Winter's a Hoot

I know, I know, I've been a blog slacker lately. Does that make me a slogger? I don't think I can entirely blame being busy for my lack of posting, although I really have been quite busy (no more pear pictures for a while, I promise). I've been feeling a bit in the photographic doldroms lately, that is, not exactly having a love affair with my point-and-shoot camera. We've had our fun, of course, but it was never meant to be a long-term relationship. I've finally made the plunge in getting a digital SLR camera, meaning I need to relearn all that fun photography stuff I learned in high school and then promptly forgot when my old 35mm SLR camera died on a trip to Hawaii and was never replaced. My new camera is presently in the mail on its way to me, so hopefully I can unveil beautiful pictures taken with it early in the new year. In the meantime:

I've been making a few little owls:

There's just something about orange and gray that I can't resist

This little gal makes me smile:

And this one is made with some adorable ultra-retro prints:

You can find my owls here, and also at my shop.

We're gearing up for the holidays (lots of cookie-baking and cookie-eating, oh yeah, and some sledding and gift-wrapping--not many pictures, alas, camera woes) and loving this midwest winter. Stay warm (or cool, depending of course on where you are)!

Kim

Holiday Spirit

I'm definitely in the holiday spirit, but for some reason I've also been craving pink this year. Pink and green, to be exact. See, it started out when I walked past an adorable scalloped pink cake platter the other day while shopping. And then I walked by it again. I left the shop without it--it's terribly impractical, after all, especially around my kids--but I couldn't get it out of my head. So I finally went back to the store and bought it (it was on clearance, even, Score!). Then I was poking through my fabric stash and something pink caught my eye. And then something green, and more pink. Before I knew it, I had an armful of pale pink and green fabrics, spools of white ric rak and pink velvet ribbon, and an image in my head that I had to see in person. While I was making the pears, I watched this movie, which is not a good movie, at all, but the main character has the most fabulous vintage(y) green couch that I absolutely covet, and was wearing a gorgeous pink cardigan in the same scene. Anyhoo.

I was terribly excited when I had a plateful of pear ornaments, in all their pastel sugary goodness.

These pears will be available at my Hyenacart shop on Saturday, and in my etsy shop possibly next week. If you are unfamiliar with Hyenacart, it is a community for selling (primarily) handmade goods. The fees are minimal ($5.00 per month that you want to add new items in your cart, no listing fees or commission), your website is customizable, and it comes with a built-in base of customers who love to support handmade crafters and artisans! And the forums are some of the most positive and helpful I've ever visited.

And now I’m thinking I should have bought the bigger matching platter, too. Hmmm.

This one is my favorite

And now I'm off to devise a brilliant reason to buy the second cake dish, should it still be there....

Dreaming of a white Christmas,
Kim

And then there were three

First there were pear pincushions, next came the giant pear pillow, well now I've gone and made a mini-pear ornament! I adore the wonderful retro Michael Miller Christmas tree prints, and as I've mentioned before, I'm already feeling that holiday spirit so these fit the bill quite nicely. I plan to have pear ornaments available in my etsy shop as soon as I decide whether to sell them individually or in sets. What do you think? They're 4" tall and I can fit two in a box. Three is a nicer number for a set, though, alas...

My favorite part is the ric rac hanger. Love the ric rac. And now I need to go two things:

a) Go shut the back door. Somebody (the kids) seem to think that it's perfectly fine to leave the door open when it's 45 degrees outside.

b) Make a bunch more of these ornaments; I've got lots of Christmas prints and several yards of red ric rac begging to be put to use.

Happy Wednesday!
Kim

visions of sugarplums

Continuing in the trend of making things for my family, I've embarked on sewing a quilt for my elder son (to be followed, of course, by a quilt for the younger, although hopefully, unlike the afghan I started for him, fully complete and not just 3/4 of the way). Using the flock of triangles pattern from this book, I customized the fabrics to reflect his favorite things: lots of color, and lots of typefaces. Joey has been obsessed with books since infancy, so it was an easy decision to incorporate book inspired prints for his first quilt. Maybe it will keep him from removing all the clothes from his dresser drawers to read the fake antique newspaper printed on the drawer bottoms. Probably not, but a gal can dream.

