this year's sewing, revisited

Now that I've been using some of these baby-related things for several weeks, I figured it would be a good time to look back at the things I've made this year, and see how they're working out in the real world. If you follow me on Instagram, I apologize that you've seen some of these photos before, but it's the only way I can actually show these right now.

First off, the maternity clothes that I made hoping they'd also work after. I haven't had a chance to try out the Megan Nielsen top again, because it is way too hot and humid for polyester right now. But the two maxi-dresses (pictured here, and the solid black one), and the tie-dyed maxi skirt are all working out pretty well. There are things I do wish were a little different about each one. The yoga-style waistband on the skirt was a bit too wide even when I was pregnant, and I have to fold it over pretty far now. But it does fit without falling down, which was my main goal. This blue dress still feels a bit wide in the upper back, and I am debating whether to add a faux back seam just to take in some of that extra fullness--I'd hate for a print this lovely to feel frumpy! As for the black dress, the fit is still really good, even minus the bump. But I do need to hem it a little shorter. It was on the verge of too long before, and now I have to be really careful to avoid stepping on it when I walk. I just haven't had the time to do so yet. On the plus side, the zipper nursing access, though not perfect, functions pretty well.

If you have no interest in reading about the more baby-specific makes, here's a good place to stop! Otherwise, moving on to...

...the gender-reveal outfit! Along with Hobbit's very skeptical expression. He's not a small baby by any means--he's only 6 1/2 weeks old, and we've already had to take the newborn insert out of his car seat, and several of his 0-3 month sized clothes are beginning to feel a little tight when snapping them closed. I say that to show just how ridiculously oversized this is on him! I think I may have misread the pattern. I thought it was a 0-3 month size, but I'm looking at the sizing chart on the website, and it looks like this may be more of a 6 month size. Which leaves me wondering if I should go back and add some length to the legs, since these are shorts and that would mean he won't fit into these well until it's cold. The thought of him not being able to wear it at all is mildly heartbreaking, and I do still have some of this denim left. But would that look dumb to have that seam there?

Next up: the diapers.

He's modeling the smallest of the three sizes here. For the most part, they're working out really well so far-- we've been having to do laundry at least every other day because of them, but we haven't had to buy a single diaper yet. (We were given some disposables at the shower, and have been using those occasionally, but for the most part, it's been almost exclusively the sewn ones since I was recovered enough to start taking more stairs around week 3.)

At the risk of being TMI, for the most part, the messes have been contained well. I think we've had maybe 3-4 blowouts the whole time so far--granted, I try to change him pretty quickly as needed, but still. The kid really does eat like a hobbit (i.e. a LOT), so I suspect we'd have had a lot more otherwise. The only issue, other than frequent laundry, has been that the really wet diapers soak through the front where the velcro stitching is. They're not constructed in a way that I can really go back and waterproof those seams, but I think it will probably only be another month or two before he outgrows this size anyway, so it probably isn't worth the effort. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I switch to the next size with the pocket inserts and snaps. The bulk of these has also occasionally made it hard for him to wear certain shorts and pants, but honestly, it's been so hot here that we usually have him in just a onesie or a t-shirt anyway, other than when we're in the icebox that is my church.

I don't have pictures of me using the next three things. I've gotten some good use out of the nursing cover, including one incident where I had to feed him in a restaurant parking lot. Suffice to say, I thought initially that maybe it was too big, but I'm glad it's the size it is. I'm still getting the hang of maneuvering him underneath, but I'll figure it out. The diaper bag is also working out well, though it's usually packed very full due to the bulk of the cloth diapers. The matching changing mat does the job, though the snap stopped working after the first time I washed it. I guess I messed something up when setting it, but I just fold it up and stuff it in the bag. It's easier to maneuver with one hand that way, anyway.

So the last thing I have to review at the moment is the play gym.
As far as I can tell what's going on in a baby's head, he really seems to love it! We've been using it almost daily as a mat for his tummy time, and once he starts getting fussy, I'll flip him over and let him bat at the felt animals. He's gotten pretty good at aiming for the lowest-hanging ones, and has also figured out that he can make them all shake if he hits the hula hoop instead. I've tried him with a few other toys here and there, but so far, this one holds his attention the best. So I'd say it was well worth the effort to make it. Yay for Pinterest wins!

