Christmas Report

For the most part, this was a relaxing Christmas. I stayed at home this year--after the snow issues of 2006 and the plumbing issues of 2007, I decided not to risk a third year of Christmas Travel Fun. I did take 3 days of vacation in addition to the holiday--Friday was my only work day this week! Well, someone had to be in the office since the company was officially open. Things were extremely slow at the office, even though I did end up with 2 sales calls, one at my office the other at his.

I spent my mini-vacay mostly hanging out at home and running a Christmas-related errand or two. Like Monday. DF's main gift had arrived and was ready for installation: he bought winter tires and rims for my car. The Blizzaks are supposed to enable me to stop on ice, which is a regular feature of winter weather here in the high desert. I realize this is a thoughtful gift, but just a wee bit too practical.

The other gift was for both of us--he ordered wild Alaska salmon, shrimp, and king crab from FishEx. Yum. Through no fault of theirs, the fish was not delivered timely. FedEx had it on the truck on Christmas Eve but neglected to drop it off at my house. So, we are waiting for the replacement order to arrive on Tuesday. I was able to salvage the king salmon and the scallops (FishEx substituted them for the shrimp) and we'll eat them soon, but the crab got pitched.

My sister and brother-in-law sent some tops, all of which fit. My favorite is the Ralph Lauren silk/cashmere sweater on the right of the picture below. I love printed sweater knits, and this one is a subtle gray/olive/plum paisley. I wore it to work on Friday.



DF had to work at the hospital on Christmas Day, so I had the day to myself to sleep in and putter about the house. I actually did something sewing-related, cutting out a couple of patterns that I'm planning to start sewing up this weekend (more on that in other posts). For dinner, I made roast beef with roasted vegetables and my grandmother's heirloom Cranberry Salad recipe. Believe it or not, this was the first time I'd ever made roast beef!! I used the NY Times Cookbook's instructions as my guide, with added references to some other recipes I had pulled from the Food Network.


Of course, I've been shopping. I mean, if DF's going to be practical, someone has to provide the fun stuff. And that would be me.

• Another box arrived from FabricMart this week with some awesome winter fabrics: double faced wool jersey, shearling, double faced taffeta and fleece. (Can you tell that lately I have a fascination with double faced fabrics?) I also picked up a lovely piece of merino wool jersey and a black and white boucle. Darn those box specials they keep inserting with each order! They are too tempting.





• I allowed myself to be led astray by Talbot's and got a gray paisley wrap skirt. Actually I got two of them to test for fit, so one is going back. I'm still having post-traumatic stress over the last store visit, so I shopped on the internet. I'm not sure if I'll return the second skirt to the store or UPS it back. Here's what it looks like:
  
  



• My hairdresser was having a jewelry sale at her salon, so I got the silver bear fetish necklace I've been eyeing for the last few visits. At $20, I had to have it. This is a beautiful piece, heavy with a lot of detail:





• Oh yeah, I also succumbed to J.Jill while at the office yesterday. Several pairs of jeans and a couple of sweaters are on their way. At an additional 40% off of already marked-down merchandise, hmm, well, I do wear jeans a lot...Yes, I'm rationalizing. But really, I'm going to slow down with the shopping. In 2009.

Christmastime is Here

OK, I didn't get my Christmas Cards out again on time this year, so this is the best I can do. Oh well...

Thanks to all of you for visiting. I've enjoyed your comments and camaraderie over the past couple of years. Have a Merry Christmas!!

Image Copyright by Jonathan Meyers. Distributed by Smith-Southwestern, PO Box 20100, Mesa, AZ 85277

Custom Gift Bag, an Update

I brought Biker Santa to work today for my friend. She liked him very much, but was totally impressed with the gift bag! She could not get over the fact that I had sewn it!

Also, go over to The Slapdash Sewist if you're interested in learning more about sewing gift bags. Trena posted instructions for how to make a wine bottle bag, and the process is very similar.

Custom Gift Bag

Face it, its difficult to wrap presents like the Animated, Musical Christmas Chopper aka Biker Santa:



It doesn't come with a box, and it's such an awkward shape, where are you going to find a box that it's going to fit in? If you can sew, you can make a custom bag for Biker Santa. This is another one of those projects where I don't do a lot of measuring, I just go for it.

