Advent Calendar {Re-Post}

Last year I joined Jill in a sew along to make an awesome advent calendar.  It was a ton of work and I barely finished in time but I've been so happy to have it this year.  Every day I pull a chair up to the calendar (I didn't want it within little hands) and Catie climbs up and hangs an ornament; it was the perfect year to start the tradition.  Also, everyday as she pulls out a new ornament I'm impressed with how great they look and I'm glad I took the time to hand sew them all.

I thought I'd re-post my advent so you can take a look, sorry if you've seen it before.

December 1st and my Advent Calendar is finished!  When I started this sew along with Jill I didn't realize just what I was getting myself into, every singe stitch on this calendar is sewn by hand making everything take significantly longer than I had anticipated.  Every time I pulled out a different project my calendar loomed over me.  I'm glad to say that it's finished, I love it and I'm now free to work on other projects.

As a quick recap, week 1  we cut out and embroidered all of our numbers and sewed them onto the backing piece.  Week two we cut and sewed the tree on and made 8 ornaments.  Week three we made 8 more ornaments and then sewed all of our buttons onto the tree.  This last week we finished the calendar which involved finishing up the last 8 ornaments, sewing a backing piece on the calendar to hide all those stitches and adding a hanger.  You're supposed to slip a wooden dowel into the holder on top but I haven't bothered to pick one up so it may be finished but there's now way to hang it.  Oops.

Here it is with the ornaments hung.

And with them all tucked in their pockets.

Here's a close up of the ornaments.

And one more close up of the finished calendar.

Jill has a Flickr group where people can link up their Calendars so if you want to see more you can go here.

Advent Calendar - Week #4 (Final)

December 1st and my Advent Calendar is finished!  When I started this sew along with Jill I didn't realize just what I was getting myself into, every singe stitch on this calendar is sewn by hand making everything take significantly longer than I had anticipated.  Every time I pulled out a different project my calendar loomed over me.  I'm glad to say that it's finished, I love it and I'm now free to work on other projects.

As a quick recap, week 1  we cut out and embroidered all of our numbers and sewed them onto the backing piece.  Week two we cut and sewed the tree on and made 8 ornaments.  Week three we made 8 more ornaments and then sewed all of our buttons onto the tree.  This last week we finished the calendar which involved finishing up the last 8 ornaments, sewing a backing piece on the calendar to hide all those stitches and adding a hanger.  You're supposed to slip a wooden dowel into the holder on top but I haven't bothered to pick one up so it may be finished but there's now way to hang it.  Oops.

Here it is with the ornaments hung.

And with them all tucked in their pockets.

Here's a close up of the ornaments.

And one more close up of the finished calendar.

Jill has a Flickr group where people can link up their Calendars so if you want to see more you can go here.

Advent Calendar - Week #3

Time for my Advent Calendar update.  If you're new to the blog then I'm doing a sew along with Jill and we're all making this super cute advent calendar by Inchmark Journal.  Each week Jill gives us a new assignment and so far we're on week 3.  The first week we cut out and embroidered all of our numbers and sewed them onto the backing piece.   Week two we cut and sewed the tree on and made 8 ornaments.  At least we were supposed to, I thought the assignment was only 5 so at the last minute I managed to come up with two more but was still one behind this week.  Our week three assignment was to sew on our buttons and make 8 more ornaments, or in my case 9.

Here's mine looks like after week three.

See all those loops sticking out of the pockets?  those are finished ornaments, 17 of them to be exact.  So not only did I catch up my one last week but I made an extra one this week.

Here are the two I made to catch up last week but didn't post about.  They were both easy just to get me almost caught up.

And here are my 10 new ornaments.

I think Santa's my favorite.

An up close of the partially decorated tree.

Come back next week to see my progress.

Pins and Needles Giveaway

Like I mentioned earlier I love giveaways.  It's so much fun to make something and have other people want it.  I enjoyed the last one so much that I have another.

There are two parts to this giveaway and they are two of my favorite sewing items, and with both I didn't know just how much I'd like them.

First there is Ned.  He's such a cute little pin cushion and a great way to show off the pink pins that my husband Brad gave me for Mother's Day.  I made him for myself back in May and every time I use him it makes me smile a little.  I made a new one for the giveaway and I've made a couple improvements to the design, he's now a Weeble.  He wobbles but doesn't fall down, he always lands on his belly so your pins stay upright and handy.  I found a free printable pattern for him here that you can check out if you just want to make your own (he's super easy to make).  Sadly this Ned will not come with the pretty pink quills, you'll have to pick those up yourself but you can get them at Michaels.

The second part of this giveaway is a needle book.  I found the tutorial on Little Birdie Secrets.  This project was initially just something to keep me busy one night, I didn't know just how useful it is.  There are lots of projects that need some needle work, whether it's closing up a final seam on Ned or hand stitching my advent calendar.  It's so convenient to never have to hunt for a needle, you just grab your book and your set.  I went through a phase where I made necklaces and sometimes the beads would require a smaller needle, I didn't have to search I could just open the book and find a smaller one.

