Checking it twice

I cannot believe that we are just over one week away from Christmas.  Remember when you were a kid and your parents always made that comment and you’re all, like, what?  It’s been a whole stinkin’ year, bring it on! 

Anyway, Christmas, it’s nearly here.  But thankfully, my grand sewing plans are coming along nicely and many have been completed, mailed off, and checked off my to-do list.  Such as making a dozen Friday Night Bags for friends:

And then there are the Christmas PJs for all of my mom’s grandkids.  They’re actually coming together really well, but I have to tell you, nine yards of knit material isn’t fun to cut out.  This was my mom’s ingenious idea for managing 27 feet of unruly stripes:

The bulk of the fabric is folded up on the seat of one of my kitchen chairs.  The back of the chair is just higher than the counter, so that the fabric isn’t slipping down with the weight of what’s in the seat.  Prior to her doing this, things were bad.  Real bad.  But even with the chair, it takes two people to cut pieces out:  One to pin and the other to wrangle the fabric so the stripes still line up.  Good times. 

But really, good times.  I’m LOVING sewing with my mom.  She’s worked full time most of my life.  A single mom of five daughters since I was nine, she often worked swing shifts and graveyards earning minimum wage.  So she didn’t have a lot of time for creative pursuits, like sewing, even though she enjoys it.  It’s been so much fun sewing these pajamas with her.  And, if I do say so myself, they are looking pretty cute

The pants are all finished, and we’ve started cutting out the tops.  Hopefully we’ll get the tops done, or mostly done Friday when my mom comes out again.  And then I’ll finish up anything that needs to be done by Christmas Eve next week.   This project is totally up there on my list of favorite Christmas memories now.  My mom is amazing and I love spending time with her.  It’s turned out that her crazy idea to make the grandkid pajamas this year rather than buying them has been a lot less stress and a lot more wonderful than I thought it could be.  So Christmas, yeah, baby, bring it on.