Every year I decide that I'm going to start Christmas earlier and earlier to meet the demands of my family, despite my views on the whole thing. Well this year I started two weeks ago. Ornaments are well underway on my embroidery machine, embroidered gift bags are being sewn together, and garlands and lace are tossed out on the floor. It’s a bit of a mess down here; I've been forced to keep most of the mess contained to my bedroom due to the bathroom being gutted. I probably have close to 100 meters of organza in a laundry basket for these ornaments, it squishes nice and you really wouldn’t' believe its 100 meters. Its enough to do 1000 big ornaments, I'm giving sets of 15 to friends, family and co-workers, and there’s enough left over afterwards to sell. Things will slow down this week as I figure out my agenda and how long certain things take to make, and I'm running out of WSS.
For Christmas, for the bulk of the gifts they're getting, 15 ornaments, a jar of home made vanilla (to be started in mid august), and some folding reusable shopping bags; most places here are charging for bags.
On top of this are the gifts for my immediate family and friends. My sister is getting her wolf quilt, my boyfriend is getting some dress shirts, and my best friend, hopefully is getting her NBC quilt. I'm not to sure on what to do for my parents yet.
I'm glad I'm starting now as I’ve also got two small crib quilts for my cousin’s baby and a bunch of receiving blankets for her. It gets rid of a bunch of flannel just hanging around from years ago that I bought just because they were cute.
I'm trying to sew/paint for 5-8 hours a day where permitted (work has some funny shifts), as it’s the only way to get stuff done, and with deadlines approaching, I have to get more motivated than I have been. I've brought home over 200 meters of bargain centre fabric from work in the past two weeks, most of it organza’s for my ornaments (organza is so useless to me during the rest of the year I never keep it around), a bunch of brushed twill for winter pants, tonnes of taffeta for bag linings, some cotton voiles for dresses, nice stripped shirting for boyfriend’s shirts, wool coatings, and a bunch of drapey materials for skirts. All of it just being tossed into the bargain centre because of inventory. I love it, great materials at an insane price.
I'm STILL working on my portfolio, I have about 6 weeks-8 weeks to get it finished, then physically drive it in to Calgary for review. Deadline is October 1st. My goal is to get a bunch of this Christmas stuff done this week, cleaned up enough or organized to be pulled back out at a later date, and then pull out all my paints once again. I can paint in my room while my embroidery machine is running; acrylics are less messy than pastels so it should all work out in the end.
Today I'm planning on finishing some quick skirts up from fabric I bought in the bargain centre this weekend. McCall’s patterns: 5431, 5056, 4783. I've made all of these patterns many times and they take about 1 to1.5 hours each. I'm also going to cut out McCall’s 6084, its a fast cardigan pattern, I might not get to it today, but Thursday for sure and Butterick4520, again its a fast pattern, but I’m opting for a satin type material so it will take about 2-2.5 hours. I'm also itching to cut out Simplicity 2774 in view E. I'm more confident with knits know and I think i can tackle this one. I won’t be able to touch this one until Friday morning however, but if it’s cut out I can just hit the machine first thing. I also cut out a vintage (early 70's) Simplicity knit dress. Next week my hours at work go back to normal and sewing up some very quick knit tops will be added to the list.
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