Wee Wonderfuls

Christkindlmarkt

Oh how I wish I was in Nuremberg right now for their huge annual Christmas fair! I've been obsessed with German Christmas ornaments this year. This looks like heaven to me...

from the Christkindlmarkt official site...

from the Christmas in Today's Germany that I checked out from the library...

"Walking through the Nuremberg market is a delightful experience for everyone, but children seem to enjoy it most of all. More than 100 booths fill the marketplace, each bright with Christmas lights. Vendors offer roasted almonds and chestnuts, gingerbread houses, smoked sausage, wonderful toys and trinkets, and all types of wooden nutcrackers. Holiday music fills the air, and the scent of fir trees is all around. This great fair truly offers something for every visitor."

Sausage and ornament shopping...sign me up!

But since international travel is not in my near future I spent all last night window shopping online for German ornaments. I'm procrastinating from all these tasks piling up in front of me, this ridiculous decorate-my-apartment-with-cut-paper idea which is going to take FOREVER, all of the over ambitious handmade Christmas presents I'm planning and of course this baby clothes quilt which has to be finished in 5 days! Instead I spent hours seeking out the cutest pyramids, arches, music boxes, figurines and of course ornaments. I think I'll have to try that "more" feature because there are just way too many!

New Design

Tim made me a new layout for Winter. I love it so much! Makes me happy and puts me in a great holiday mood. Helps me ignore the fact that there is absolutely no snow left outside and it's raining.

Oscar's birthday party is going to be at Grandma's house so it's safe to start decorating for Christmas around here. Time to get cutting for our paper christmas. We need about a gazillion snowflakes, some paper garlands, wreaths, etc. Our reference material arrived last week (Elf DVD) & I have a stack of Christmas magazines to go through. Here are some of Martha's instructions for paper snowflakes...

I hope this turns out well. It was heartbreaking to unpack the Christmas boxes and leave all the ornaments behind.

the snow

The snow did come on Wednesday and it was beautiful! I guess because it was so windy and because it was rain turning into snow, the snow managed to delicately cover every little berry and leaf. It looked like someone took a huge can of spray snow to Chicago and flocked it! Good thing I finished my earwarmer in the nick of time!

Now it is all rainy and the snow is melted and gone and it's dreary. bah. I was happy to see this package from Cat on my doorstep yesterday. Mail always does the trick of cheering me up. There were many cute fabric bits to show but these polka dots are the most festive! And here's the cool handmade paper flower and card she enclosed. Thank you Cat!!

Where's the damn blizzard?

I was expecting "AT LEAST" 2-3 inches of snow this morning that was going to "terrorize my HOLIDAY TRAVEL plans" and hypothetically "turn the DAN RYAN INTO A DISASTER". Remember the good old days when they just told you the high and low temperatures and left you to deal with it. When they didn't have cold weather advisories for 30 degrees. When it would snow enough in Chicago that one could walk up a snowdrift onto the roof of one's ranch house?! Why do I watch the local news?

Just in case Winter weather has "FINALLY HIT" the Netherlands, here's the neckwarmer from the Stitch n Bitch Nation book that I made for my flower swap. I used the yummy soft Blue Sky Alpaca organic cotton for the band, Jaeger Cadiz silk blend for the flower and some need nubby yarn that my neighbor left on my front porch for the leaves. Turned out cute I think! It had a rocky start. The increases at the beginning seemed more difficult than need be. But now that it's done and all cute with its flower I think I need to make a earwarmer for myself.

So I feel pretty caught up on my crafting. I'm waiting for my new walking foot (!) to come in the mail and then I'm going to get back to work on Oscar's quilt. The task for today is to make apple & sausage stuffing. We're trying all sorts of new things this Thanksgiving. A new stuffing, brining the turkey, letting my sister make something! Fingers are crossed. And to top off the holiday cheer Tim and now Oscar are sick. Have to love holidays.

