On a whim yesterday, I decided I’d have a go at sewing a Vivienne Westwood style dress. I finished it today and, as this was the first dress I’ve ever made, it went really well. It ties around the middle and has pockets at and flaps that fold around.

The design is based on an Anglomani dress but as it cost over £300, I couldn’t afford it, so I took a trip to Goldhawk Road and for £5 worth of fabric + a £3 zip + 2 days of sewing, here’s my £8 dress, just in time to wear to New York!

It goes really nicely with my Lady Dragon shoes and my new Vivienne Westwood necklace, which Tom surprised me with when I got to the airport after my trip to Tenerife.

Tom also got himself some socks and a set of offensive coasters.

My next update shall be from NYC, so in the meantime, keep yourself busy by watching the Whip It! movie, which is so awesome.

This week I’ve been super crafty. My first project was a couple of Union Jack pillows for the bed. “Someone” brought me a heap of Chanel ribbons to use and they worked really well.

I made a mermaid tail as my costume for Mardis Gras. It has a zipper up the back at the bottom, so I can unzip my feet and walk. My favourite movie when I was a kid was The Little Mermaid, so I’ve always wanted a tail and now I have one

The secret cafe at Westfield has closed down but we discovered a new little place called Ca’puccino which serves yummy Italian food.

There were floating shelves of books everywhere, which made me feel at home.

The mugs and napkins had a lined paper pattern and now I really want a set.

CO+K has been getting lots of press this week and has been in a bunch of magazines. This article was in Craft Business – they call me a well-known journalist, hehe.

There was also a little mention in MakeJewellery magazine. We’re also in the new issue of Sew Magazine, so if anyone has a copy, could you please send me a scan with the bit about us? I’d love to know what it says.

Finally, someone else has made a version of my kitty hood scarf, I’m going to have a little army soon.

Time to start packing, we leave for New York in less than 48 hours and I’m so excited. If anyone has any NY tips, please send them this way!

Last night, the few of us who were left in London went for a Christmas dinner at The Diner in Camden. I brought the remaining crackers from our tree so that we could tell jokes and wear crowns while we tucked in to our dinner of breakfast foods including pancakes, hash browns and waffles.

Tom’s boss gave us a copy of the London Nude Tech Calendar to hang up in the Mews, which has him naked on the inside cover.

After dinner we went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It was huge and filled with hundreds of stalls.

There was a chatting and singing moose, which Lynsey informed us we had to see.

We had cherry mulled wine and roasted chestnuts, which I had for the first time and thought tasted like nutty potatoes.

In other news, it’s looking quite snowy in the Mews.

I also made Tom a couple of RSS cushions to match the social-networking ones I had made on Sunday.

On Saturday we had a Christmas party at the Mews for our friends. We had mulled wine, mince pies, homemade eggnog and gingerbeer (which tasted better than the shop bought bottle that Lynz bought) and presents for everyone wrapped under the tree. I even made some presents…

including a hama bead 3D glasses necklace for Lynsey. I can now post the how-to and it’s here.

Before the party, Tom surprised me with a bag from Vivienne Westwood. My party outfit consisted of a black H&M dress, necklace from Forever 21, sparkly silver eyeshadow, my Vivienne Westwood horns…

and a new pair of Vivienne Westwood skull and crossbone earrings. They’re so sparkly and come in an indestructible box. Tom also got me an hour at Lucky Voice karaoke with up to 15 friends, which will be so much fun.

I gave Tom a whole bunch of geeky presents, including this Come In / Go Away ambigram doormat.

Twitter and Facebook mousepads.

iPhone application coasters.

… and yesterday I sewed him a set of social-networkig cushions. I’m making a pair of matching RSS ones for him today.

Emma gave Tom the best present though, which will be two pet goldfish when we get back from Scotland. We need to start thinking up names… any suggestions?

I also made a couple of squirrel brooches yesterday for the family – I hope they don’t look on here before xmas. Check out the how-to here.

I seem to craft so much faster when it’s cold outside. This week I finished my patchwork quilt, which I had started back in the summer. I had the bulk of the work finished in two days and then left it for months until Monday, when it was so cold, I decided to get it finished. It’s really cosy having the extra layer on the bed and it’s good to snuggle up with in front of the TV and knit.

