Happy New Year!

Since this is my first post of the new year, I wish you and yours a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.

I hope that your New Year's Eve was as fun as mine, which I spent mine with my sisters and my nephews playing games and eating. There was a lot of laughter, giggles, general silliness, and an all-around wonderful time. You can't have too much fun, I don't think. :)

I spent New Year's Day inside doing nothing at all, which was quite relaxing. I woke up today feeling a little stir-crazy, though - I'd been inside so much that I really needed to get out of the house. Even though it was around -30C (at least it was bright and sunny and not too windy). So my mom and I went downtown and did a little shopping.

Have I mentioned that I've been looking for an early winter coat, one that will be warm between about 10C and -10C? I finally found one today. Yay! I'd tried on this coat in a larger size back in Waterloo and I liked it but it was too big. I saw the one in a size smaller and it fit perfectly! I'm so thrilled with it. My other one was a touch tight on my hips, the zipper had a tendency to come undone from the bottom, and the lining was wearing thin. It was definitely time to replace it, and I hope I'll get to use it next week when the temperature is just below 0C in the daytime.

For some reason, I bought more socks as well. Normally I don't buy a kabillion pairs of socks but for some reason, almost all I've bought here have been socks. It's not like I didn't have socks, but I'm always on the lookout for soft, squishy socks and I found a few pairs. Hopefully I don't have too many socks now :)

I also managed to get a vintage pattern altered today. It's a one-piece dress with only four pattern pieces and I was able to trace the pieces and alter them for me in only about three or four hours. It used to take me a LOT longer to make the alterations before but I'm getting used to the kinds of alterations that I need to make now. Of course I'll still have to test out the revised pattern - I'm not so confident about my skills that I'd use the pattern as-is without a test first. I'm willing to do that for current patterns, because I know exactly what alterations to make and they always work, but it'll be a while before I'm that confident with my vintage patterns.

Tomorrow I think we're not doing anything, which will be relaxing. Maybe I'll work on more patterns :)