Thoughts on New Year's Eve

Im sure as everyone else, the thought of "New Year's resolutions" is weighing on your mind.

There may be reasons you do, or do not make them. I always feel mixed emotions regarding setting resolutions. Im a firm believer in the philosophy of "if you don't like something, change it" I don't always see why people wait until the new year to start something, or make changes.

That is not to say, that I don't set goals for myself for the new year  at this time. I do, just I like to work towards smaller goals. Mini milestones on the way to the bigger and better things life has to offer.

First one- is to successfully sew vests and belts for my troupe mates for our two performances coming in March.

Second one- is to perform my second solo at the Gettysburg Steampunk convention, along with the costuming for that.

I know that those are fairly large goals, but they will be completed by March so I consider them minis.

Also- I am preparing for my first ever 5K race on April 7th. I will be starting to jog using Zombies Run! app on my iPhone, as well as running wtih Chaos our new German Shepherd. 

Those are the things Im starting with. And while I do have more goals, I will set them once these are completed.

Should Old Acquaintance be forgot,
and never thought upon;
The flames of Love extinguished,
and fully past and gone:
Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold,
that loving Breast of thine;
That thou canst never once reflect
On Old long syne.

On Old long syne my Jo,
On Old long syne,
That thou canst never once reflect,
On Old long syne.

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The Final Chapter of the Stocking

As I reflect back upon this past weekend, I realize that it was much more productive that I had originally thought it would be!

It started out by arriving home to Mr Pirate and all of our housemates putting up the Christmas decorations.
So I helped out doing that (or rather, I did a WONDERFUL job of "Supervising" ahem....) until a dear friend stopped by and joined Mr Pirate and I for a lovely dinner of Indian Food at Cafe Spice just across the road.
I love going there! The amazing Indian couple who owns the restaurant alway greet us with big smiles and hugs and happy chatter. I want to squish them up and take them home in my pocket. But for now, living across the street is as good as it gets!

Saturday morning, I got up, and ran to the fabric store for some polar fleece to use as the back fabric for the three new-sew blankets that Mr Pirate and I are going to make to go with the pajama pants that I made for some friends as Christmas gifts. Once I made it out of there without spending an arm and a leg, I stopped at the liquor store for Brandy and a present for a white elephant exchange, and the grocery store for some ingredients for a quinoa salad I was making for later that  night.

Once I got home- I promptly got to making the Victorian Egg Nog, which took just over three-quarters of the bottle of brandy that I had purchased, and lots of rum (I can't account for how much rum, because I keep the large size bottle of kraken on hand at all times). This stuff will knock your socks off! No doubt.

And then I made the quinoa salad. I was inspired by a dish that someone brought to work, and made up my own variation on the fly. Quinoa, cucumber, cranberries, cilantro, edamame, juice of one whole lime, white truffle oil, merlot infused sea salt, and cracked black pepper.

Once those were all completed, I couldn't very well justify sitting on my laurels and ruining the track record of the day. So I got to making Mr Pirate the pajama pants from the fabric we found while on vacation.

After that was completed it was time to get myself dressed properly and pick up my fellow dancer, and head out to our Fancy Party. LOL it was a wonderful evening, the eggnog and quinoa salad were a hit. 
For the first time in my life, I was a stealer while we played the White Elephant exchange game! And Im happy to report that I got to keep my present. No one stole it away from me! Two lovely flavors of tea, a lovely little tea cup, and a box of blueberry tea biscotti (which I will give to my friend here at work since it has gluten in it).

Sunday, I made sure to put Mr Pirate to bed in the bedroom after he got home from work so I could get to working on the stocking.
I spent the afternoon working away on it while watching Christmas movies. It was all very nice and happy.
I stopped for a break when he woke up and was getting ready to go back into work, and picked right back up where I left off when he left.

So without further ado- I am very pleased and proud to say, that it is FINISHED. DONE. FIN.
I really enjoyed doing it once I got the hang of it. And give you the final pics of it.
Now to get little bits-and-baubs to fill it with and try and hold out one more week to hang it on..well...I'll hang it someplace on Christmas Eve.

Almost completed

Close up

 

Close up

The Final Finished Product

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Santa Stocking update for today!

The Pirate Santa stocking is looking so awesome! Im really really proud of how far its come!
His head and face are completed, and I *think* I just have his right arm, the scroll and the cardinal bird to put on his torso.

Today at lunch I completed the pirate ship! So cute!!!

Looks like Im working on the snow that goes under the treasure chest next. Im on step 85 or 100+ (just over 100 i think) UPDATE: I just checked- there are 105 pieces to be applied. Then the stocking assembly, name tag, and then all the beads and baubbles on the treasure chest. So, yes indeed, Im getting closer and closer!!!!!

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Tutorial: Recontructing and decorating a Holiday Stocking

As I promised, this will be a tutorial about how to take a premade stocking and reshape it into something you like much more.
The shapes are endless that you can, do- this is just one of many ideas!

Background: At work, we were give one standard red and white felt stocking from the dollar store and told to decorate it for a contest with in our department.
This is the journey of my stocking:

 

Supplies Needed (for this particular stocking):

 -Stocking (stocking used was your standard red and white stocking from the Dollar Store)

-Fabric Pencil, chalk (tailors or chalkboard chalk will work too)

-Scissors

-Sewing Machine or Thread and needle

-E-6000 or hot glue

-Grey Felt

-Spool of Pearl Trim

- 1/2 yard of lace trim

-letters (I used stick on letters from the scrapbooking section)

-Christmas babbules (one white branch of snowflakes, one green ball and holly leaf clip on)

-buttons

So, now that you have all your trims and supplies and got them laid out in front of you, the first thing you are going to do is to take your stocking and your pencil/chalk/etc and lightly mark out the shape you want on your stocking. You can clearly see that I wanted a booted ice-skate for my final look, so I drew in the shape of a women's boot that I liked.

once you are satisfied with the shape of your new stocking, you are going to need to sew around that line. I did mine with a sewing machine, and it went VERY quickly. You can do it by hand also if you do not have a sewing machine. 

