The C Word (no not that one!)

The C word I mean is CHRISTMAS!! I personally love the holly jolliness of Christmas, but I do admit, it starts way too early in shops. However, in the world of craft, it is never too early for Christmas 🎅🎄 So a few months ago, Elephant in My Handbag posted about their new Christmas fabrics and I couldn't resist having a wee peek! I got a few different ones, some Christmas dachshunds, some Christmas pets (can you see a theme here?) and more importantly, some Christmas cats. Now the other two I had plans for some stockings etc, but the cats I wanted something fancy for myself, maybe a top or a bag or a SUPER FESTIVE SKIRT! Yes! My mind was made up, it was to be a skirt! I had a dig through my patterns and found the pattern for the first item of clothing I had ever made, the New Look 6004 skirt.

It's a super basic skirt with an elasticated waistband. Literally just 2 skirt pieces and a waistband casing, but I wanted extra wide elastic for this particular skirt so I skipped the casing and just stitched the elastic straight on to the top of the skirt.

I only bought a metre of the material, because I didn't want to buy loads without having a plan for it, so technically I didn't have enough to make the skirt, so I decided that since I was going to have an extra thick waistband, I could afford to shorten it a bit. So I folded the fabric in half so that it was 4 layers instead of 2 (you'll find out later why this was a bad idea) and laid my pattern piece down so I could see how much I had to take the paper piece up by and I was able to grade it out from the waist so that it was a bit fuller. Cut it out, gave it a couple of nice wee french seams and ta-da! I'd f*ucked it up. Since I had doubled over a very heavily patterned fabric, the cats on the back of the skirt were upside down!!

Hahahahaha!! Silly cats! What are you doing?

 As I didn't have any more fabric, I just had to live with it 😂😂 But here is the skirt from the front!

I wanted to make it even more festive so I used red satin bias binding and gold top stitch thread.

By now you're probably thinking that I'm all Christmassed out, you'd be wrong! I also finally completed the Doctor Who Christmas cross stitch by Capes and Crafts that I started about 4 or 5 years ago.

I also did a festive dachshund, but I didn't see a name on the printed pattern and I can't remember where I got it, so if it's your pattern, let me know and I'll credit you :)

 

 Phew! I think I am all Christmassed out now so I'll leave you with the usual costs and ratings.

Costs

•  1m of Cat fabric £15
• bias, thread and elastic - stash
• Doctor Who pattern £3
• Dachshund pattern - unknown, I can't even remember if it's a paid pattern.
• Embroidery thread - stash 

Difficulty Rating

• Skirt - 1/5 very easy to put together, just remember to keep your print the right way up!
• Cross Stitches - 1/5 both very easy, but so fab :)