Happy Thanksgiving!

back for more

Erin & I both felt we had unfinished business at 2121 21st. We headed back yesterday for a more thorough rummaging. I feel confident now I've seen everything I need to and can wait until Spring to head back to that dirty dusty warehouse. Here are my finds from yesterday...

Salmon pink velour, miscellaneous buttons for eyes, teeny tiny buttons for something teeny tiny..

Pink jacquard knit and bag of wooden doll heads (!)...

Fabric scrap of pretty red floral fabric (scraps are sold by the pound but are hard to find), embroidered ribbon with cool red flowers, some neat orange ribbon with white trim, and these little bird patches...

oilcloth...

ribbons (velveteen, satin, velvet, moire, dotted)...

wacky wide candy ribbon...

sparkly brocade swatches from a fabric sample card. I was thinking these would make cute something or others for Christmas presents. we'll see...

And now that that's out of my system time to do some knitting...

the lure of the tiny bear

Like everyone else I have Jennifer Murphy fever and after seeing her pincushion menagerie in Home Companion I felt compelled to set aside all my projects to try to make a tiny bear sewing buddy for myself. This funny little bear is what I came up with. She only has one flowered paw pad because I can't decide if I should bother finishing her. The pincushion I made for her to sit on turned out too small. Or actually, the bear is too big. She does fit nicely in the hello kitty rice bowl however. Oh well, I'll have to try another one soon. I really like handsewing little bears. It's very relaxing, like knitting. Much better than the backache I get from sitting at the sewing machine. And speaking of, it's time to get back on track. I'm working on Oscar's birthday quilt that I made from his baby clothes. All my squares are cut out and it's time to get sewing. 2 weeks til 1 year! Also I'm knitting a neckwarmer with a flower on it from the new SNB Nation for my Pinku flower swap partner Mim in the Netherlands. And I've started a few other knitting projects, another hat for Oscar that will hopefully turn out well. And a cableknit hat for myself.  But first a certain kitty... I've negotiated myself another excellent trade :)

Final Day of NCBW

Beegu by Alexis Deacon

"Beegu is not supposed to be here. She is lost. She is a friendly little alien, but Earth creatures don't seem very welcoming at all. Not the big ones, anyway..."

It is very hard for me not to put up a photo of every single page. I just love this book. The beegu is so adorable and she breaks my heart with those long expressive ears.

And in other "I'm so happy -- it's so cute!" news, this link to I love egg from Jenn. They look like the wees! I totally have to make a little wee-egg bear and one in a scarf, etc. Come into my tummy oh so very yummy!

Day 4 of NCBW

Oscar's egg book. Well loved and well chewed. Don't know the title but it's about eggs and their favorite outfits and it's by Aranzi Aronzo.

Marjorie the Accessorized Elephant

Here's my elephant for Claire's Month of Softies project. As you can see her accessory is a bow! The bow was inspired by this drawing Tim did of his friend Becky's grandmother Marjorie as a child.

I had so much trouble trying to decide what way to go with this elephant! First I was going to use the same pattern I used to make this elephant. This was the first stuffed animal I made back in July from a pattern in a 70s soft toy book from the library. Actually the same book Claire mentioned on her site, The Splendid Soft Toy. I have her to blame for this newfound obsession with toy making! Anyway, so I was going to then put it on wheels like an old time pull toy, kind of like this. Then I scrapped that idea and decided to make her more like Gertie but with rollerskates. I found this excellent pastel rainbow kid's sweatshirt at the thriftstore that I was going to make into a rad outfit and then try to replicate exactly the awesome rollerskates I had as a preteen. White leather lace up skates with neon green wheels. I was even going to accessorize the rollerskates with those big poms. Oh how I wanted those for my skates! But then the elephant head on a skinny Gertie body was weird and I couldn't figure out how to make lace up skates to fit on wide elephant legs. So then I was going to make old metal buckle on skates but I couldn't figure those out either. So finally I ditched the skates altogether and here she is. Not on wheels but hopefully her bow is so big no one will notice!

Day 3 of NCBW

How about this fantastic Christmas book we found today at the library...