Step One: Biker Santa and I move to the sewing room, and I drape fabric around him until there's enough. I just pin it on to get a general idea. I'm going for a loose fit here. You don't want the recipient to have difficulty pulling out the present, and ripping the fabric to get to the gift is generally not an option, is it?



This is a shot of the fabric after marking it, unpinning, and removing Biker Santa:



Step Two: fold the fabric lengthwise, right sides together, and sew it like a pillowcase (one seam lengthwise, one seam widthwise).



Step Three: if your bag looks anything like mine, there were huge "dog ears" on the bag you just made and test-fitted onto Biker Santa. This step will neaten that up a bit. Fold the lengthwise and widthwise seams together to form a triangle, like this:



Mark the desired depth ( I went with 3") along the seam in the middle of the triangle, mark and sew across. Repeat on the other side. That side doesn't have a lengthwise seam, so you'll just be centering the widthwise seam as best you can. I think the home dec and purse making books refer to this as "boxing" a corner, so if you can't figure this out from my pictures, check them out or look on sewing sites with similar projects. And, this is optional. If you don't mind dog ears, then leave them. No one will care, really...they'll be amazed that you sewed a bag, regardless!

Here's what it looks like pinned:



And here's what it looks like after sewing. I used a serger, which automatically trims off the triangles, so you'll want to trim them off if you're using a conventional sewing machine.



Here's what it looks like after the seams are made, the bag is turned, and Biker Santa does a test fit:



Step 4: up to this point, I've been working with the full width of the fabric. So now, I figure how much excess I want at the open end of the bag. Then I folded down a hem, trimmed, and sewed it down. No illustration on this part, again, it's like a pillowcase.

Step 5: Biker Santa went back in the bag once again, but this time I tied the bag shut with some pretty wired ribbon. Done! Easier and better looking than trying to wrap the blasted thing with wrapping paper. And if you buy Christmas fabric on sale (it's probably marked down now), not even that expensive.



Now, this project was a one-off, but there's no reason you couldn't work this out and make these assembly line style if you're giving, say, wine bottles, toiletries, etc. to all your family and friends. You could add a drawstring, finish off the open edge with pinking shears, or use the decorative stitches on your sewing machine. This is also an excellent way to use up stash fabric--there's no reason you'd have to use Christmas fabric.

FYI, I bought Biker Santa for a girlfriend at work who's quite the biker girl. I figured she and her husband would get a kick out of it. I found him at Walgreen's, which has a pretty good assortment of animated Christmas toys.

A Little Bit of Four Play

La Belette Rouge posted her response to a meme this week and invited her readers to post four items about ourselves even if we weren't tagged. Well, all right. That's simple enough. I don't know if any of the following are "new," in the sense that I haven't posted them before, but none of them are recent disclosures at least:

• I'm addicted to food shows. I watch the Food Network every Saturday morning, and I positively must watch Top Chef each week. I don't feel obligated to actually make anything I see on these shows, although there have been a few.
• Although my house appears to be clean, I'm a lousy housekeeper. I have trouble investing a lot of time into toiling over a spotless home. I really should hire someone. But in the meantime, don't look too close if you come over to visit.
• Ditto with gardening. I'm not very good at it, even though I have relatively easy care xeriscaped yards front and back. We're talking cacti, people! However, there are weeds to be plucked and leaves to gather from other people's properties. Uggghhh.
• I'm a clothes horse. I blame it on my parents, who were frugal to a fault. All my cute RTW clothes as a little girl came from my Grandma and Great Aunt. God bless them, I could look nice at Easter and Christmas, at least. When I was preschool age, my Mom used to make darling little outfits for me, but she later lost interest in sewing. Not sure why that was, exactly. I will give my parents credit for encouraging sewing. Even when they weren't willing to shell out for clothes, but would finance fabric and patterns. Well, OK...that's probably a big reason why I have both a closet full of RTW and a room full of fabric waiting to become fabulous custom clothes someday.