Just a peek, because I haven't finished piecing it yet

I used 21 prints and solids for the quilt, which seemed daunting at first, but after making stacks from my fabric stash I ended up actually having to pare down the selection from about 35 prints. Michael Miller has this knack of using colors that go with practically everything, including many prints from other manufacturers. Amy Butler has the same knack, and you may be able to spot some of her polka dot prints in there as well.

Anyway, I hope to have both quilts finished in time for Christmas. I'm planning to have a homemade/handmade holiday this year and I'd love to hear about your handmade holiday plans, too! We finally gave up on the big tree with breakable ornaments--it just doesn't mix well with 4 dogs and 2 rowdy boys, so we're having a small tree (located way, way up high on a shelf), with homemade paper and fabric ornaments. There will be loads of paper snowflakes and other handmade decorations and hopefully plenty of real snow. And cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

Happy Holiday Dreaming!
Kim

A little of this, a little of that

We've lived at our new house for almost 3 months now, and though I can't claim to have unpacked all the boxes, at least I can say I have done something toward decorating the boys' playroom. Inspired by this bookshelf, I found a cube shelving unit and fabric boxes at Target, some ridiculously inexpensive vintage children's books on ebay, paintbrushes and Mod Podge from a local craft shop, a sunny day, and went for it.

There isn't very much natural light down in the basement, but you get the idea.

I didn't fuss with painting the bookshelf, mostly out of laziness, though I imagine I will end up having to do so in the future when the boys ding this one up, as is the fate of all of our furniture.

Their favorite part? Pulling out the bins to see if there are pictures behind them. (again, and again, and again, in fact they immediately pull the bins out every single time Mommy puts them on the shelves...)

Tomorrow's Lesson: Putting the Bins Back on the Shelves

Also finished this week, a drawstring backpack I made for a trade

The bag is fully lined, the pocket has a button closure, and I got to use one of my favorite fabric combos ever, Amy Butler's Linen Morning Glory and Cherry Full Moon Polka Dot prints. I love how the polka dots travel diagonally on the bias trim

Well, it's a lovely fall day and the swingset beckons....Hope everyone has an autumn-y week!

Tagged!

Yay, I've been "tagged"! I love reading fun facts about crafty bloggers, and now I get to share a few things with you and hopefully learn something new about some other gals who blog, thanks to BackwoodSophisticate. The rules are below:

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share seven facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.
3. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

My list of random facts:

1. I was a bit of a sprinting/jumping prodigy in middle school; 100m, 200m, long jump, and 4x100 relay.
2. I didn't like going to fabric stores until college. Now I can't stop fabric shopping.
3. I love blackberry cobbler.
4. I don't eat tomatoes. Except BBQ sauce. I craved BBQ potato chips when I was pregnant with my first kiddo, but only the ruffled kind.
5. My eyes change colors. They are somewhere between grey, green, and blue. My husband calls them "mood eyes".
6. I'm allergic to cats.
7. I have lived in 20% of the states in the United States: Washington, Colorado, Minnesota, California, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, New York, Oregon, Georgia, and Wisconsin (yes, in that order--and an even more impressive tidbit: my parents were not in the military, nor on the run from the authorities)

Here are the 7 people that I'm tagging:

Amy Crankypants
Kirsten kirsten*can
Joyce Joyce Makes Art
Jennifer Deckled Edge Bindery
Maria Made By Maria
Crystal Crysto
Leah Whiffy Bean Bags

Fun News

I'm excited to share that my products can now be found at the Indie Fixx Shop! If you click on the picture below you'll land right on the page with my goodies.



Make sure to browse around--there are lots of incredible finds at Indie Fixx. There are so many items that are perfect for holiday gifts (I just adore this birdie brooch, these tea towels, this adorable sketch book...oh who am I kidding, I love it all!) so you can even shop guilt free, because it's for somebody else!

Have a happy Tuesday!
Kim

Swaps and Storybooks

I belong to a cozy little swap group and for a fun challenge, we decided to do a "Try a New Craft" swap. It was certainly tough to narrow down all the crafts that I wanted to try, but as soon as I had a glimpse of The New Crewel by Katherine Shaughnessy, I knew I wanted to do a crewel project. I absolutely fell in love with the ruby shoots design, so I ordered the kit and got right to work the day it arrived in my mailbox.

