wishes and dreams garlands

I keep all my Anthropologie catalogs around for inspiration and like to keep them all intact but, also wanted to make some pretty paper garlands and just love all the colors and imagery in these pages. So, I used the pages where I didn't fancy the outfits that much and came up with these garlands which I am calling Wishes and Dreams. I had a little elf help me out with punching the circles. Actually, he willingly did almost all the punching . (It can be quite addictive). And, last night I sewed them and packaged them all up. I hung one on the mantle and brought a few to Mackey Blue this morning. They are about 6 feet long & make pretty sweet decor for the holidays.

more carefree clothes for girls

The white melton hat. I could not resist this project. Warm and cute.

And, black linen pants with vintage trim. These are not the pants from Carefree Clothes for Girls. They are a modified version of one in Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby which are too wide for my taste so I took them in quite a bit in the thigh.
I really want to do a dress next maybe the Cinderella one. All the projects in here are so tempting.

lace, linen, silver & gold

These are some of the ingredients that went into making this scarf from Carefree Clothes for Girls. I had so much fun putting this together down to the last piece where you make a ruffle and sew it on one end and add a jingle bell and buttons. You may remember this post where I showed you the back of the piece showing how the pure silver thread tangled up back.
It put to good use some of the vintage pieces like doilies and lace and buttons from my stash. It's a bit long on Scarlet right now but she loves it. So much to look at and all the lovely textures to feel. The melton wool it is backed with is very soft and gives the piece the body it needs. I may have to borrow this. Though I may be greeted with 'NO MINE' which is one of her favorite phrases these days. Along with 'meowing" of course.

letter from a penpal

Just for fun I thought I'd share a letter from a penpal written on August 10, 1986. This one is from Nicole in Australia. I wrote and received a lot of letters between 1981-1987. My family used to joke that I got the most mail in the house. These letters are like gold to me. I love them and I rarely take them out to read so that when I do it's like reading it for the first time again. This one almost made me pee my panties the other night perhaps because I was so tired or from having babies my bladder is weak but I laughed like crazy You will see! I hope it makes you laugh as much as it did me. I have left all typos and grammar exactly as it was written.
Nicole if you are reading this out there I hope this doesn't freak you out too much.
Oh, and by the way I never met any of my penpals




Dear Nancy,

Hi. How are you? All is fine here except my maths score (8/30 bad huh?)!!!) Right now I'm supposed to be studying hard ( hard is an under statement) Anyway I don't know if you got my last letter or not. Today at school we made soap in science. The stupid stuff felt like oil and stunk like beef lard. Gross! Today we had also had a demo of "cross" ( a game like hockey or polo) It's okay but it gets a bit boring. Do you have T.E. scores over there? (T.E. is Territory Enterance score if you didn't know) The higher the overall score is the higher the chance to get into college is. I'm feeling docile today. I just thought I'd write to say hi! Who is your fav. film and or tv star? Mine's Don Johnson. I love his song "Heartbeat." It's great. At the moment it's making it's way up the charts pretty damn fast. I could rave on about him forever. Do you realise that I've just written 4 lines about him. Do you like Wham! Did I tell you about Caboolture's " Peace Festival"? It's going to be a big 'un I've forgotten what I was going to write. Oh well, It's mustn't have been very important. Any pics of Don Johnson would be most appreciated. PLEASE!!!!!!!!! I'd better go I'm supposed to be studying.
Love + Peace
Nicole

P.S. Please send a photo
P.P. S Don Johnson's single "Heartbeat" is No. 26 on the charts AAAAAAAAHH!

highland heather wool socks

The last time I went on a vacation was in June 2006. I traveled with my husband, 7 month old son and my Mom to Scotland for a friends wedding. My brother, Christopher also met us over there. It was a wonderful trip and I have found myself thinking about this time in my life and trip recently. I really loved this year. There was a certain calm and newness to being a first time Mother, a little baby in my arms and a whole new life.

Having Scottish in my heritage I had always wanted to visit. I fell in love with the land. All that green! The rivers, mountains, castles & sheep grazing along the road. And, of course the cities and people.

While at the NYS Sheep and Wool this year I found myself attracted to this Peruvian Highland Heather wool. There was something about the shade, the richness of color so I bought one skein for 7 dollars not having a real plan in place for it.

About a month or so ago, I came across this pattern for My Basic Socks by Kit Zerbe. I was allerted to errata in the pattern by Claire and found the corrected version on Ravelry.