The picture above is of the stocking after coming off the sewing machine.  Once you are fully sure that you like your shape, you can cut away the excess fabric. Don't be afraid of this! Just go slowly, and use very sharp scissors. You want to stay close to the stitchline, but not cut into it. Take your time.

Once you have the excess fabric trimmed off, you should have a stocking that will hold your holiday goodies and they won't fall out through any holes. (Make sure you didn't cut your stitchline!)

Guess what?? The hardest part is over! YAY!
Now the really fun part begins-gather your trims up and get ready to decorate!

The first step in trimming my stocking that I did, was to take the grey felt, lay the edge of my boot on top of it, and use that pencil/chalk/etc from step 1, and mark out the shape of my skate blade.

Then cut out the blade of the skate! Be sure to leave yourself enough of an underlap on the grey felt so that you can glue down the boot toe and heel on top of it in the next step!
This is the cut out blade

Go ahead and glue down your boot ontop of your blade using the E-6000, or your hot glue gun. I prefer E-6000 to hot glue as it tends to hold better.
After I glued down the blade, I started on the edging with the pearl trim. I used a spool of pre-strung pearls and glued them down over top of the stittchline using it as a guide. I also added some rhinestone trim to the bottom of the blade that I had left over from another project

Next thing, was to take the lace trim and I added that to both the bottom edge and top edge of the cuff

I took the little branch of snowflakes and cut the snowflakes off from it, and glued them around the blade, toe of the boot, and onto the cuff as was appealing to me. Then I took those letters and glued them onto the cuff. Even though they are sticky already, it won't permanently hold to the felt, so I added an extra dab of glue to make sure it stayed put.

Next,  thing , was to remove the clip from the green balls and leaf decoration (save that clip for another project down the road!) and glued that to the cuff. I added glue to the leaves, and one of the balls to really make sure that it stuck.


My final step was to glue down my buttons and the just wait for it to dry!
Voila'! You now have a wonderful unique stocking that's all your own!

Be sure and post photos of your stocking that you made! I'd love to see what you come up with!

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A little closer each day!

Well, after being thrown a curve ball my Mr Pirate's schedule this weekend, I got myself settled yesterday to working on the stocking again. He was hone Friday night, and Saturday evening as well.
Originally, I had planned to make the cupcakes for the competition during the day yesterday, and then work on the stocking while he was doing clinicals in the evening. Well, as it turned out, he was on a day shift clinical, not an evening one.

So I regrouped, got the cupcakes in the oven and baking and started working on the stocking again.
I got the cupcakes baked, and the first season of Downton Abbey completed.

This is where I am with the stocking as of today. I will work on it again at lunch time today, and then won't be able to pick it up again until tomorrow evening when he goes to work.

And this is as of my completion of lunch

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More Stocking Progress- and the beginnings of a tutorial

Just a quick post on where Im at so far with the stocking for Mr. Pirate. Im truly enjoying the process of creating it, and may consider making another one next year if I can find a patter that I like as much as this one.

Remember that Secret Santa stocking contest I mentioned for work? well, I can't post the photos of it yet as my co-workers are smart folks, and I can't leak out my ideas and information on what Im doing.
But, I will say this, my stocking is going to be killer. I started it last night and took photos along the way, so once this contest is complete on Tuesday, I will get to work on posting the tutorial for what I did.
muwahahahahahahaha.... ahem
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Stocking- Half way there!!!! (well, almost)

As of about 30 minutes ago- I am officially half way through all the pieces of the stocking. That is not to say that I've got half of it completed, as there are several details that get put on last that are done with beads and sequins instead of appliqued pieces.

Now that I have the swing of things going,  Im finding the craft quiet enjoyable. Last night, I was home alone and able to work on it, so I turned on hulu and cued up Downton Abby and delved into that whilst my dinner was in the oven.

Diner last night was roast pork shoulder with sauerkraut and carrots, in case you were wondering.

I watched the first two episodes and feat that I may have a new era of history to start looking into for the costumes. The fabrics are rich and luxurious, and starting to move into some really lovely colors. I did enjoy the show, and this will be my new home-alone-crafting show.

But, back to the main point. The stocking.

So without further ado- I give you two more photos of it, the first is as of last evening, and the second (full photo) is as of lunch today.

This weekend, I will take a short break from this stocking, to decorate my own little stocking for our secret santa exchange at work. I have my idea planned out, as well as my shopping list for Joann Fabric.
I will also be making a post regarding my Eggnog cupcakes with Butter Rum frosting that I am submitting for a cook off at work... (yes, that was your teaser!)

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Stocking Update

I did not get as much done over the weekend as I had hoped for.  Reason being- the directions had me stumped again and I decided to wait until Monday morning at the office to ask a fellow crafter for help.

She was very happy to help me and give me some guidance and said she would have been confused if she were in my place! That made me feel better and like I wasn't so far off.

I have the treasure chest almost completed now, and the first candy cane on. Unfortunately, having hot little hands that sometimes get sweaty, means that I made the printed outline on the white snow bleed and my candy cane now looks dirty. Lesson learned, when I work on the white area, I shall wear a rubber glove.

Here is the closeup of the treasure chest thus far

and here's the overall look

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