Christmas sewing....

I had a whole post written about various Christmas sewing that I'm undertaking, but alas, a spool of cotton yarn fell off the back of my desk and knocked the plug out of my computer. I don't feel like writing the post completely over, so let's just say that I have lots of Christmas sewing to do - both to sell and for gifts.

And here's where I started - with a swap apron. I still have to buy the tuck ins, since I've been sick this weekend and haven't ventured out since Friday. I also don't recommend sewing while having a sinus headache, because you'll likely end up like me, with her seam ripper the next day. Ooops.

And, I also discovered that my coat rack works wonders for taking pics of aprons (not perfect, but the best I could do - and no, the houndstooth is not in the apron, that's my daughter's "fancy coat"), since when I put the apron on to take a self photo, I realized that my big baby belly just got in the way, lol.

Christmas decorating

We're hosting Christmas this year, including for my lovely sister, BIL and my mom. Because they'll be venturing from California and Montana, we're busy here prepping the house. General organizing has been happening since October. It's amazing how quickly I've filled up tubs and tubs of kids clothes (out of season, too small), bags of Goodwill donations and yet, we could probably still fill dozens more totes and bags! We have some time before they arrive, so we'll continue to purge stuff out of our house - it's good for when they come to visit, but it's also good nesting for me. Speaking of nesting, this baby is due in just about 8 weeks. Not sure how that happened!

Oh, back to Christmas decorating. Yesterday I brought up all the decorations and the tree from the basement. Very tiring for a pregnant woman! I then set the tree up, scratched my arms up arranging the lights and branches (yes, we use a fake tree) and then set about decorating. The pictures aren't the greatest, as they're taken by my itouch, but I didn't feel like bringing out the camera. I'm sure I will at some point. And, I didn't take a picture of all the decorations evidently, I was too tired.

Finally finished those couch cushions...

It took way longer than I anticipated. Not because they took a long time, but because it took me a long time to get motivated. In the end they came out okay, not the best, but certainly better than what they were. The cushions look a little big, compared to the cover itself - but, the cover has been washed about five times since I made it, and has shrunk a bit each time. I expect the same thing to happen to the cushions over time, so I purposely made them a bit big to start with. This couch takes a beating, with a two and a four year old being the primary beaters, so it is good that the fabric washes up so nicely. Now we just have to hope that it stops shrinking! The couch is so comfortable and even though it's our main couch, one day when we can afford to buy a new couch, this couch will be kept for a basement rec room couch - it's that comfortable, I just won't be able to part with it until it falls apart. Since it was built well, I'm hoping that day is a long, long way off.

Without further ado, here is the couch today vs what it started as:


For more before pictures, and to see just how bad it was, see this post. At some point, I'll probably add a pleat around the bottom like it had before, since as it shrinks, it rides up a bit, but for now, I'm going to leave it as it. ;)