Otherwise, I have been sewing a little, though I'm pretty much limited to when I can get him to nap. I've finished a skirt, but haven't had a chance to photograph it yet. I've been going through my wardrobe and weeding out things that won't work anymore, including several me-mades, and am debating whether to do the same with my sewing patterns. I'm helping my best friend with a DragonCon costume, which is taking all of my sewing time at the moment. I've got multiple other quick projects lined up for myself, mostly of the refashion type, and am hoping that I can get to them soon! I'm also taking part in the #sewphotohop meme on Instagram, which has been fun so far. (I have my account there set to private, since I post a lot of baby pictures there these days, but if you want to follow me on there, just send a request. It hasn't been hard to figure out who sews on there, I'm just trying to block random strangers from getting access to the kiddo! At least, as much as is possible when posting occasional pictures on something as public as a blog.)

Quiet Book the Second: the Whovian edition

Given how long it took me to assemble the Lord of the Rings book, I'm utterly amazed at how quickly the second book came together! Granted, I had all of the pieces cut out and ready to go, since I cut out everything for both books at the same time. But the pages on the Doctor Who book were smaller and overall simpler, and had a lot less of sewing two layers together to make one piece. So even with my limited ability to use the sewing machine, both due to the small size of a lot of the pieces and the large size of my baby bump, the pages were all sewn/embroidered and ready to assemble into a book in about a month. I think the LotR one took about 4 times as long! So I'm really glad that I did that one first.

Of course, it probably also helped that Hobbit was quite comfortable where he was, and I had about a week and a half of end-stage/past-due pregnancy where I had nothing to do except watch tv, work on the book, and see if I'd actually go into labor or not. I did wait until after he was born to do the final assembly, since my sewing machine was needed. But aside from that, I'm pretty sure the kiddo was waiting until I finished his toy!

Anyway, here is the Doctor Who quiet book. Once again, I did not design this pattern, it was from an Etsy seller named BantamBB-- I'm guessing the designer discontinued his/her shop, because I can't find it on the site anymore.

The cover page, which is pretty self-explanatory.

pinned there, done that (the May wrap-up)

The latest two sewing projects--both things for the baby--were ideas that I found on Pinterest, and they (mostly) worked out. So I figured I'd just show them both at the same time. You're getting all phone photos/previously taken Instagrams today, since the DSLR is packed with the hospital bag now. It's also been rather dreary weather here all week, so I apologize in advance for the not-so-great lighting on the first item in particular. I just wanted to get this post done before I'm a little...distracted. Ahem.

Thing 1:
Not the most exciting make ever, but it was necessary. The co-hosts of the Small Human Being Sewalong put together a lovely Pinterest board that had all sorts of useful items on it. Among them was this baby changing mat pattern/tutorial. Which I basically just used to get the curve of the top, and then completely winged it instead, haha. I basically just wanted something I could throw into the diaper bag that I could use when I'm having to change him at other people's houses/those public restroom changing tables, fold up to contain potential messes, and then throw in the wash. I also thought that using up a little more of the leftover fabric from the bag would be nice! Though, sadly, I didn't manage to finish the suedecloth off.  The snap setter I bought for the diapers came in handy for coming up with a hidden closure, though.





I decided to make the dimensions wider/longer than the original, and leave off the two pocket wings on the side. I didn't think they'd be very useful with the extra bulk of cloth diapers, especially once he's in the larger sizes. It's not like I won't have the bag with me at these times anyway. The inside is a double layer of polyurethane laminate, since I'd had to buy an extra piece at Joann's to finish off the diapers and had leftovers, and I know it's washable. Even though it makes the inside look a little more boring than vinyl-covered cotton prints would have been, which is what the original pattern called for.

I'm glad that I had to get a little distance on this one to get the full shot--the binding really isn't all that great, because I forgot how to do the corners. But this one's more of a function over form project, anyway. At least, that's how I'm justifying my less-than-stellar work to myself.





Thing 2:

I've been racking my brains for months, trying to figure out what to do with these adorable felt ornaments that my mom made:
 
She made a whole bunch of these as favors for my baby shower, which had a children's book theme. That's also mostly what I Doug and I decided to go with for the nursery. So we have representatives from all sorts of picture books: a Fox in Socks, a moose (for If You Give A Moose a Muffin), the owls are from a book called Who's Hiding--which is what gave her the idea to make these in the first place, the frog and bear come from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See, the rabbit is for the Beatrix Potter stories (after Peter Rabbit loses his coat and shoes), and the penguin is for a book called How Do Penguins Play? (And also for my mother-in-law, who is completely obsessed with all things penguin.)