The needlework was a relaxing way to spend a few afternoons on the couch, and the entire design uses only the split stitch, something you are probably familiar with if you have done some embroidery before. But what to make it into? So many possibilities! I eventually decided to do a patchwork bag, which, if you're anything like me, involved making piles and piles of fabric to determine what prints to use. I'm pretty sure that about half of my stash ended up on the ironing board at some point (that's where I play around with fabric combinations) and finally settled on a pretty strict red and white theme. At one point I threw a little more green in there than you'll see on the end product, and decided it looked a bit too Christmassy--not that there's anything wrong with that--but I hoped to make the bag a little more versatile than for one week in December. It may still be a bit on the Christmassy side, what do you think?

I normally plan out the patchwork and things are pretty symmetrical, but I did a bit of improvising this time, switching out prints as I went along. There was a lovely moment when I happened to place the gingham print next to Little Red Riding Hood and realized how perfectly they worked together.

I don't know why, but Miss Riding Hood has always captured my imagination. When I was a young lass, I would lug an enormous volume of fairytales to bed each night and read until the wee hours of the morning. Mom and Dad never seemed to mind, so thanks to you two for never making me hide under the covers with a flashlight and a book! In any case, I'm a sucker for Japanese fairytale fabrics, especially this adorable one--check out the wolf peeking out from behind the tree. Love it!

the back...

The curly red shoots evoke a kind of fairytale forest feeling, and the wool embroidery thread creates such a lovely barky texture, so perfect for the "trees".

Learning about a new craft was incredibly fun and I sure hope my swap buddy likes it! I can't wait to see what everyone else made for their partners. Now off to dream of future embroidery projects...

Hope everyone had an inspiring weekend!
Kim

Pearfection

It took a few more (okay WAY more) drafts than expected, but I am finally in love with the result of this giant custom pear pillow for a gender neutral childrens' room

I used Ginseng home dec fabrics from Joel Dewberry and a corduroy stem. I'm a bit of a late bloomer in coming around to home dec weight fabrics, but I'm now officially hooked. And a lovely discovery it is as it opens up a whole new world of fabric obsession/collecting for me.

This project was more of an undertaking than I first realized, but not in a bad sort of way. All I can say is that pattern drafting (at least on a larger 3D scale) is not for the faint of heart or easily discouraged. But it's worth it when you get the outcome you were aiming for.

Thanks to those who were so encouraging on this project, I hope to soon have some of these giant pears available in my shop.

Kim

Not an unhappy post.

I was going to have one of those depressing posts where I complained about how the words "Get down off of the piano" came out of my mouth no fewer than 50 times in the course of an hour this morning, and my being irked about how our incredibly slow school district took two weeks to send me a letter indicating that I needed to register my son for school after my calling and speaking to an actual person, back when there was plenty of time, asking what I needed to do to get special services set up for my son, and he now has missed a full week of school after having received no services over the summer because of our moving across the country.

But instead I decided to play with my new pears.

So pretty. So carefree.

They like sitting in their new cherry colander. You can get a pear for yourself here tomorrow.

It was time that I started making the pincushions in different prints, although some of the old stand-bys are there too. I even made a ginormous pear after a request to make a large pillow-sized cushion for a child's room.

This isn't the custom pear, but one I did for practice (okay, maybe I thought the giant pear idea was so cool that I needed to have a one for my work room). I enlarged my pincushion pattern by about 400%, and it turned out a bit squatty, but still very pear-like. I knew this would happen, as just simply enlarging a pattern makes it all wonky with the out-of-proportion seam allowances, etc., etc., but I do think it turned out cute. I'll post the custom pear later this week when it's finished.

Oh, and completely off-topic, but relevant to current events, please register to vote if you haven't already! I'm doing so today, even though in Wisconsin you can register to vote in person up to the day before an election (how awesome is that?!). Check with your state/county (I Googled "How to register to vote in...") to find out how.

Have a Happy Monday!
Kim