Free Stocking Pattern

I know I've gushed about her before, but I simply adore Denyse Schmidt.  I'm pretty sure we would be fast friends and share ideas with each other and stay up all night sewing together.  We'd paint each other's fingernails and braid each other's hair - wait - that is my dream of what it would be like to have a sister - forget that last part....  She has done it again, not only has she created the MOST beautiful handmade stockings, but she is giving away the pattern for FREE.

This is such a great pattern, because like all of her designs, it is really open to personalizing it just for you and your kiddos!

Love it.  Oh please let me know if you make them!  I really want to, but I'm already running out of time with what I have to get done before Christmas!

West Elm Has Free Holiday Printables!

West Elm has free printables! So great!  This is the Botanical Suite for gifting:

 

 There are four suites:  Botanical, Animal, Snowflake, and Graphic, and all four come in the gifting option like I've shown, as well as an entertainment package with menu cards, labels and place cards.  Great idea!

A Pillowcase Craft for the Girls.

A princess who is about to sit on a pea, really needs a pillow.  And a princess who is going to have a pillow, really should be able to decorate it herself so she will always remember the super fun party she attended with her darling friends.  I thought, "how EASY!  I'll just whip up a simple pillow case for each girl!"  It turned into more of a project than that, but I think they ended up great, and it was worth it!  A simple pillowcase just wasn't enough, so I found a pattern I had in a book here to do a "flange pillow cover" sort of like this.  I have a ton of extra muslin, so I made all of the pillows out of it.  I didn't have as many large pieces as I thought, so I ended up sewing strips together to MAKE the large squares... = time consuming, but free.  We bought 10 little blue pillows from IKEA that are about $1 a piece.  These say they are 14"x14" but the ones I used were 13" square if that is possible.  I made one 19.5"x19.5" square, and two 19.5"x13" rectangles for each pillow.  The two rectangle pieces each got a double hem (that is my term for pressing 1/4" under, then again, and sewing a line down the second turn), then the two hemmed pieces are sewn right sides together to the large rectangle, and that is it!  Here is the "double hem":

I pressed all of the remaining pillows (after my prototypes) at once, then sewed all of the hems:

After sewing all of the pieces together, the directions said to mark a border around each pillow to sew along for the flange, but that is way too complicated for me.  I seemed to have trouble remembering that half inch on the 19 1/2 inch side, so the pillowcases were all a little off.

I solved that by making a template out of muslin the size of the pillows and pinning it to each finished case - I just eyeballed the placement, then topstitched around it for the "flange".

First I thought we'd use some puff paint sort of pens, but they were SO gloppy and sputter-y and would take SO long to dry, so I went for these great pens instead.  I found glitter pens and solid colors and they were very easy for them to use.  The pens said it would take 4 hours to dry, so we did them first thing (after a couple of minuts, though, they were fine to touch.)

Here is sweet Miss T. showing her finished pillow.

And here is a final pillowcase WITH a pillow inside.  A friend of mine said she had girls decorate pillows for the birthday girl - so the birthday girl got to keep them all and adorn her new day bed.  I think that is a great idea, too!

A perfect pillow for a princess to avoid any errant peas.

Word To My Peeps...

My father-in-law loves Peeps. Every year, my mother-in-law buys a couple of packages, opens them, and puts them away until Easter. Easter morning, they are crunchy - sort of like a Lucky Charms marshmallow - just the way he likes them!

I received this book from my dear friend Susy for my birthday - I LOVE IT! It is SO well done - who knew Peeps could be used in so many ingenious ways?? She uses the funny little marshmallow candies beautifully, and really, the recipes are great - Peeps or no Peeps! We'll be pulling this book out every year for our Easter celebrations.

Handmade Birthday Gifts

Miss Mae and I went to a birthday party for two of her sweet little friends last weekend. The invitation asked not to bring gifts, but Miss Mae wanted to draw them a picture. We took it one step farther and made these little notebooks for them. Since my husband's office has boxes and boxes of paper for recycling, we used it, the drawings, some lovely paper Miss Mae picked out, a plastic cover, and had it all spiral bound on the top end. We tied one end of a pretty ribbon to the end of the spiral binding, the other end to a pencil, and we have a great "to go" notebook. When the pencil is tucked into the spiral, the ribbon forms a handle - perfect for little ones to carry along.

A Taste of Summer

A Taste of Summer
Originally uploaded by marnus72

Here is our raspberry vodka all bottled up! I posted about this previously - we got fresh raspberries at our farmer's market and started this back in September. Half of these are infused vodka (no sugar) and the other ones are liqueur (WITH sugar) but you can't see the difference at all. They both taste JUST like biting into a fresh raspberry - with a BITE!

I printed the labels on my computer and dressed them up a little with a bow. The ornament is one of the cinnamon ones we made with the kids.