It’s been another busy crafty week. I’ve finished knitting my scarf, but I want to add pockets and John Lewis have ran out of my shade of yarn, so I’ll have to wait until I’m back in Scotland to get some more. On Wednesday, Tom’s boss Malcolm was hosting an evening at the office, where he showed off the video of Hugh Grant shaving off his moustache. It was really funny and I’ll post it when it’s live.

Alex gave us an early Christmas present last night, which is a really pretty candle holder made out of a tree trunk.

We’ve been making eggnog and ginger beer for our December party this weekend. I’ve also finished my Christmas shopping, which I’m really happy about. I do more shopping in December than I do in the rest of the year.

I was sent a copy of Cath Kidston’s new book Sew! which comes with all the materials needed to make the bag on the cover. We’re doing a contest to win the book on CO+K, if anyone fancies a copy.

My new sewing machine was a dream to work with, so the bag came together very quickly! I’m calling it my Cat Kidston bag. There are currently 4 sewing machines in the Mews at the moment, I could start a sweatshop.

We got a postcard from Raven, who’s back in the US. She had an amazing WWF wrestler halloween costume. We miss her so much, but if everything goes smoothly, we’ll be flying out to see her in New Orleans for Mardis Gras in February.

I got a Tatty Devine cat bracelet which I love. It’s like the one in the photo but blue.

Things on CO+K are going really well. We’ve got a new publicist called Sally, who’s going to be trying to get us in to all the UK press and we’ve got talks with an advertising agency on Monday, so it’s all super exciting!

Had a lazy weekend shopping and drinking coffee. On Saturday we were at Westfield for their catwalk show. We got free hairspray and there was lots of black, leather and sequins.

We’ve been having “drive in movie nights”, where we pump up the air bed, put it on top of the sofa bed and watch movies on the big screen with poptarts.

We watched The September Issue (which is a documentary following Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue), I Am Legend (a rubbish version of 28 Days Later) and Batman & Robin, which I haven’t seen in years. I still love Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy.

Emma brought home my Bourjois order yesterday, I love all the colours.

Also, I’ve been using my new sewing machine quite a bit and my latest project was transforming a large Auld Reekie rollergirl’s t-shirt into a girly vest.

Sean posted a word cloud of his blog and I couldn’t resist doing one for mine too.

My grandparents are staying in a lovely little guest house near Little Venice, which has an adorable dog called Billy. I made everyone bagels and we went for lunch in the park this afternoon.

After lunch we caught a boat to Camden lock, it was a really nice day to be on the canal. The awesome Chinese boat in the photo is a restaurant that I really want to go to someday.

I’ve been in love with the Stables Market in Camden ever since Nick and Iain took me there in 2003, but at the moment it’s undergoing some serious redevelopment. I think I like what they’re doing with it, but one of the guys I spoke to thinks they’ve gone overboard with the metal horses.

We had a look around the markets for a few hours, grabbed hazelnut milkshakes and then caught the boat back to Little Venice. On the way home, I spotted my future dream house! It has it’s own pier and a huge willow tree. The lady on the boat said they go for around 30 million… time to start saving!

In the evening we went for dinner at Vapiano’s but I couldn’t wait to get home and play with my new sewing and embroidery machine. We freaked out a little when it arrived, when we realised it wasn’t suppose to work in the UK, but my Grandad had made an adaptor for my Mum’s old sewing machine (which was also American and from the 60’s) and it worked with the new one too.

It’s the most amazing machine ever and such an upgrade to my last one. It’s super easy to thread and it’s all automatic,which kind of takes this skill out of sewing. We spent the evening embroidering handkerchiefs with our names.

Yesterday I found fabric heaven, aka Goldhawk Road, a street filled with fabric stores. I’d been planning a winter coat for a while (specifications: furry hood and heart shaped pockets) and I managed to pick up the perfect red and black tweed fabric for it. Total cost for materials = £31.

Here’s what I’ve done so far. I just need to finish off the front, add buttons, button holes, pockets and sew in the lining fabric. The belt wont stay but I want to add a fabric rectangle at the back to pull in the waist. It’s going to be Little Red Riding Hood, meets aviator, meets Alice In Wonderland.

Every time I sew, I have this song in my head: