Me-made December Recap

December was quite the successful making month! Three sewing projects and a crafting project all got done before Christmas, despite working in retail near Christmas.

The first sewing project was making a skirt for someone I have never met and was provided measurements for by someone else. Not scary at all. Canadian vintage blogger Jessica from Chronically Vintage has been on my reading radar for years, and I have always marvelled at her continuous enthusiasm for researching, writing, wearing all things vintage. She is also the host and organizer of the annual Vintage Secret Santa (VSS) that is now global! This past October, she and her husband lost their home, most of their possessions and a pet to a terrible fire. Understandably, she's taking a break from blogging and has put the VSS on hold. Or so she thought.

Her husband Tony contacted everyone on the VSS list and asked if they would be willing to be Jessica's Secret Santa to help her regain a portion of her immense loss. "Vintage is who she is" he said in the email, and after all the inspiration and reading material she has provided me over the years, I wondered what I could contribute to this wonderful idea. Ages ago, Jessica wrote a post about finally getting her "Unicorn of Vintage," a Canadian themed novelty skirt which a friend of hers made for her. About a week after I received the email, I saw this fabric come up on the cutting at work and immediately knew that this was the right stuff for what I needed. "Greetings from Canada" is an amazing all over print of postcards from cities across the country, including a city not too far from where Jessica's at!

This project has taught me a few things, chiefly patience. For many of my own projects I have a few "that's good enough" moments and I'm fine with them. Knowing that this skirt was going to someone else, I really slowed down and took my time to ensure that this one was made properly. There was still the traditional project-finishing activity of hiding the crimes, but generally speaking this skirt has turned out better then others I've made, it's a lot cleaner. It is also just nerve wracking making something for someone I haven't met and that can't try on the skirt before I finish it to make sure it fits! Here's hoping Tony had his measurements right!

A friend of Jessica's, Barbara Anne, was the other great helper of this project and she started a facebook group for all the participants of this scheme. Late on Christmas Eve, I was perusing the great book of face before heading off to sleep, and I almost pushed G out of bed when I rolled over and grabbed him, frantically showing him my phone and the picture that had popped up.

Photograph taken by Barbara Anne.

Apparently I made some funny noises while I showed him this, I was too busy reading the comments on the photo. Apparently Jessica was very excited to receive this skirt, and as she added later, she "loves it to the moon and back." I still look at this photo every once in a a while and smile over the fact that I made that skirt. I also still hope and pray that it fits, and that my construction holds out to make this a viable garment for her. There's enough fabric left for me to make another skirt, so I may just make one for myself in the new year.


I had to finish off the skirt pretty quickly to get it in the mail, and once I was done I did want to take a break from the sewing briefly. I also wanted to do another wreath for my front door, so getting covered in tinsel and glitter seemed like a great idea.

Yeeeeeeears ago I saw a tutorial from Meg Allen Cole on Threadbanger to make a retro-inspired tinsel tree. I adore how tinsel trees look and I started saving up Dollarama tinsel in colours I like to eventually make one. This resulted in two bags of the stuff living under my bed for years, collecting dust. I realized that I like real Christmas trees too much, and I don't want to store a tinsel tree somewhere in the intervening months between Christmases. Recently I discovered a tutorial to make a mid-century modern inspired tinsel wreath on Craft and Tell, and thought this was the perfect thing to do with the tinsel hiding under my bed!

After making the mistake of going to Michael's during a Christmas decor sale, I got a decent sized styrofoam wreath form, some bottle brush pine trees and a pile of fake deer antlers. I had very grand ambitions of using the antlers, but it just didn't work, the minimalism of a few trees kept calling me. Half an hour and some hot glue later, I had a beautiful new wreath for my door.

My second sewing project was to bang out some Christmas presents for G's brother and sister-in-law that was more than a bottle of wine. They're easy to buy for, but kind of boring in that regard. I also have been wanting my own stocking for ages, and when I saw this red winter-themed fabric at the store, it pretty much had to come home with me.

