Anyway, over the past month I've been busy crafting, and working a little, and blogging has definitely taken a back seat. My apologies. I'm going to try to be more diligent in the New Year, but I also hate making resolutions, so we'll see how long that lasts.
But five days before Christmas, I am done with all but one project, which is an easy one so I've saved it for last.
Since Thanksgiving, I made my Christmas cards...
and stenciled some stationery...
made my sister an apron...
and decorated a whole lot of Christmas cookies.
But the biggest project this year was one I never intended to do.
You see, this Fall my Monkey Girl's mother decided to rehab the vacation house up north, which meant, basically, clearing it out and taking it down to the studs. The house has been in her family for thirty years, and I've been going up there for twenty-seven of them. There was a lot of history there, and memories, and lots of work to be done. I went up to help in September, right about the time she decided that the sofa, a wonderfully huge, comfortable sectional she'd had in her first apartment here in Chicago, needed to go. The slipcover wouldn't match the new decor, and it was going to cost just as much to reupholster as to buy a new one.
Unbeknownst to her, before Habitat for Humanity came to pick up all the donated building materials and furniture, I rescued the slipcover. All thirty-some yards of it.
I was going to make a quilt out of it, and still will at some point -- but a few weeks ago I got a PajamaGram catalog in the mail and the wheels started turning -- and I couldn't get them to stop. When they finally did, I had this:
Monkey Girl, her mother, and Samantha the American Girl Doll are all getting matching pj's this Christmas!
I used coordinating stripe from my stash, and some sweatshirt material I was saving for just such an emergency. There was a mile of piping, which I used on the bottom of Monkey Girl's top (it reverses to the slipcover fabric), and made more from the stripe for the bigger pants. The only drawback was that none of the fabric pieces were long enough to do an adult-length leg, so Mom's getting hers cropped, but that's it. I'm pretty proud of the results!
And besides being in love love love with piping now, here's my favorite part: the half-inch buttons for the reversible top. Too cute!
Hope everyone's holiday crafting is going well!
And Merry Christmas!
