I’ve made up a new batch of kiddy messenger bags for my shop, but the one you see above (on my cute little girl) can be yours for free! Cassie at the awesome Crafty Crow is giving it away and you still have time to put your name in the hat. Just in case you don’t win (I never do) you can hop over to the shop and take your pick.
and remember there are only a couple more days left to sign up for mobile swap 2009!
I suppose I should have posted this yesterday, seeing as 2008 is now over, but I’ve been busy doing absolutely nothing. This week has been post holiday recovery. I finished everything I had to do by the time we left to go to Grandma’s house for Christmas and then I promptly got the flu Christmas eve, so I could barely enjoy it. Poo. I’ve actually heard of a few other people getting sick on Christmas this year–maybe we’re stressing out a bit much about Christmas these days? maybe next year everyone will get a kiss and a pat on the back. Anyway, things are slowly getting back to normal: the tree is on the way to the curb and the kids have stopped asking about the advent calendar everyday. And though we did whoop it up with hors d’oeuvres and chocolate milk at 5:30pm last night, the new year came in pretty quietly. This is the time of year when I am very happy to have a blog, because I can look back and actually see some of what I accomplished this year. I was never the sort of person who could keep a journal past January or remember what happened last week, much less last year, so it’s nice to be reminded that sometimes I can get shit done and sometimes it’s not half bad. Most, if not all, of this stuff would have never come to be if it wasn’t for you, dear readers. It still seems silly to me that someone I’ve never met can say something nice about my work and it pushes me to make more and better things. Before I started this blog, I thought my creative vein had dried up, but somehow you keep inspiring me to push through those crappy creative dry spells and keep making. Thank you, thank you. I wish you boundless creative energy and piles of amazing vintage fabric (for cheap!) in the new year.
Happy New Year!
…a few warm things I made for the kids so far this winter. The scarves are made from the sleeves of an old felted cashmere sweater and the kids love them because they are so soft. The flannel pillowcases were supposed to be their St. Nicholas day presents, but I completely forgot about St. Nicholas day. So they were whipped up in 10 minutes on St Nicholas night right before bedtime. A couple french seams and a big hem and voila! a custom pillowcase. I might make some linen ones for myself after Christmas. And the hat is from an old Martha Stewart pattern. I’ve used the pattern a bunch of times before, but the sizing is always tricky. I set out to make one hat and suddenly the whole family has them. Usually I just make them from felted sweaters, but for this one I made two hats (one from a sweater and one from an old stripey knit shirt) then fit them together right sides facing, sewed around the edge, turned it out, topstitched and ta da.
It’s giveaway day (thanks to sewmamasew) and I’m giving away this little people bag. It’s a drawstring bag made of muslin with vintage inspired little people appliqued on the front. Tell a joke, tell me what you ate for breakfast, ramble on and on, whatever, just leave a comment if you’d like to win the bag. There are a ton of blogs giving away all kinds of stuff today, so go forth into the internet and win all your christmas presents.
*edited to add: the drawing will end at 8am central time tomorrow december 4th.
THE CONTEST HAS ENDED, BUT STICK AROUND THERE’S LOTS TO SEE HERE.
Ta da! The advent calendar is done, well pretty much done. It’s a string of chirstmas lights. One of you guessed correctly! But there were some good ideas out there: an advent abacus, a ferris wheel. Next year. There are only twenty lights, but I figure I’ll save some making for next christmas or add them if I have time this month (ha!). There are treats in the bulbs and the lights fit in their little sockets, but they aren’t held in by anything–just the power of felt. This calendar is for lightweight treats only or bits of paper with sugarless activities on them. I went with candy because my kids are still young enough to think it’s the best thing in the universe.
I’d be happy to write up a quick tutorial (with patterns) if there are a lot of you that would like to make one. It’s not difficult at all. The hand sewing is a little time consuming, but it’s nothing a few movies won’t fix. If you sewed the bulbs on it would make a nice Christmas decoration for this year (or next). If you’d like to see more pictures of it you can click here and here. And there are lots more fantastic calendars here and here.
