After all that gorging on food, shopping, and partying, (basically doing nothing creative, well not counting drawing) I HAD TO SEW. I wanted something simple and fast so chose project 1 from ISBN 4579111494. Then on Saturday night I tried it out on muslin. When I was done I wasn’t sure about it. I was thinking maybe I’d do it shorter. I was going to ask you, the internets, before I made it with real fabric.

Alan thinks it looks like a shapeless sack. But it’s not. It’s not that awful potato dress that I WILL NOT link to. This actually has shaping. It’s subtle but it’s there. I love the neckline but I wasn’t sure about the length. I kept asking Alan what he thought, trying to convince him that it didn’t suck. And on Sunday as we were getting ready to go out to buy our Christmas tree I put it on and asked Alan again for the umpteenth time. His response was, “get over yourself and let’s go.” Not much help there. So I threw on some pants and said, “ok, let’s go!“. He’s all like, “you’re wearing that out?” I looked in the mirror. It didn’t look bad. In fact it had grown on me. So yep I wore it out. Just threw on a little camisole underneath since the muslin is a little see-through.

“See? It doesn’t look bad does it?” was what I was saying in this picture at the Christmas tree lot. I didn’t mind wearing it there. I kept my coat on. But then we ran errands. We were inside and it was warm so I took off my coat. I felt so self conscious and all of Alan’s comments came flooding back: I was wearing this muslin, shapeless, long thing. So what do you think? Should I make it again? Yay or nay?

Ok let me “get over myself” and talk about our Christmas tree. We usually buy it late and then piss and moan that we don’t get to enjoy it for very long. So this year we got it together and bought it early! EARLY EARLY EARLY! (Actually I looked up the post from last year. We got it early last time too and you have to go see how small and still baby chub Isabelle was).

We go to a Christmas tree farm to get our tree. I’ve become very particular about this. One of Alan’s coworkers just buys a tree from the supermarket or Target or wherever. Nice and cheap, doesn’t see the point in spending the money. But surprisingly enough this is one of the things I don’t go cheap on.

I was wondering why that is? Then I realized, it’s a tradition we’ve started. It’s a warm fuzzy Christmas memory. Where’s the warm fuzzy feeling from grabbing a Christmas tree from Target? It just isn’t the same.

I like going to the family owned lot, walking down the green aisles while oh so helpful people ask if they can haul my tree away. I look forward to drinking their warm spiced cider, maybe riding the little train, and looking at their ornaments. This year Isabelle ooohed and ahhed over the tiny lighted houses and watched with interest as they shook all the bugs and loose needles out. And then they baled it up and when Isabelle gets older we’ll have her baled too. And she’ll remember all of that as part of the holiday season.