As for the dogs...they're little felt versions of our Malkin and Crosby!

Anyway, I was originally thinking of making a mobile, but was having trouble figuring out how best to make them to accommodate the ribbon loops, and not create a potential safety hazard on the crib. Then I saw this Pinterest tutorial for a homemade play gym that's lightweight, easy to deconstruct for storage, and had felt ornaments. And I knew it would be super-cheap, because I already had everything to make it except for hula hoops! I wasn't originally planning on having a play gym, since they're so overpriced, but it was too cute of an idea to pass up. Hopefully the dogs won't be all over the baby with this...

Instead of a quilt, I opted to make a solid fabric mat, because I had yards of this swirly green quilt cotton that I can't remember what on earth I bought it for in the first place. (That, and quilts take longer.) I also had some solid green leftovers from my last round of geeky bibs, and more of those snaps. I managed to use up about half of each piece, so once again, I need to figure out what to do with leftovers. Oh well.

I had to kind of wing it on the tabs--I did manage to sew them into the hula hoop cover tubes, but then discovered that the original length would leave the ornaments hanging way too low. So I wrapped them around the tubes a couple of times and hand-tacked them down, then added the snaps in the appropriate places. Overall, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, though!


 The dogs were less impressed.

Aside from following a Pinterest tutorial for making a couple of old camisoles a little more nursing layering-friendly, hacking the Ikea curtains and the blackout curtains that we got for the nursery together, and starting work on another felt quiet book (Doctor Who this time), these two things are pretty much all I have to show for the month. Which leaves my stashbusting total at somewhere around 3 yards. Not my best month, but I didn't buy any fabric, so that has to count for something!





Aside from that, Doug and I have been working hard on finishing up this project:


We both did the wall decals, but he pretty much took care of the extra bathroom otherwise. And he helped with organizing the closet, but I took care of dealing with the rest of the laundry and hanging things up otherwise. (And that laundry was not an easy task, because we had the baby shower on Saturday. Between a giant clothesline full of baby clothes that Doug's mom/sister/aunt put together, outfits that other people bought us, and some extras we hadn't had before like hooded towels and crib sheets, I seriously had a pile as big as our larger dog!)

Now that that's all taken care of, and my music teaching work is more or less wrapped up for the next couple of months, I just need to figure out how to occupy myself for the next week and a half or so while I wait for the kiddo to make his debut. I do still have hand-sewing, but finding comfortable places to sit long enough to get anything done on that, or read, is a bit of a challenge right now! I may spend some time playing with my scrapbooks again, though, since the chair at that workstation seems to work better for me for some reason.

So I guess this is my last post for a little while, until I am physically able to/can start sneaking in some time to make things again! In the meantime, wishing you all lots of summer sewing fun!

The Quiet Book and The Ring

I'll be honest-- I was not expecting this project to take so long. I thought I could easily finish both this and the second felt quiet book that I cut out shortly after Christmas before my due date. With only 4 1/2 weeks to go, I don't think that's going to happen now. But I'm proud of how this turned out. I just really hope that Hobbit will enjoy playing with it, when he's a little older!

So, without further ado, I present the Lord of the Rings quiet book, in all of its thick glory. (Seriously, this thing measures over 3" thick! Though I'm sure it would compact if I put something on top of it.) And I cannot take credit for the design, it's a pattern from the juliebell shop on Etsy. (With a few minor modifications on my part here and there.) One picture-heavy post, coming up!

Page 1: The front cover. In the original pattern, it called for a brown cover, but I used maroon instead-- I'm justifying it by saying it ties in with the Red Book of Westmarch, from the books. But really, it's that I'm cheap. I couldn't quite find that "copper canyon brown" and I had a bunch of the maroon that I was able to get from my mom for free. (All of the felt in this book was either specially purchased for this project, or mooched off my mom, who wanted to get rid of it anyway in preparation for moving. All of the threads, embroidery floss, and miscellaneous notions, however, were part of my stash.)