I'm glad I did mine first, since I definitely messed up the construction the first time. I also forgot to add the little hanger to make it a more useful stocking that can actually be displayed on something. I am undecided as to whether I am fully happy with the fabric pairing for mine as well. I still adore the red, but I'm wondering if I should have gone with a green for the lining. At the store I decided that would be too obvious, but there are a whole bunch of nice, greenery looking green fabric that I really liked too. I may redo it along the way, but for now, this one works.

The red fabric I used on my stocking had a matching grey fabric which was the perfect thing for G's brother and sister-in-law's place, they love their grey. I also found this gorgeous red pattern to be a nice, modern pop against the sort of country-ish pattern of the grey. It was directional, which meant I had to take care when cutting it out to ensure it went the right way in the finished product. These two went together pretty quickly and smoothly, and the appliques I got really look great on them. I decided to celebrate the finished product by sending a picture to G.... and as soon as I hit send, I noticed something in the photo that made me double take.

Despite my care when cutting the fabric, I wasn't paying attention at one point and cut out one of the panels upside-down. I clearly didn't notice, at all, and not only sewed it into the stocking, I decided that THAT side would be the front and put the freaking applique on it. Ironed it on and everything, so it's not coming off. G has assured me that his brother won't care, and may not even notice, but I'm not entirely happy that I did it in the first place. It will still hold a bottle of wine, so it'll work.


My last sewing project seems to now be a Christmas tradition, a Christmas skirt. A good friend of mine always has a large family-friendmas on Christmas Eve, and it is always themed in some way. This year's theme was classic Americana/Norman Rockwell Christmas, with an overtone of ugly Christmas sweater. I have been told in the past that the ugly Christmas sweater I currently own is "actually quite nice-looking," so I knew I needed something better for this year. I wasn't entirely keen about buying another sweater, but keeping in theme for this post, this Christmas tree skirt panel fabric came up on the cutting board and I decided that it was the answer to my problems.

I got two panels of the tree skirt, as well as some of the matching repeat pattern fabric to fill in some gaps that would make themselves apparent later. I also picked up some buttons, bows and ric rac to make the thing even worse. I even found a pack of miniature Christmas light bulbs that had to be purchased and have an electrical cord painstakingly embroidered in.

As I was using two half circles to make this skirt, it would end up being super short on the sides had I not accommodated for a 40" waist that had to go in. Thankfully, the repeat pattern version of the design gave me some extra real estate to work with, and a waistband. I was able to cover up the connections between the pieces, and add further ugliness, by adding ric rac on top of them.

The tree skirt panel had some free space on it owing to the circular nature of the tree skirt, and the designers decided to add a matching three-wise-men-themed stocking to fill up the space. Since I refuse to have garments that don't have pockets, the stockings were the perfect thing to add to the skirt for some practicality.

My measurements went wonky a few times while making this skirt, and for a while I thought I needed to add a panel to the back of the skirt to get it to fit. As soon as I did that and was ready to put in the zipper, I barely needed half of the panel that I put in. I also apparently couldn't sew straight when I put said zipper in.

This skirt gave me a surprising amount of grief during the construction process; There were a plethora of not-good noises coming from my machine for this one. Ronnie was constantly breaking threads and getting the bobbin thread tangled up. I have since discovered that I should have been cleaning out Ronnie's bobbin mechanism a lot more often than I have been (which as of now has been once), so hopefully going forward there will be less issues. I was happy to discover at the time that a good deal of the problems got solved by changing out the needle for a new, not bent one. I think I might have immediately ruined the new needle a bit by sewing through metallic ric rac, because I will never learn. Such is life.


I have grand ambitions of January being a good month for making stuff, seeing as the enthusiasm to make stuff inside will be higher since it's cold and awful outside. I've pulled out some fabric I got back November to try and make a gathered skirt, and I also just got some fabulous duck-themed fabric to hopefully make another pillow with. I have grand ambitions of doing a muslin for a dress, but we'll see how things go. With any luck, 2017 will be have some handmade components in it!

Merry Christmas from the slightly darker than usual Tdot.

A very Merry Christmas and I wish you power and heat for the new year.

