Sister Crafting, continued

So, remember way back in January when Caryn (my sister) and I had great hopes to meet once a month in order to finish our homemade advent calendars for this Christmas? Well, good thing we started in January, because we still have quite a ways to go before they're complete, and time is running out!

However, I must say, we made tremendous progress on Saturday...Caryn even tried her hand at the sewing machine for the first time!!! She is a natural...even though her signature move was the "free willy": taking your hands completely off the sewing machine while pushing the peddle. [see below for a free willy action shot]

After her first pocket she exclaimed, "This is such a rush!". 

 I also overheard her giving herself little pep talks while sewing some of the pockets. My favorite was probably, "Minor setbacks happen....you didn't lose any fingers." Overall, Caryn picked up sewing right away and I think I've created a monster. 

Here is a progress shot of our advent calendars. We actually completed more pockets than shown above and we're now halfway there...meaning 25 pockets finished for one of the calendars and 25 more to go! We're going to stencil with red fabric paint, "God Jul", ("Merry Christmas" in both Swedish and Danish) across the top. They're coming together and I'm so excited to see the finished products!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!