I finally opened a flickr account, that explains my formatting here... Not sure I like it. I need to do a lot more investigating, but don't have the time right now. I'm working on a neeeeew project!!

Christmas Sewing with "Sewing With a French Twist"

I did make some lovely things from this beautiful book:Simple Sewing with a French Twist: An Illustrated Guide to Sewing Clothes and Home Accessories with Style
The reviews seem to really be mixed about the book. Some say the projects are too easy, some say it is great inspiration. I've not sewn many things from patterns, so I'm not a good judge of the easiness factor, but every page is just dreamy - her style really is impeccable. I wish I were the sort of woman who wore trench coats with butterflies aloft, and berets, and had cafe table linens... I admit, though, that it surprises me that someone would write out how to take the cover off of your EXISTING market cart, lay it on fabric, and make a new one, but I guess if you are trying to fill a book... Coming from my architectural background, I wish that the instructions weren't her chicken scratched drawings, although they are better than some I've seen. And the four things I've made seem miniature compared to her photos. I thought the bean bag chairs I was making for my kids would be BEAN bag chairs, when really they are sort of bean bag STOOLS. They actually use them more as propped up pillows when lounging.

My parents do a lot of traveling, so I made the "his" and "hers" laundry bags for them. I thought they could roll them up in their suitcases, and use them as they go. The "hers" bag is the one below with the sort of ruffled top. I'm very pleased with how they turned out. They each took me about 3 or 4 hours start to finish. To have a stack of fabric and two days later these lovelies is a wonderful feeling!

Let's Stay Home and MAKE things!

We've been a bit house bound since before Christmas due to our "Arctic Blast 2008". I'm not kidding. That is what the news channels were calling it. My husband and I are always making up names for little things like this: Family Ski Trip 2007, or Visiting Family STORM 2005... I even threw a shower for my friend one year and the whole thing was "Sinsel Baby Shower 2006". I couldn't wait to hear what they would call this, "Arctic Blast" 2008 was SO great - much better than the "Snow Storm 2008" I was expecting.

I'm from Alaska, but I still wasn't interested in driving in the mess of our streets. Where I grew up the streets were plowed before we woke up in the morning, and my dad would plow our driveway while we were getting ready and before we left the house. Here a dusting of snow causes people to freak out. We had 19". NINETEEN INCHES. i think they make a big gulp that tall. We did have some pretty amazing drifts from the snow, and there seems to be no system for clearing the streets here as it is basically NEVER necessary. We've lived here over 12 years and have only seen it snow a couple of times, and it is almost always gone by morning. Our nineteen inches of snow basically shut down the city. People were driving down the streets the wrong way, driving down the MIDDLE of the streets, blowing through red lights, WALKING down the middle of the road with cars stopped behind them, then later driving 50 on the freeway with their CHAINS ON. For REALS.

We stayed in and made things! Cookies, ornaments, Christmas presents, cards... We had family with us, lots of bustle and hustle and NOISE and fun and love. Here are a few of the things we made. The cookies were SO good. They are from my all time favorite cookbook The New Basics Cookbook
Everything I've made from this cook book over the last 20 years has turned out perfectly. I'm obsessed (yes, I'm sick of hearing people say they are obsessed with things, too, but it is late and I can't think of a better way to describe it) with refrigerator cookies right now. How great is it to have a roll of dough in the fridge all ready to slice and pop in the oven? I don't have to spend the whole afternoon baking, I can just bake one sheet and be done. I also made these a couple of weeks ago, and rolled them in candied ginger, brightly colored sugars, and rolled them out and layered them with yummy jam.
We also used Martha's instructions for making Cinnamon Applesauce ornaments. As we were decorating the tree, my 3 year old daughter was reading the names on the ornaments, and there were a disproportionate amount with H names to the M names. H made some of these in his preschool class two years ago, so we made lots more, had a great time doing it, and Miss Mae will have lots of ornaments made by her on our tree! Obviously we didn't use the bird templates.We'll run some ribbon through them and have them ready to hang on the tree next year. They were very easy to make and smell wonderful! The instructions say to roll them to 1/4" thick, but I think 1/2" would have been better. And make sure you keep flattening them as they tend to curl!

Snow Days

Why is it that when we are snowed in, and I'm forced to stay home, I seem to get LESS done? The kids don't have school today due to the winter STORM... And I feel like I'm chasing my tail trying to keep up with the house. I finally sent them downstairs so I could work on the main floor. On Monday they were home, too, and I let them go play outside by THEMSELVES. My son is 6 for crap sake, he should be able to play outside alone, but it scares me to death. I just think about all the horrible things that could happen to them with out me by their side. The freezing cold weather helped me overcome my fears. Too cold for me! I grew up in Alaska where I would wear miniskirts in the winter, and was mortified to have to wear boots with them (uggs were SO not cool then. wait, are they now??), but now, the snow is only fun if i have skis strapped to my feet!