Not that snowy by much of the rest of the country's standards, but pretty snowy for Tdot in comparison to the last 4 to 5 years

It's the official Toronto holiday greeting now. Things are a bit nuts here with the snow storm from two weekends ago and the ice storm of this past weekend. Power was knocked out on Saturday night for large portions of the city, and many people still don't have power or heat on Christmas day. Many Toronto Hydro workers gave up their own Christmas to try and get more of the city back up in time for Christmas. Happy thoughts everyone, and hug your local Hydro worker.

The Dinosaurs weren't too happy about the current weather either.

All of my family got very, very lucky and never really lost power. I had some flickers on the Saturday night, but woke up to a working alarm clock. Both of my work places still had power this week as well, which was a mixed blessing. I spent most of the early week entertaining friends to keep them warm. Today was the quiet family Christmas, and I was so happy to have a quiet, sleep-in, stuff your face day. It started with a great, quick recipe I found recently on Freutcake for eggnog french toast. I love eggnog and french toast, so this was going to go well regardless.

5 ingredient Eggnog French Toast
Stolen from Freutcake
Serves 4-6

1 1/2 cups of eggnog
5 large eggs
2 tbls of sugar
6-8 slices of brioche or challah bread, 1/2 inch thick. I used challah bread, and the inherent sweetness of it totally works.
8 tbls of unsalted butter, ish.

-Whisk the eggnog, eggs and sugar thoroughly in a bowl. I'd recommend whisking the eggs and sugar together first and then whisking in the eggnog. And whisk those suckers in a bowl, then pour them into a shallow baking dish.

 Noggey eggs.

-Soak bread slices for about 10 minutes or until completely saturated. The slices are super heavy when they're a soaked, so be careful when pulling them out to go into the frying pan that they don't pull apart.
(If doing all the slices in one go, preheat your oven to 200C and have a wire rack on top of a baking tray in there. After you fry up the slices, plonk them in the oven to keep warm while you're doing the rest of them.)
-Using about a tbls of butter per slice of bread, melt the butter in a medium heat pan. Fry each side until golden, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Fry it up.

 Melted butter works for a topping too.

 I'm sure this would have tasted even more amazing had I remembered to get some maple syrup prior to today, eg when all the shops were closed, but whatevs. Pretty awesome breakfast.

Merry Christmas y'all!

Christmas Decor 101: Trees

The Tree!!!

If I haven't made this alarmingly obvious already, I love Christmas. The season, the weather, decorating, food, all of it. I really, really love Christmas trees. Real ones. If they have to be fake, let them be silver or blue and made of tinsel from the 50s. One year at home when our family tree kept falling over, we had to trash it. I was gutted when my Dad suggested we stick with the fake decorative trees my Mom had a collection of at the time. My Mom agreed with me, and we went out on Christmas Eve and found another tree, luckily. We ended up having a forest that year. Although I don't seem to be the only one who is okay with this.
I think having a real tree is technically not allowed in my apartment building, but I only bring them in after the landlords are gone for the day anyway, or on the weekend. I also don't put real candles on a tree, and turn the lights off on them when I'm going to bed, so the fire risks are at least mitigated. I digress.

The Archives' Christmas tree last year. Note the red and green film stock, miniature hollinger boxes and "cold" sticker decorations.

New York City's Christmas tree back in January of 2011.

My home Christmases are filled with the weirdest collection of vintage, homemade and wonky ornaments and decorations that have been collected throughout my parents' and my sister's and I's lifetimes. All of them have meaning to us; an empty pack of cigarettes from when my parents were first married, the "Monty Python Angel" that sits atop our tree, the giant Chinese Dragon with beads coming out of its nose attacking the small Christmas village at the bottom of the tree. This year might a little quieter since my parents are attempting to downsize for a move planned in the spring, but it will still be uniquely decorated. I've kept this tradition with my smaller collection of decorations and ornaments, which includes some model boats from Halifax, a camel and paper star from India and a set of 1960s long, multi-coloured teardrop (maybe?) shaped ornaments that I found at Value Village years ago.

Last year's tree. Note the crazy penguin near the middle.

This year's tree has mooses.

And cacti. And chilli peppers. Yep.

I retrieved most of my weird Christmas light collection from home recently, so my tree has been decked out with several extra strings of lights this year.
The metal tinsel adds extra sparkle.

