merry happy joyus etc

I hope everyone had a happy holiday! Mine was filled with eating way too many cookies (there’s no such thing actually), taking too many photos of Lucille (also no such thing), spending time with my family, and purposefully not picking up present boxes to see how many cats I could catch. Sounds like a pretty perfect Christmas if you ask me.

Lucille looks guilty here because she was caught red handed at the Cat Box Buffet and was unsure if Santa Paws would still bring her presents. She’s definitely not on the naughty list, but I still think Santa should have brought her a new tooth brush instead of a Petco giftcard.

I was really bad this year and spent a lot of time sewing my Archer button-up shirt instead of sewing Christmas presents. I tried to sneak in some last minute rush sewing on Christmas Eve but, as you can probably guess, I finished nothing. Oh well. You don’t need to use Christmas as an excuse to give gifts to the ones you love, right? Right.

Speaking of my Archer project, I’ve made some progress and it’s nearly finished! In fact, it would have been finished by now except it was amateur hour at Lucky Lucille Headquarters and I sewed a perfectly set-in sleeve on inside-out. Not once. But TWO TIMES! This is why you don’t sew late in poor lighting with fabric that doesn’t have an obvious right and wrong side. I wish I could use the excuse that I hit the Eggnog too hard that evening but I don’t drink much else besides coffee, and that wasn’t helping me either.

I also made things infinitely more hard on myself by being too lazy to turn on my laptop and follow the actual Archer instructions. If I had done that, I would know that Jen eases the sleeve into the shoulder and then stitches up the sleeve seam and side seam in one step. You’d think I’d be better at following directions by now but uh, …yeah.

The good news is my button hole foot and I are on speaking terms again! I’m happy to report I had not one problem with it this time. At least not with the standard button hole. I haven’t tried the rounded end ones since “the incident“.

Again, I made things infinitely harder on myself by altering the original collar to a 1940′s collar and then attempting to keep the yoke facing. I’m almost too embarrassed to share the state of the inside of my Archer, because it’s not too pretty after hand basting the yoke facing in place and then top stitching it from the outside. But! It does look nice on the outside so who cares about the inside, right? (Uhg. I do. Who am I kidding.) I know it doesn’t look that bad (I’m not showing you the BAD side), I just know I could have done a much more tidy job and it’s bugging me that I didn’t.

Once I get the sleeves in I just need to hem it and sew on the buttons, then it’s finished! Just in time to wrap up Archer Appreciation Month. I might even attempt some decorative saddle stitching around the collar and cuffs to compliment the brown buttons. We’ll see. I’m eager to finish so I can move on and get serious about sewing for 2014! I have A LOT of goals.

xo
Rochelle