When my Mom saw my book she wanted one too so I made her one and she's commented as well on just how handy they are.

The book is made of felt and the closed with a vintage button (from my Grandma's stash)

Inside the book there are four felt pages for you to slip your needles inside.  The book won't include the needles, you'll need to provide your own.

So there you have it, a fun, two part giveaway.

All you need to do to enter is become a follower and comment letting me know.  If you already follow then leave a comment telling me your interested in the giveaway.

You can also have a second entry if you blog or Facebook about the giveaway.  Make sure you leave a second comment to tell me.

That's it, good luck!  I'll pick a winner in a week.

Advent Calendar - Week #2

I just looked up Jill's site to find a link to remind you all of this sew along advent calendar that I'm making and noticed that my assignment this week was 8 ornaments, not 5 like I thought.  So now I'm 3 short.  I may or may not make three more, we'll see if this post gets updated.

Week two went okay, I felt really behind but managed to complete the assignment with time to spare (or so I thought).

Last week I embroidered all of my numbers and sewed them onto my backing piece.  This week I cut out my tree and sewed it on.

A quick side note... don't you hate how the second time you do a project you end up so much happier with it than you were the first time?  I want this advent calendar to be my second attempt because I'm already doing things I wish I could change.  I wish my tree could be taller but I'm limited by to the size of the rectangle I cut out.  It'll work but there are things I would change if I could.

So I cut out and sewed on my tree.

Then I made 5 ornaments

You'll notice that lots of them are white but that's because I was so busy with the car seat that I started a bit late, meaning I chose easy ornaments.  They happened to mostly be white, I will add some colour though.

Here's a close up of the individual ornaments.

He sure is a sad snow man hey?  Not sure how that happened.

Hopefully next week goes okay even though I plan on tackling the high chair re-cover.

Advent Calendar - Week #1

So I've mentioned it a couple times but I'm sewing with along with Jill to make this adorable Advent calendar by Inchmark Journal.

Jill gives us an assignment every Wednesday and we show our progress until we all have the above, adorable calendar, just in time for December 1st.

This week she tasked us with cutting out our main backing piece, cutting and embroidering our felt squares and sewing the squares onto the backing.  I started this project a couple days late so I felt like I was rushing and would never finish in time but surprisingly completed it all by yesterday early afternoon.

I started by going to Fabricland and picking up this beautiful selection of felt.

In the past I've used dollar store felt but I decided I want this project to last so I should use better materials.  I also really wanted to use real wool felt but who can afford that stuff?

Then I worked on my numbers and here's the tricky part.  Inchmark Journal gives a really handy tutorial on how to transfer your number temlates to the felt using an iron-on transfer pencil.  I went to pick one up at Fabricland where the employee there told me that crayons work too, I'm always looking to save a buck or two so I skipped the pencil and learned that crayons really don't work, unless there's a trick I don't know.

It was late and I wanted to start so I got creative.  I traced all of my numbers onto freezer paper and ironed them onto my squares.  Since they're a mirrored image I ironed them onto the back of my felt and stitched through the paper, the paper side being the back.  I'll make that more clear with photos.

Here is my square of felt with the freezer paper ironed onto the back, see how my number is backwards?

Once I did my stitching I really carefully pulled off my paper and it looked like this, still looking at the back.

Once flipped over it looked like so...

I used a chain stitch to do all 24 of my numbers.

Once that was done I laid my squares out on my backing piece, that I'd previously cut.  I made a handy grid on PowerPoint to help me line my squares up nice and straight.  I slipped it behind the backing piece and the squares showed through so I knew where to pin.

Once I'd pinned 9 or so, (that was as many as my grid would let me do since we don't have bigger paper) I stitched them on.  I repeated that process a couple times until all of my numbers were stitched.

So here is my end result for this week.

So far I'm thrilled with how it's turning out and I'm excited to see what our assignment is for this week.

What Catie Wore Wednesday #14

14 weeks... It's really a long time.  I'm not sure how the Pleated Poppy has continued on for so long because I'm feeling right sick of photographing and trying to put her in something new every day.  This will be my last What Catie Wore for a while, perhaps I'll come back to it since I really need a break.

It's good timing because on Wednesday's for the next 4 weeks I"ll be posting my progress on the advent calendar in my sew along with Jill.  Perhaps we'll re-visit Catie's wardrobe once that is finished.

So enjoy this last week, even if I gave up and quit on Sunday.

Wednesday

Purple T - Walmart
Brown Pants - Old Navy

(she loves to be pushed on her little car)

Thursday

Yellow Sweater - Old Navy
Embroidered Jeans - Espirit
Brown Shoes - Walmart

Friday

Long Sleeve Onesie - Carters
Sweater Vest - H&M

She really did wear pants most of the day, Old Navy Jeans to be specific.

