Scenic Route: December 2011

...Back. This is the last day of the year on this side of the world and before I turn the calendar to a new year, I want to just blog about Stuff I've Made. Despite all the Travel, Crazy Schedules and Family Fun, I really did get a lot of sewing done. In fact, I have a renewed interest in garment sewing for myself--partly due to inspiration from all the sewing blogs and podcasts out there (and Nikki!) and partly because of the joy of my sewing loft in Colorado where the views and light are great and all my stuff is organized.

First there were the Christmas jammies for the Munchkins. I ended up making them all except for Elijah's (Carters with Lego men were the ticket) and Andreas' (who is enjoying a glut of jammies and for whom I crotchet a monster hat and strings for store bought mittens).

Kelby also had a plethora of jammies and Nikki suggested a little man robe. Done.

Then there were Personality Appropriate Aprons for my friend Maureen's b-day in December:

Isn't this print a hoot?

Three heating pads for gifts:

For myself, I made a few tunics to wear with my skinny jeans. Really like this one and hope to make again--being short, it comes to mid thigh on me. Just what I wanted.

This one below looks MUCHO better on than on the form. For one, the print is really, really muted; whereas, it's neon eye popping in this picture. Trust me, I would not wear this print the way it looks in the picture! Secondly, it is longer and drap-ier on; in fact, I made a note to make a size smaller next time. Come to think of it, maybe I should re-measure my form as it seems really snug on the form, hip level (yippee!). I wear this with a thin, close fitting long sleeved tee and like it a lot. Oh, and it has pleats at one shoulder and on one lower side that I don't think show up in the picture, either.

And this great jacket from a velvet(ish) fabric. I plan on wearing a close fitting black turtleneck shot through with silver that I have under. ...and with my black dress pants from Express, festive, eh?

Lastly, I whipped up two of these earbud pouches, one for my fancy ones with the microphone that came with my iPhone, and the other for my everyday iPod ones. As you can see, I goofed on the one by not placing the ring tab at the start of the zipper. Oh well, no biggie. I had to use an invisible zipper as that's all you can get here in UB. ? Don't know. Anyway, I really like them! Beats the snak zips I've been using when I travel.

That's it. I'm thinking, admittedly not too hard, about starting a separate sewing blog to talk about my sewing in more detail and so as to not bore to tears those of you have no interest whatsoever. I would name it Nomad Needles (?!) and would use this picture in the header:

Isn't this GREAT?! My friend, Pernille, sent this to me for my birthday! The body has pattern pieces decoupaged on it! How cool is that? Love it.

One definite goal for blogging in 2012 is to do it more often and less bulk. By doing the first, that should take care of the second, right?

Au revoir 2011! Tomorrow is the time for calendars and goals and embracing a brand new year. Tonight, well, Randy is in the kitchen building the most amazing lasagna and there is a bottle of dry champagne chilling. So, off to it!

Before I left that side of the world, three generations of Myers--now extended to Alexanders and Schreiners--gathered at Jana's in Richland, WA. To have ALL of us together, with Randy (who flew in the reaaallly long route from Mongolia), was the first time in over 7 years. Granted, we've multiplied a wee bit since then, so the dynamics of ALL have changed; but still, a major feat. A Grand Time was had by all and so without further wordiness, here are the pictures!

We were gifted with music--selected and prepared in advance with lots of love for just this night...