This yarn happened to be perfect for the pattern. It is soft and warm. A heavy sock that is good for wearing with boots or padding around the house. They also happen to remind me a lot of Scotland and the heather growing along the roads.

This is my first pair of handmade socks and were very easy to knit.

4

today little m is four.

he got his yellow cake with chocolate icing, sprinkles and a dinosaur on top. this boy can think and dream about cake for weeks, months even.

i think his favorite present so far would have to be the large rubber shark from uncle chris. he went to bed with it:)

molly's little purses

What little girl doesn't want to carry around a purse like her Mama?

My little one although only 21 months old loves to imitate me and I thought this purse created by the Purl Bee would make an excellent gift idea.

These are easy to whip up so if you are searching for a handmade gift to make a little girl for the holidays I think these are really sweet. You could make your own handles too if you don't have or want to purchase the ones suggested though I absolutely love these handles.

I plan to give it to her for Christmas filled with some sweet things like a needle felted animal or two, some animal stickers and a few other little treasures.

I am searching around for ideas for toys to make a 4 year old boy that I would enjoy making and a boy this age would like. Let me know if you have seen anything great. I would love to hear your suggestions. Thanks.

more sashiko

another sashiko sampler finished a while back



i still haven't decided if these are pillows or wall hangings. i wouldn't know how to frame them properly. any ideas?

bows and ascots

I've been feeling the big bows again so I made another one in red. This is a little smaller. I used an aran yarn again. This one is from Mission Falls.
And, I had this ascot style scarf on the list for a long time. It was my first time doing the sand stitch and this pattern is called the Anthro-Inspired Scarflette. One end weaves through a loop and I quite like it though I'm not sure I'm going to keep it. I may gift it for Christmas. I can always make another one. I made a few of these in child size over the summer but without the loop.
I love the vintage style of these designs.

the thanksgiving dress

I made this dress for Scarlet a few weeks ago anticipating November might be hectic. I love when I am on top of things.

I knew I wanted to make this Oliver + S pattern again since I loved making the first one which she wore for her 1st birthday.

I paired two fine whale corduroy fabrics together. The top one is from Joann's and not what I originally had in mind. I had planned on a lighter shade in velvet but the one I had was upholstery weight. Well, you know that wasn't going to work. The bottom is this gorgeous Liberty of London fabric I've had for about a year.

Well, I think my 'Plum Pudding' is going to love her dress. I'm so glad we are in the stage where I still get to pick out her clothes and am crossing my fingers she continues to like 'my style' until she is out of the house. I can dream

inventory

I've made a few more capelets this week for the craft show I will be doing on Saturday and I will make a few more tonight & tomorrow. I have enough stock for the show but I always panic before and make some new things. Even if they don't sell I guess it's good to have stock. This is always a debate for me. I have so many ideas of things I want to try out but, I don't want to have more stuff hanging around. Then there is pricing. Price to sell quickly or price it at what I feel it's worth which seem pretty reasonable. Decisions....

new mitts

Because my hands are always cold lately and the Toast catalog had pink mitts in it.
I think I could use a bunch more maybe some more Toast's and Toasty's.

This pattern is the Garter Stitch mitts by Ysolda. I made these in chartreuse last year

silver bunny

I thought I would share some texture images in recent knitting/sewing projects.

The pale peach flower I knit in angora yarn - three flowers knitted separately and then sewn together with vintage pearl beads. The fibers are so incredibly soft. I knit baby socks with this yarn in white once.

The pure silver thread stitched on a work in progress (the backside) is more fun to look at then the front. I love how they tangled; makes one thinks about metals fusing together

patchwork pillow

I made this pillow over the weekend. I am still attracted to the color scheme (neutrals with pops of color) of a tote I made once that I love and use all the time so I decided to turn it into a pillow.
In fact, I like the scheme so much that I started piecing together some bigger squares similar to this for a quilt. That would make 4 quilts in progress. I'm going to try very hard not to start anymore until I finish one but, not sure if I can do it. The amount of unfinished projects around here is growing.
As the squares didn't quite fit the pillow size I banded and backed it with some Katie Jump Rope I've been holding onto for a while now. One of the squares didn't match up perfectly as you can see but I still like it.


***Also, I want to mention that I will have a table at the Maplewood Women's Club Bazaar and Craft show this Saturday, November 7th 10-3. Would love to see any of you locals.