Christmas Sewing: Advent Calendar

So you would be forgiven for thinking this is not actually a blog about sewing such has been the content of late. But enough frippery. Actually you can never have too much frippery. Frippery is a much under-rated thing. But even so, I have now started my advent calendar for Little E. I have a Riley Blake charm pack (called Christmas Candy) I am using. I can just about get two sides of a boot cut out from each charm and here is the link to the fabulous tutorial.

I've abandoned the pink ones, too girlie.

Its a bit more fiddly than it looks to an inexperienced sewer like me.  I have made 4 bootees so far, two were really awful (you can't really tell from the pic) and two were fine. The numbers I chose to sew up that were fine were 23rd December and 25th December.  I was then reliably informed there is no 25th December on an advent calendar so I actually only have one completed bootee.  

Bah Humbug. 

What can I say, deprived childhood, we didn't have advent calendars.

It might have made sense to start with 1st December but I thought all the really lame bootees would be at the beginning of the month and as I get better the good ones will be at the end. So I thought it might be better to spread the lame boots throughout the calendar rather than bunching them up together so they could happily bask in the reflected glory of the better looking bootees. I hope you can follow the logic. I suppose they are stockings not bootees. But anyway. I should tell you that despite being cut out from the same template, they have a only a passing resemblance to each other once sewn up......

Somewhat ambitiously, I also have the fabric for a lap quilt for my mum for Christmas. I am keeping it fairly simple as time is short. The charm pack is called Flurry. Fingers crossed I won't be up sewing at midnight on Christmas Eve. (I think we both know I will but hopefully it will be in a haze of Eggnog or Baileys or some other drink that only comes out at Christmas).

We also seem to be squeezing as much beach time out of the continuing mild weather as possible.  Although Little E's penchant for jumping in puddles (rockpools) a la Peppa Pig may necessitate some new Wellies and a full wetsuit in due course.