Customer Service

Edited to add: photo of the J.Jill jacket. I found a picture I could scan in.

I recently had 2 very different customer service experiences involving exchanges at 2 different yet related stores that reminded me of Deja Pseu's recent post on shopping.

Often I'll order goods from a store's website and return it at my local brick-and-mortar store. Nothing at all wrong with that--it's allowed by store policy and often results in increased sales when the customer is physically present and can see the other pretties they have.



Last week, a leather tote bag I'd ordered from Talbot's was delivered. Lovely bag...just very pink. What the heck was I thinking??? Since I would be in the neighborhood, I decided to take it to the local Talbot's for an exchange. The sales associate was very polite but gave me a massive hassle about it.

• First, she told me that there was a price difference between the pink bag and the red bag I wanted. Well, there was no price difference. None. They were new inventory, the same style, just different colors. Not only was each and every color of this bag the same price, the website also had a 30% off sale going, which was reflected in the price I had paid. Shouldn't she have known that?




• Second, that particular evening featured a special in-store event for customers. Everything at 30% off. I knew this, because I had received an e-vite. Nope, it was a "private event" by invitation only, according to her. I advised her that I had been invited and she asked who had invited me. "Talbot's," I said, "I received an e-vite." She gave me the gimlet eye like I was lying...until, finally, another associate told her this was correct. Mind you, there is 30% off signage all over the store, so how private could the sale be? So she decided to "do me a favor" and give me 30% off on the red bag even though the sale had "officially" not yet started. Umm hmmm. It was like, 5:55 pm and the event ran from 6:00-8:00 pm.
  

Like I said, very polite, yet I felt totally run through the mill by this treatment. So much so, that after taking the tote to my car and returning to the store for the "private event", I let myself be poached by another associate for 2 additional items I decided to buy. Too bad, sweetie! That's what you get for being a tool. And you'll never wait on me again if I can help it.

I'm still appalled. And I thought Talbot's was famously customer-centric. It will make me reluctant to exchange at the store again, or really, to even shop there. I guess I'll stick to the website.



By contrast, I recently exchanged another item at Talbot's sister label, J.Jill. I had ordered a suede jacket at a deep discount in my usual size. It fit like a glove, maybe too much so. I should have ordered a Small and a Medium. Anyway, since I wanted the option of wearing it with sweaters and after the holidays, I went to the local store to see if they had a Medium. Again, the associate was unfailingly polite, but this time she was also extremely helpful! No Medium jacket at the store. I explained that it had been purchased online, so off we went to the concierge station, aka the PC. Nope, none in the warehouse either. Then she did a search of all J.Jill stores in the entire US and located one in New Hampshire! She called, and a Medium is now on its way to me. Plus, the shipping fee is only $5.95 with delivery direct to my home. I know this was a bit of a hassle for her, but I felt very well taken care of.

Even though I generally don't like the J.Jill line as well as Talbot's, I'll definitely shop their brick-and-mortar store again. If you had told me that J.Jill would have superior customer service, I wouldn't have believed it. But there you are.

Bling for a Good Cause

Yesterday was the annual silent auction and sale for All Angels Day School, which is affiliated with my church, St. Michael and All Angels. It was a good one, with lots of nice stuff to bid on, including a wine fridge, artworks, jewelry, pottery, etc. etc. I bid on several items but only won two:



...And that's OK because these are sooo nice. The earrings are sterling with turquoise and carnelian stones. The bracelet is sterling with garnets. OK, so I didn't get the Southwestern iron floor lamp or the sangria set (glass pitcher, matching stemware, wrought iron stand) . I don't really have room for them anyway, what with DF's things coming into the household. Jewelry is small and fits anywhere! These were not inexpensive, but probably still less than retail. And of course, the money spent went for a good cause.

I also picked up some baked goodies. Shout out to whoever made the raspberry and white chocolate scones. They were delicious! There are no photos of these because they didn't last long enough.

Oops...

December 1st was the second anniversary of SewWest, and I completely neglected to mention it. Hopefully, my little blog is improving as I move along. At least I'm enjoying it! I hope you all get some pleasure from reading it too.

Now off to get ready for work...