Page 2: The Shire, with some panels you can lift and peek under. I'll admit I thought long and hard about adding the pipe, because I don't want to encourage smoking, especially given that the smell really makes me sick even when I'm not pregnant (and far, far worse when I am, apparently. Truthfully, frequent exposure to that was one of my major incentives to not go back to my old retail job this spring.). But in both the books and the movies, it's kind of unavoidable that there is pipe smoking, especially in hobbit culture, and I couldn't think of anything else to go there. So I left it.

Page 3: Rivendell, with one of my favorite--and bulkiest--features of the book...the Fellowship of the Finger Puppets! Seriously, how cute is that? I did change up some of the suggested colors for things to coincide a little more closely with the movie costumes, since a lot of the styling seemed to be based on the films anyway.





Page 4: Help Gollum find the Precious. He really is a friendly-looking Gollum here...but hey, this is basically baby's first introduction to my #1 fandom, so why scare him right off? I did end up tweaking the face a bit, because my embroidery floss was so close to the color of the felt that he just looked weird with no nose. All three of the pieces under the water snap on and off, but I only took off the one hiding the Ring for this photo.













Page 5: Try on the Ring. This was the one I changed up the most. The original page had just an embroidered Ring, and I wasn't sure what the action was here. Lay your hand over it and watch the Ring disappear? If I can't figure it out, there's no way a toddler could. So I used some wired gold ribbon in my stash to make a Ring that you can slip your fingers under. (The hand was also originally facing the other way, but that was just me making a mistake and not wanting to unpick the embroidery.)

Page 6: Help Gandalf escape. Technically, this should probably come before the Rivendell page, but this is the order the instructions had it in. And the bulk of the pages meant the eyelets I'd originally planned to use didn't work, and I ended up basically just punching holes with an awl and threading the binder rings through, so they're not the easiest to rearrange. It's just an eagle on elastic, so he can get some distance between him and Orthanc. I also made sure to machine-sew both ends down as securely as possible, in hopes that the boy won't be able to yank it off first try!
Page 7: Help Frodo and Sam through Mordor. Again, a somewhat less bleak and dreary Mordor, given that there's trees and a pond. (I'm guessing this path leads through Ithilien first.) I'm especially proud of the Eye on here--maybe I spent a little more time embroidering on it than necessary, but it didn't look as fiery and evil as I wanted it to after adding the initial embroidery. So I added more color, and I think it helped.

Page 8: Destroy the Ring in Mt. Doom. Again, I was having a little fun with the embroidery on the lava, mostly to make sure the orange showed up well. As for the Ring itself, it actually is a replica of the One Ring-- it fell off of a bookmark I had gotten back when the movies were first out, and I had left it sitting with my jewelry supplies for years. Fortunately, I actually remembered that I had this now that I had the perfect excuse to finally use it--crafty pack rat tendencies for the win! (Again, this is machine stitched on as securely as I possibly could, to try to avoid any choking hazards.)

Page 9: Help Aragorn become King. I was working on this one while having a craft day/My Little Pony marathon with some friends recently, and we all had a good laugh over Aragorn in his undies! Again, I slightly altered the embroidery to do a white tree instead of dots on the king outfit, because Gondor demanded it. I know it's hard to see in this picture, but it's there.


Page 10: The End. Pretty self-explanatory. I wish that E was straighter, but the glue-tacking didn't work so well and it was already falling off by the time I got through sewing on the first two letters. It probably would have worked better if I'd been sewing on a flat surface, but I wasn't, and I was just trying to get it done by this point.

This was definitely a labor of love, and I'm completely amused by it, at least. And even though it took a lot longer this way, I'm not sorry that I took the time to sew everything instead of glue it, because I think it will be much more durable--especially given that on the occasions I did tack things down with glue, it was often peeling off before I even finished sewing the pieces! Even so, I'm thinking I might rely a little more on glue-tacking and especially machine sewing where I can for the Doctor Who one I have cut out next. After all, I'd like to start knitting again sometime this year!

February month-in-review

Aside from the dress in my last post, I thought I'd just do a recap of what else I've been making this month, since it's a lot of works-in-progress and stuff that I wouldn't give individual posts to. Also, thanks for all of the lovely birthday wishes and compliments on that dress!

