Christmas

For Christmas, I like making people gifts. To me, making them something is a lot more personal and you can customize the object.
This is the apron I made my Mom. The cell phone photo is horrid, but you can see the ruffles. The apron also has pockets and can tie in the back. Mom loves blues and greens so I had to get these fabrics to make up her apron.

My oldest nephew wanted a Star Trek uniform for Christmas. He's five for a couple more weeks. :-) When asked what color, he specified blue. Knowing that middle child nephew will want whatever his older brother wants, I made middle child a gold uniform. Although not in this picture, I also made the uniform pants.

To say oldest nephew was thrilled wouldn't be enough. He put on his uniform after church (he opened the present before church and wanted to put it on then. We told him after church.) and was completely ecstatic about it. I think his mom might have to fight him to even wash it.

You might notice the collar on the gold uniform is off. This is partly because I wasn't thinking while I was putting together the outfits. I used New Look A6398 for a pattern. The pattern top has a side shoulder opening so you can fit the t-shirt over a little kid's head. Perfect for my 5 and 3 y/o nephews. The pattern also has a neckfacing that I did edit to have the little angled front.

I cut two of the neckfacing so that there would be one inside the shirt and one outside to give the proper Star Trek look. On the gold shirt, I forgot to cut the outside neckfacing so the gold of the shirt would show. Whoops! Instead, I just sewed the neckfacing all the way around. Unfortunately, attempting to get tiny stitches out of stretch material is a nightmare. So middle child's uniform is slightly off.

On the blue shirt, I remembered. I sewed the inside neckfacing at the should opening with right sides together. I then flipped it, matched up seams, and stay stitched the neckline. The outside neckfacing had the shoulder opening cut so I stitched it, right side of the inside neckfacing to the outside neckfacing and then flipped the outside neckfacing...out. That sounds kind of funny but it's what I did to get the neckline right. I then pinned the bottom edge on both the inside and the outside and stitched those down. It came out pretty well, I think. I know my nephews think so!

The pants for the uniform I did up just like the pattern says - they are basic black pants. They fit my oldest nephew as he was running around by the end of the day in his full uniform, wearing an Iron Man mask, and waving a lightsaber (glow stick with flashlight).

My Christmas dress. I wanted something I could sew up quickly but also would look nice. The material is that stretchy velvet stuff but I loved the color. The pattern is my 1920's dress pattern and I tried to stay with the 1920's dress ideal. So, although the material is modern, the dress style itself is very 1920's. Mom liked it. :-) I wore it to church.

The sleeves I drew onto the velvet using sidewalk chalk. I really, really like sidewalk chalk because it's cheap, it lasts forever, and it works. Very basic trapezoid with a curved top. Since it's stretchy material, it's a bit more forgiving on the sleeves. The main dress pattern was the same as the one I used for my 1920's gown. I just made the front short and gathered the rectangle panels to the bottom of both the front and back to make the skirt. I then sewed up a tube of velvet (a 5" by 50" - the width of the fabric) for the belt and stitched the top of the belt to the dress at the fallen waistline. The Christmas tree pin holds the belt in place.