you don’t its not a problem!)

This way I can match people up on the yardage and postage.  I really hope you all want to join in and have an absolute ball, get to know some fellow sewists and have a wonderful present to open on December 25th!

PS – Some sort of blog button is coming soon…  If anyone is any good with photoshop or that sort of thing then I’d be eternally grateful as I’m clueless!

For image sources, please click on image