sewloud

whoops haven't posted in ages...the Christmas season has been hard for me this year. More clearly I can see the chances of us having kids dimming and that makes a lot of it feel like "why bother" why have Christmas traditions if there's no one to pass them too, why does it matter? I barely managed the basics of presents for family and a tree. Rob was very helpful but he just doesn't have the sadness I do so to some extent he's left bewildered. But we made it through. My family came down the weekend after and I had a wonderful time being with them and those girls are just a hoot. I can't believe they're 7 and 5 already. Where does the time go?!



But please be impressed with my Christmas dinner part 2. I made a beef roast and it turned out perfectly! I was so proud of myself!



I can already tell we have passed the solstice as I feel the dark lessening. I love turning the corner to longer days. I'm so sun driven. And I now get the glory of a clean house to enjoy. My mom as a present cleaned my embarrassingly filthy fridge to brand new status, I got the bathroom sparkling and had to clean the sewing room for the girls to sleep in. I know I'm coming out of my depression because on a rainy disgusting day, instead of curling up and watching hallmark movies all day I went upstairs and excavated my sewing table so I could start another project. Mind you I didn't get as far as sewing but I did get as far as a clean space to do it in.

I also decided I wanted a regency outing so I'm going to wrangle whoever wants to go to Emma in February which will be fun. I want to make a new wool spencer and ruffly chemisette and an apron front dress.

I also want to go to Williamsburg in the beginning of February for their fashion weekend, need to get in touch with my MIL about the time share again...I really really need new stays. I wanted to use the Augusta Stays pattern...I should probably start sewing if I'm going to do 1/10th of this.

So the fabric I bought for the hideous 1830s dress that I'm not making is a large gold and burgundy plaid, really more of a checked pattern...and It came in two pieces that looked identical. I started cutting from the smaller piece. Last night I made all the piping aka wasted a chunk for bias. Then today I started cutting skirt panels. I got two from the remainder of the small piece. I'm thinking "yay I have tons left"...and then I lay out the big peice and in measuring to cut the third skirt panel really that the squares are like 1/8" bigger...so they DON'T match up nicely at the seam...

Here's my dilemma. I have plenty of fabric, do I recut three skirt panels from the large peice, or have one reeeeeally unmatched seam...

Well it's that time. If I want to wear the epic fail dress tomorrow night I should probably think about putting new sleeves in it..but I REALLY don't want to. Partially because sleeves seem to be my Achilles heel, everything else fits wonderful but the sleeves STINK. And partially because it means facing what a complete costuming failure I am. 

So instead of dealing with them I'm sitting here feeling so overwhelmed by Christmas that I don't know where to start. Given that we are flat broke this year Christmas needs to be homemade, which in theory is fine. I LIKE making gifts, and I used to think I was good at it. But there's so much to do I just want to curl up in a ball instead of actually working to make any of it better. 

This week I plan to:

Make fudge
Make Garlic Jelly for Mom (not like you put on toast you use it in cooking and she loves garlic so why not try it?)
Make scrub cap for Dad
Make slippers for sister, father-in-law and Aunt-in-Law
Mail packages
Find gift for BIL
Make a few friend gifts not sure what those will be yet.
Make pickles for Rob

I guess that list doesn't seem too bad, just a lot when it's all jumbled up in my head.

But first I must finish this damn dress so I can have a fun evening out tomorrow with blackcat452, mandie_rw, and hiraimi and anyone else who wants to join. Guess I'll go make myself take off the OLD sleeves, getting started is the hardest part right?