Let me preface this story by saying I’m not into imposed gift giving. I’m more of a spontaneous I-saw-this-and-thought-you-would-like-this-on-a-random-Tuesday type person, so when it comes to Christmas gifts, I’m over it. I prefer random but thoughtful gifts. However, I do have a little one and don’t want her to miss out on that part of Christmas. She can decide for herself later about her approach to gifting.

Well it’s Christmas time and I just so happened to make couple of tunics for her, so let’s just call them gifts. The real gift though is that this is the first time I’ve sewn anything for her (outside of face masks) in about two years. Before that, most of my makes were for her, but I lost my sewjo and wasn’t motivated to sew something she’d quickly outgrow or not want to wear. It was also around that time I realized I needed to pour in myself more, so I stopped taking commissions and focused on some selfish sewing.

Me and my sew sisters, Monica and LaDonna, took a short break from our usual selfish sewing to do some selfless sewing for our children. I made McCalls M7859, view C. I actually made two, one in a red and white triangular print from Girl Charlee and the other in a solid pink from JoAnn Fabrics.

This pattern was pretty simple and a quick sew. It took me a couple hours to sew and prep work (cutting took about thirty minutes with five pieces). For the red fabric, I topstitched using my coverstitch machine. Sometimes I’m Team Too Much when sewing, so I used a variegated wooly nylon thread to accent the solid pink jersey knit. I used a triple stitch on the wrong side of the fabric so that the underside of the stitching would show on the right side of the fabric. It worked like gang busters!

Tip: Wooly nylon is threaded through loopers of your serger or coverstitch machine. Wooly nylon is also nice for rolled hems on your sergers.

This was a great pattern to ease myself back into sewing for my daughter. For a quick review of Simplicity patterns S9211 and S8613, check out this video. Even though it’s Christmas, she did NOT consider them gifts (by the way). Don’t worry, she got other stuff 😂 I’ll go back to selfish sewing, but won’t take such a long break from sewing for her this time. I do have some ideas for Mommy and Me outfits, so stay tuned…