Because of the crappy economy, and baby number three in our household, our Christmas is being WAAAAY scaled back this year. I've decided to MAKE gifts for my parents and the kids. The kids main gifts from Santa are going to be bean bag chairs that I'm making from Simply Sewing with a French Twist. They are sort of squarish instead of a big circle. At our house, Santa's gifts are not wrapped, but set around under and on the tree. This means the kids can't know I'm making them, and I have to work on them after bedtime and when they are in school. DID I MENTION THE SNOW DAYS WE ARE HAVING?? ugh. Christmas is getting close!
I'll take pictures as i go and post them. I've had this book forever and never made anything out of it. It'll be fun to see if I can make something from her notes and tiny drawings. I've never made anything from instructions without a pattern. And I'm going to try REALLY hard to just follow her directions. I usually get caught when I try to change everything and then don't have the directions to get me out of the hole I've dug myself!

Okay, back to cleaning my house!!

Poinsettia Brooches Finished

I finished these. They were so fun to make! I wish I would have made more. I wasn't sure how time intensive they would be, and I needed 25 for swag bags for the Holiday Shopping Soiree where we'll have a booth on Saturday, so I only made 30. I'm definitely going to make some different flowers for after the holidays, as well.

Poinsettia Pins

Here they are! I'm so happy with how they turned out! They were really easy to make - well, I'm not finished yet, but putting the first bits together went pretty fast! I was setting aside a LOT of time to make these! I cut out squares of red and green, then cut them into the shapes, then felted them together. Now I'm going to sew some gold beads in the middle, and sew on the pin backing, and they'll be done! I think they'll look just lovely on a warm coat, or a crisp white shirt. I'm going to attach one of these to one of our poem cards with a 15% off coupon for the swag bags for the show I'm doing December 6th.

Thank You Gifts

The sweet kids in Mr. H's class made a beautiful poster when Baby O. was born. Each one signed it, and I know it will be a real treasure when they are older and look back at their kindergarten scrawlings. We have it hanging in Baby O.'s bedroom (even though he has yet to sleep in there...). We were so touched we decided to put together a little thank you gift for the kids. Each one of these little bundles has two tulip bulbs in it. I used tissue paper I already had cut into squares from Miss Mae's birthday party, ribbon from Patty's baby shower, and stickers I bought on a whim and hadn't used yet. I'm happy with how they turned out, and I hope the kiddos all go home and plant the bulbs so that next spring they'll remember Baby O.'s birth!

Raspberries for Christmas!!

I grew up in Alaska, and would visit my grandparents in Eastern Washington in the summer. My grandparents had this AMAZING garden that just knocked my socks off. As I remember, we grew rhubarb and chives. I think those were about the only edible things that came out of the ground in Valdez... To see the climbing walls of sweet peas, or pick big fat orange carrots out of the ground, or spend the afternoon in the strawberry patches was just heaven. There seems to be a gene in my family - that green thumb gene - that has inexplicably SKIPPED me. My grandparents had it, my mom has it, my brother had it. ME? Thanks to the Portland climate and my husband, things outside don't DIE, but they don't exactly thrive like they did under the guidance of my family members. The smell of that fresh dirt on the carrots will stay with me forever. I'm not sure if it was my mom or my grandfather, but someone always made a great special event out of bringing in this bounty. One such event was carrot people made from the carrots and toothpicks - stubby little guys with nice fat thighs, one was allowing us to choose what we would do with the buckets of raspberries we'd picked. I think my brother made jam. I sat down and ate a bowl of fresh berries with cream and sugar. EVERY time I eat a fresh raspberry that creamy sweet memory floods my senses.

This weekend the Hollywood Farmer's Market had GORGEOUS fresh raspberries, and i couldn't resist. The smell of fresh raspberries is just intoxicating, and I think opening a bottle of raspberry liqueur in the middle of winter to that smell will be wonderful! Making flavored vodkas or liqueurs or cordials takes a good 3 to 4 months, so this is perfect for the taste as well as getting it done before the baby makes his appearance and our lives are turned upside down again. We've made some great infused vodkas and liqueurs over the years, from a great recipe from the middle ages for a spiced liqueur to cranberry orange, to plum, and they are all about the same process: fruit, vodka and sugar or no sugar. I was looking for a good recipe for these berries, and found two versions - one that will sit for three months WITH the sugar, and one that will just infuse the vodka for 3 months and add a simple syrup after 3 months. We'll see which one turns out the best.

raspberry liqueur with sugar - This is from the blog of a lovely woman living the dream life in the English countryside - I can't get enough.

This is an example of adding sugar at the end - this one used lemon zest and glycerin - I didn't.

We also increased the quantities HUGELY. Hopefully we'll have enough for Christmas presents for all - SURPRISE!