1. First off, the totals. I tend to only count stash as busted once the project is actually sewn up, so for this month, I used up a total of 9 1/2 yards of fabric. I did buy one pattern (The Sewaholic Granville blouse, since Tasia was having her big birthday sale and I actually didn't have a standard button-down shirt pattern in my stash) and a zipper, but overall, I did manage to stick with using things I had.

• The maternity dress was 3 yards. 
• I used half a yard of ugly quilt cotton plus some ugly quilted fabric that my mother-in-law dropped off to me the day before to make an ugly pillow to keep between my knees and help me sleep with reduced hip pain, because that's been an issue for the last couple of months and my OB suggested a thinner pillow than the one I'd been using. I didn't measure out that quilted fabric, I literally just folded it up into the size I wanted and sewed the ugly cotton into a pillowcase around it. So I'm not going to show that here, though I did post it in the Stashbusting Sewalong group on Facebook, since one category in this month's fabric contest was Ugly. (I literally don't even know how that fabric got into my stash. I didn't buy it.)
• As for the rest, I made this:
  
  

Doug and I almost have the nursery (aka the Hobbit Hole) set up, minus whatever we're given in the baby shower that my mom's been planning and a few minor projects. He had the idea to do a hammock for stuffed animals, since we need to keep those away from the dogs. Malkin in particular has a habit of tearing holes and ripping all of the stuffing out as soon as he gets his paws on them! I had a lot of tulle left over from making my wedding dress, because I seriously overestimated how much I would need. Good thing it's cheap. I didn't use it all up, since it was in two pieces, but I did manage to use up a 6-yard piece by cutting 4 layers and zig-zagging the edges to hold it all together, then binding the shorter edges/making tabs out of a scrap of thicker white cotton from my scrap bin. Not bad for an afternoon's work, I think, and I'm happy that I found a way to use up some tulle on a project for a boy!

For the record, a majority of the stuffed animals in there are actually ones I'd kept from my own childhood/teenage years that had some sentimental value. Though the Donald Duck and the little German shepherd puppy were gifts from the soon-to-be grandparents, and there's a bunch of Dr. Seuss-style fish that my mom made as well.

2. I'd mentioned earlier in the month that I had some pretty massive, time-consuming baby projects to make, so I thought I'd give the update on that.

First of all, I've been going to my parents' a couple of times a week to work on the cloth diapers that my mom and I are sewing. They live closer to my teaching than I currently do, so it makes sense on the days I have fewer lessons to drive up there for more than one thing. Most of her projects are packed away now, so she's using her sewing time to help me, which is so great of her. We still have a long way to go, since we're ultimately making 72 (2 dozen each of 3 different sizes), but everything is at least cut out and ready to sew, and we're making a pretty big dent on the smallest size of diaper. So this is one of those.


And this is what I've been working on instead of knitting for most evenings lately, using this pattern. It's taking awhile, since I've been having fabric glue issues and therefore have been basically hand-stitching the majority of this, with a little machine sewing thrown in to secure the edges of pages when backing them to hide all of the mess. Oh well...toys for boys need to be sturdy anyway, right?




And here's a little closeup of the Fellowship of the Finger Puppets so far--the imagery is based a little more on the movies, so I'm going with that. So this is Boromir, Pippin and Legolas. I probably would have finished all 9 puppets last night, except the fabric glue that I bought yesterday specifically to assemble these just isn't sticking to the felt very well! (My previous fabric glue had gotten too dried out to use, and these pieces are way too tiny for hot glue. So once again, I'm hand-stitching!) I've got 6 puppets in various stages of completion, and then 8 more pages on this book, I think. Some are much less intricate, so that will help. I also have a second book all cut out and ready to go that's Doctor Who-based. If nothing else, maybe I can have these done in time to give Hobbit for his first Christmas?

So my goals for March, aside from continuing to make as big a dent on these books and diapers as possible:

1. Sew my diaper bag, which I cut out earlier this week and that is therefore ready to go for my at-home sewing time. I'm planning to start that today.
2. If I have time, sew myself at least one more article of clothing to get me through the next couple of months. Probably a top, since hopefully the weather will start to warm up and I can at least graduate to 3/4 sleeves. Especially if I make it nursing-friendly so I can wear it in the fall, too. 
3. On the non-sewing front, I'll probably also have to start thinking about some cooking days, since one of my plans is to try to get our freezers filled with as many prepped meals as possible so I don't have to worry about food too much in the first month. (And by prepped, I mean either just defrost, or throw in the crockpot/oven and be done with it.) I have a list of recipes to make, including breakfast and lunch options that I can eat with one hand, plus a second list of ALL the ingredients, but I probably won't really start with this until closer to the end of the month/beginning of April. We still need to eat in the meantime, so I'm focusing on using up the older stuff that's in there first.

