It's Party Time!*

Sweet Table Settings: Check

Pretty Birthday Girl: Check

Uncle Aaron on Trampoline: Check

Party Crown: Check

Uncle Rhys enjoying tea with the kiddies: Check

*Said in the same manner MC Hammer says "It's Hammer Time!"

Happy Hooking

I have always liked the granny square. There is something modern in its simplicity. I think anyway. I'm certainly not that last word (or any word...) on what is cool or modern, but it is something that seems to translate well in all sorts of styles. I was never a huge Rosanne fan as a kid, I wouldn't even say I am a fan now, but one thing I always thought was cool was the granny square blanket on the back of their couch. It was so homey and normal, but not really something that I thought would work in my world. It wasn't till I noticed the granny square blanket on the couch in Rory's dorm room, on Gilmore Girls (yes, I watch too much TV, shut up) that I realized I could totally make granny squares work for me. Hers was done in rainbow yarn, which was a major 'duh' moment. Most of the blankets I had seen had the colored squares, bordered in black. While cool, not quite for me. Fun, bright colors-totally for me!

I am not always one to follow the rules for my crafts, but for some reason it just never occured to me to make a GS blanket in anything other than bright colors, bordered by black. Probably because part of me really does like that look, I'm just not sure that I want to live with it. The photo above is the yarn I am using, all from my stash. I wasn't sure that I would like the way they came together, but as you can see below, they are darling and completely fun!

I forgot how long it takes to make a granny square. I made these three last night while watching Tivo'd tv with the hubs. I made three more this morning and now my Monkey boy wants to learn how to make a blankie. I had started out this project thinking I'm make a blanket for the back of the couches in our living room, but now I'm thinking maybe I'll try to make little coverlets for each of the kids beds in their room. The colors are pretty much exactly what I am doing their room in when we get to it. Won't they be darling with one bordered in pink and one in blue on each of their little beds? And I'll make them each little Stichette pillows...

Oh and check out all the granny square love...

Alicia - hers is all minty and lovely.

Posy - explore her whole blog, she has several granny square blankets and all are gorgeous!

Flickr - Join us if you want to Crochet along! Or if you have made a granny square in the past and want to show off your work.

Dollhouse Dreams

Today I am dreaming of dollhouses. I never had one as a little girl. Not a real one anyway. I got all the furniture for Christmas one year, but we never got around to building the house to go with it and I just played with the furniture in shoeboxes, anyway, so it didn't really matter. I did always want one, though.

I have decided that for my sister's upcoming birthday I want to build a dollhouse with her. We'll do it now and by the time her birthday rolls around in March, she'll be able to take her completed dollhouse home. At first we were going to buy a dollhouse, but they are sooooo expensive (the one I want is anyway!), so Aaron and I decided to make our own from wooden boxes he'll build for us.

Noelle's House

This morning we sat down and designed the floorplans of our houses. I am ashamed to say that mine looks like a child drew it, but, hey, we can't all be good at everything, right? Sister's is a house for a little bear family, mine is a booksop on the first floor and studio apartment on the second, with a little attic. Now that the plans have been "drafted", Aaron can get to building!

My booksop. The door will be straight!

Vintage Sewing

I have just started buying vintage patterns. So far I have mostly bought little girls patterns because I hope to make my peanut girl her clothes when she is a bit older. Little girls clothes in the 50s and early 60s are so sweet! The adult patterns I intend to make some collages with and frame some for my sewing room. In my head the collages look really cute, I hope they translate as cute on paper.

The two patterns on the ends are from Amanda. Thanks, honey!

How cute are these sailor suits?? I promise not to make

one for my son. That would be awful!

I also just signed up to participate in Tie One On, which I am so excited about! I found a couple patterns I want to try and my "valentiney" fabric, so I am ready to go. I choose the cherries fabric because I didn't see any Valentine fabric at my Joann's store that wasn't cheezy. And my kitchen is done with vintage cherries and fruit, so I thought the cherry fabric would be kinda cute.

PS. All you experienced sewers out there-should I trace the vintage patterns onto new pattern tissue or should I try to use what is in the envelopes? The sizes aren't a big deal because she'll need to grow into all of them.