One of these days, I am going to have my own tinsel tree, antique or not. I've been very inspired by Meg Allen Cole's old Threadbanger tutorial to make my own tinsel tree, although maybe to a smaller scale than hers! I cleaned out the local Dollarama recently of this awesome blue/silver tinsel, so I have most of the supplies at least. I tried to upload the actual youtube video, Blogger didn't like that idea. Hence the link and no preview.

Christmas Decor 101: Wreaths!

This will be the first of a series (I know! Super serious attempt at real blogging) of posts about Christmas decor. One or two of these will include teaser photos for Christmas craft projects that I'm doing this year!

Enough with the explanations! On with the decor!

Wreaths! Doors, windows, over the (imaginary) fireplace, where ever!

We got rather lucky when we moved into our current apartment; someone had plonked a nail into our door and left it there. It's a teensy bit too low, but it works for hanging stuff, even if a wreath sometimes covers the peephole. Most years, I haven't actually hung a wreath for Christmas, chiefly I think because I didn't have one or got around to making one. What I would usually do was take a branch off of the tree and hang a large bow with a few cheap ball ornaments on that. This would make our door smell really nice and seasonal for about a day and a bit before the pine smell wore off, and looked really pretty and natural.

I've been inspired for years by a variety of pretty wreaths that I see throughout the interwebs.

As soon as I have that beautiful rugged lodge, this is going over the fireplace with a bow. Found on Apartment Therapy.

Ooooo, leafy! And made of paper! As found on Apartment Therapy, again.

 This paper one on Craft Stylish looks wonderfully Mod.  I'd probably substitute in more greens, call me a traditionalist.

Eeee! I originally found this on a Canadian Living round-up of wreaths, and in theory it's from Pier 1 Imports... can't really find it on their website, but it definitely looks DIY-able.

 While beautiful, I have some Archivist issues with this one. I might make scans and copies of old photos, rather than gluing real ones to each other. Just sayin'. Found in the winter issue of Sweet Paul Magazine. Search 'wreaths.'

I've always loved Aunt Peaches creations, whatever the season. Clearly other people do too, since some jerk stole one of them right off her door this past fall. Jerk.
This year she's going for something that can be non-Christmasey and seasonal, so she's going Mushrooms! Love it!

And there's always this one I made for my bedroom door last year. It could easily be done again with Christmas wrapping paper for a more traditional look! I'm relatively certain the original directions were for a Christmas theme anyway.

This year, since I have some time on my hands, I decided to make my own! Here's a teaser of the inspiration, although I've something like this in mind for years now.

Here's the actual teaser photo, and I'm so happy to be getting rid of those boxes I've been saving for years!

See you soon with the results of the craft project and part two of Christmas decor 101!

An Etsy Vintage Christmas

It's December!! Finally. I'm also not in school anymore, so I can actually enjoy it! Huzzah!

Since what I'm actually doing tonight is going to a hockey game after work, here's a fantasy Etsy Christmas post, with a boatload of sparkles and a healthy dose of vintage. One or two of these things are things I plan on attempting some DIYs of throughout the holidays. I have a mild tinsel addiction, and this is the time of year to work those things out.

I'd decorate my new, 7 foot tree from Phat Dog Vintage.

Trimming it with even more garland, from One Strange Girl.

I'd add more colour with these little pretties. Oooooo, pretty. Stolen from Tarragon Vintage.

And these. Want. Several. Snapshot Vintage.

This will be on the walls. From My Vintage Fix.

 This would already be on my door, probably smelling like "country kitchen." Wild Ridge Design. 

I'd be doing some Christmas cooking with snowflakes. Found Here, on Etsy.

And I'd wear this while doing said cooking. Pug Mug.

Or this one, from the Vintage Trunk.

Or this sexy number from The Mushroom Patch.

 And I'd probably be drinking some ice wine out of this berry bush. New Hope Elizabeth.

Or some Eggnog out of these glasses of holiday themed amazingness. I mean, really. Vintage Wolfy.

Le sigh... 

It's officially winter and Christmas season now, so more holiday posts to come, whether you like it or not.

Also, since I'm a decor addict, there might be a series of decor related posts throughout the month. Just saying.