On a more personal note, since this still sounds like a lot, we've decided that I won't be resuming my retail job this spring as usual. Our plan was for me to stay at home with the baby anyway, though I'm still going to be doing my music and now sewing lessons, which I do have babysitting lined up for. (Thanks, Mom!) But since spring is the busiest season at that job and I'll be in my third trimester the whole time, and there's several factors at that job that would make it very physically difficult (having to bend down to lift plants for scanning, stools with no backs, 6-day workweeks, the owner smokes in his office often and cigarette smoke makes me sick even when I'm not pregnant, the nausea still hasn't fully gone away, etc.), we decided that it would be much better for me to use those last couple of months to just focus on final preparations instead of struggling through two part-time jobs plus all of that. Which is also why I'm planning to do cloth diapers and cook ahead, since in the long run that will save us money on diapers and avoiding takeout while we're first learning how this parenting thing works. I can't say I'm too broken-hearted over the thought of having more time in my day to cram in as many hours of sewing and music as I can before having to spend most of my time ensuring the survival of another human!

brb

It's not that I haven't been sewing. I put a lot of hours in last week, actually. But it's not really stuff that's exciting to read about. 

This is what my cutting table looks like right now--plastic bags full of little felt bits for some geeky "quiet books" (the patterns were among my Christmas presents from my parents), and piles of cotton fleece to stuff the cloth diapers that my mom and I are teaming up to make. So I've been spending my daytime sewing cutting liners and serging these rectangles, and my evening TV watching time slicing felt. 

Once I get through the serging, I'll probably just work on this a couple days a week with my mom, and go back to making some clothes again on the side. I'm already plotting. But I'm pushing through this more boring sewing in the meantime, comforted by the fact that this project will be extremely useful in the long run. (Not to mention that I actually did math, and sewing really is saving us quite a bit of money in this case, though not my time.)

I'll be back when I have something a little more interesting to show.

(P.S. Thanks for all the happy and encouraging comments on my little gender  announcement! I'm starting to get excited about seeing what boy stuff I can come up with.)

Bookworm award! (Oh yeah, and Friday Favorites, Episode 30...)

First order of business: Christine at and sew it begins... graciously bestowed a Bookworm Award on me.


The rules of this award are:
-pass this on to 5 friends

-Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.
Write out the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that...

Closest book to me is Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (started it just before Halloween, figured it was appropriate for the season, but this is proving to be a shockingly slow read for me!! Normally I'd have been done a book of this size by now! Anyway...

" 'For what!' Lestat grimaced, so that his face looked like a skull. 'Taking me out of school!' He threw up his hands and let out a terrible roar of desperation. 'Damn him! Kill him!' he said."

On that cheery note... :-P
Since the book thing never gets old, even if you've done it before, I'm nominating Mom2Fur @ Sorta Frugal, Sharon @ Adventures From the Sewing Studio, Gwen @ After The Dress..., Christina @ Stina's Stuff, and Antoinette @ clevergirl.org. Have fun!

And now, onto Friday Favorites! This week, it's pretty much a case of Christmas or not.

Non-holiday favorites: Another tutorial list at Whip Up-- picked this one because it had more clothes! And Dollar Store Crafts had a tutorial for a coin purse made from an old cassette tape-- I like this better than the wallets!

Holiday favorites: Confessions of a Craft Addict had the cutest little trees! Sew, Mama, Sew! has been doing a series of gift ideas for various people, such as this post on gifts for bookworms. They also have a woodland ornament tutorial that looks like fun. Over at The Long Thread, there's...bowling for elves? Well, they call it "skittles", but it's basically bowling. Back over to Whip Up, there's a tutorial for a pocket advent calendar (using gum), and a gift card box (which will come in handy for the gift card white elephant my friends and I are having!

Ok, that wraps it up for today. As for the pantsuit, so far, on track. Though I haven't started cutting yet, since I'm waiting for the tires on my car to get done!!