A Girly Chandelier



One of the chandeliers I made yesterday was destined for my friend's daughter. Stacey was kind enough to take pictures of it and send them to me so I could post them. Her pictures are so much better than mine!

January and other Beginnings

January just begs for clean starts dosen't it? I always used to hate January when I was younger. To me it was just the begining of long, dreary, cold days until the weather perked up in April-May-ish. I hated the weather, I hated the lack of holidays centering around food and/or gifts and I hated the clothes. Yes, I was vain enough in those days to be all worked up that I had to cover up my cute little bod in jeans and sweaters. Ha! The clothes are numero uno on my list of why I like January these days. Numero Dos is that we get a clean start for the year.

I am one who dosen't mind making resolutions. Probably because I use the term veeeeerry losely. The only thing that I truly resolve to do is try. I make no promises to myself or anyone else that I will be sucessful and so there is no pressure or dissapointment associated with my resolutions for the year. Okay. Maybe there is a teensy bit of dissapointment on my side, but not enough to dissuade me from making a new list each year.

One of the things we have resolved to do this year is to be more healthy. For the last few years we have made slow progress to this end. We have switched to brown rice and whole wheat instead of white. We have cut down on our intake of sweets and tried (with little sucess, I'm afraid) to exercise more. This year we are going to go organic.

Photo from localharvest.org

We recently heard of something called Community Supported Agriculture. Through CSA's suburban and urban areas can recieve farm-fresh deliveries of produce, grains, breads and flowers to their door or a drop off site in their neighborhood. And the best thing is that CSA's can be just as affordable as the grocey store and in some cases more so. Plus you get the freshest fruits and vegetables the farms have to offer and get to try varieties that you otherwise might not. This is all very exciting to me and entertaining to my husband because I am ridiculously preoccupied by the thought of fresh salad greens, summer tomatoes and spaghetti squash.



If you want to look into this (and you do, I promise!) for your area there is a CSA diectory at LocalHarvest which has listings of CSAs all overthe US. Plus they have a natural products store that is pretty fun to look at. Hope you find something in your area!

Elves have been busy at our house....

Baking and
Decorating and

Wrapping and

Embellishing Snowflakes and

Wrapping our Snowflakes and

Sewing Christmas Jammies and

Making 1st Christmas Ornaments and

Making Hairpins and

Fancy Brooches and

Now this is what my craft room looks like! I'm almost done with all the projects I listed earlier and as usual I added a few last minute projects. Why I do that I have NOOO idea. SOmeday I'll stop!

What I have been working on...

A bouquet of future hairpins and brooches...

A yummy scarf.

I didn't make these. Nope, my eight year old sister did! I love that she makes things and I love even more that she saved the best ones for me!! My mother tried really really hard to get them, but my sister insisted they were made especially for me. Isn't that just the best?

Swap Pins

Corduroy primitive pin with a bird emdroidered on. The back of the oin in the smae as the fabric in the background.

Patchwork square flower with vintage and new button trim. I adore these pins. They are fun to make and sooooo fun to wear!

Simple Croched Flower with button trim. Next time I think I will mount it onto green felt leaves. It needs that extra oomph, I think.

None of the pictures came out very good. I have a small camera and I just haven't mastered the light in my house yet. I took them in my sewing room, but I think my kitchen gets the best light, but if I am going to take pictures in there regularly then I need to keep it clean regularly!

Thinking Pink! (and purple, too)

My pink care package arrived in the mail the other day, making me so very very happy! My swap partner, Velleitypie, nailed me perfectly, from the outside of the box and mailing labels, to the buttons and rick-rack and embroidery floss inside. It felt like Christmas!! Thank you so much, Jen, you are wonderful! I also finally mailed my package today (bad girl, waiting till the last day!) so I hope my swap partner enjoys the pinkness. It was really too much fun putting those together. I'll also be mailing off the brooches from the Brooch swap this week. Check your mailboxes gals!

Since I had so much fun receiving/making those packages I made a purple themed one for my best friend in St. Louis. I have been missing her a ton lately, so I hope she really enjoys the purple care package that is coming her way. It was packed with so much love! expect more coming soon, darling friend! A Blue themed box is sputtering up there in my brain...or coffee theme...or...or...