Saturday

Navy Top - Gap
Jeans - Old Navy

She loves to push that basket around and fill it with her toys

Sunday

Headband - Made by Me
Pink Sweater - Old Navy
Striped Shirt dress - Old Navy
Brown Shoes - Walmart

Linking up to

Pulled Pork Tacos - SAMM

I know there has been a serious lack of posts lately but like I mentioned I really had run out of projects.  It's not that I've been doing all this stuff and not linking it, I haven't been crafting at all except for one easy Christmas present that I can't link or I ruin the surprise.  I do have some fun things coming though.  If KD ever gets me her car seat I really will re-cover it, I'm gearing up to work on my first High Chair re-cover and I've decided to sew along with Jill and make this awesome advent calendar.  We had one growing up that was similar and we loved it, would fight over who got to put the numbers up, hopefully Catie enjoys it too (maybe next year though, she's pretty little).

Today is Monday so time to link up to Michelle's SAMM (Share a Meal Monday)
I'm linking a staple recipe in our house that is seriously yummy and easy, easy.

Pulled Pork Tacos

This is a slow cooker recipe so into the bottom you toss the following ingredients.  An onion, chopped, 2 Anaheim peppers, chopped (the recipe calls for Pablano but I can never find them so we use Anaheim instead, don't worry they're not spicy). 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 Tbsp lime juice, 3 garlic cloves, smashed and 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro.  I don't measure any of those ingredients though, this is almost no fail so I just eyeball everything.

Once that's done (or in my house, I do that while Brad does the rub) you're going to mix up the spice rub for the pork.  I won't list all the spices here because they're below but one note, it calls for Emeril's Essence spice mix.  I don't know about you but I don't have that handy so I Googled it and found a recipe, I included that below as well.  The first time I made this rub I just looked at the ingredients for the Essence, crossed off the ones I'd already mixed together and threw a little of those new ones in.  Now that we make this so often I actually mixed up a big batch of Essence and just use the 4 tsp like the recipe calls for.  Both ways were delicious though.

Once your rub is all together you just do what the name suggests, rub it all over the pork.  Cover all the sides well (before you rub you can trim some fat if there is lots, mine was pretty good so I didn't bother).  You could also choose to sear the pork once it's rubbed, I've done it before and honestly didn't notice a difference in flavour but you might and I'm sure it's what professionals would recommend.  Put your roast on top of your chopped stuff and cook for 4-6 hours on high.  I usually do all of that the night before so the rub can soak in really well.  Then the morning of you can just remove from the fridge and turn the slow cooker on. .

Here's what it looks like all ready to cook.

So I had great intentions to take pictures all the way though and show what the roast looks like after it's cooked but before removed from the crock pot but I forgot.

This roast was a big one and only took 5 hours to cook, you know it's done because it will flake apart really easily with two forks.  I also like to check on it halfway through and rotate the pork so all that yummy rub mixes with the juices.

So once it's done your remove the pork and shred it with two forks then toss it back in the slow cooker with all the juices and you're ready to serve.

(this picture doesn't do them justice, it's so yummy.  I just ate them for dinner and this post has made me want more)

Take flour tortillas and top them with your pork mix and everything you would normally put on a taco.  A warning, these can be pretty messy.  We served them to company we don't know that well so I removed most of the juices and just made the mix moist but it wasn't nearly as good, I put all the juices back in our leftovers.

This recipe makes a lot.  We ate it with another couple and then ate it for lunch the next day, lunch and dinner the day after that and put the remaining in the freezer because there was still tons left.  We also felt like our tortillas were starting to dry out and we were out of lettuce so on the last day of leftovers we made it into quesadillas instead and it was AWESOME.

It's fun because it's a new variation on tacos that's just as easy.


Pulled Pork Tacos

4-6 pound Prok Butt or Shoulder (I usually grab the biggest one they have)
2 Poblano Peppers, roughly chopped
1 large Onion, yellow, roughly chopped
2 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoon Lime Juice
3 cloves Garlic, smashed
1/4 cup Cilantro, chopped
4 teaspoon Salt,
2 teaspoon Pepper, black, divided
4 teaspoon Cumin, divided
4 teaspoon Emeril's Essence or similar spice mix, divided

Emeril's Essence
2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons garlic powder
1 tablespoon black pepper
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon dried leaf oregano
1 tablespoon dried thyme

To the slow cooker add onion, garlic, poblano peppers, Worcestershire sauce, lime juice, and cilantro. Season each side of the pork with half the seasonings and place in slow cooker, fat side up. Cover and slow cook on high for 4 to 6 hours until tender. Before serving, remove as much fat as possible from the pork then shred with two forks.

Warm flour tortillas in microwave and top with pork, lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream, avocado and salsa.  You can also squeeze some extra lime on top and some chopped cilantro.  Wrap and serve.


Linking to Share a Meal Monday