Wee Wonderfuls

fabric for swap?

Here's the vintage fabric I found. I'm so excited about it! I love the colors and of course the cool 60s design - the striped houses and spotted chickens. It's a heavyweight cotton, the printing along the edge is hard to read but I think it says "shrunketized a color tested fabric". There are 9 yards of it! I was thinking I'd keep a couple yards for myself and offer up the rest for swap? Anyone interested? If so email me what you're thinking at hillarylang at gmail dot com. I could cut 1, 1/2 or 1/4 yard pieces. It's kinda grungy though. I'm going to throw it in the washer now. Hopefully it will come out good as new.

UPDATE: the wash is done and it did come out good as new. yay! I've received some emails and I still need to go through them all - we're on the go today - but I think there is still plenty left to go around so shoot me an email if you're interested. One thing I should have mentioned is that I'm hoping to swap for raw materials this time around - fabric, buttons, trim, etc. vintage and unique materials. I know everyone makes really cool things and I'd love to get my greedy hands on all of it but right now I need to reinvigorate my crafting supplies!

Another Update: All gone! thanks everyone who emailed! I'm trying to do math and email everyone back now.

Friday randoms

I made another little basket bag last night. This one for when I have my hand sewing out in the Oscar zone. Much less dangerous this way than leaving scissors and pincushions in unauthorized (yet very accessible by climber toddler) zones.

I used that bright green mini basket I mentioned finding at Pier 1 and some fabulous wax print fabric Rosa sent along with my kitty. It matches perfectly!

I tried to take a while-sewing shot in the way of a tutorial but it was dark and I was sleepy. This time I was smart and used thread that matched the basket.

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Rosa and Camilla each sent me a bit of ribbon in their packages... Rosa's is on top and Camilla's on bottom...they're kindred spirits!

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Our new favorite book that we discovered at the library this week, Jenny's Birthday Book written and illustrated by Esther Averill. I love the illustrations (they remind me of Marcel Dzama) and that the kitties dance the sailor's hornpipe.

Oscar is very pleased that kitties ride red firetrucks!

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Tim is home today and we're headed out to entertain the baby. Thank god. This was a looong week. I need more activities to entertain Oscar. We have our once a week music class - the one where Oscar screams the entire 45 minutes as if being tortured - that's fun. But that's our only scheduled activity. I'm not much of a joiner, but desperate times.. I need some playgroups? mommy's groups? something. I can't find any more classes that work for us - we only have a car on certain days. I'm at a loss. Maybe someone has some suggestions? Well more on all this I'm a big loser mommy business later...

Oh man! I forgot about the most amazing vintage fabric I found yesterday. I'll have to take photos of that this afternoon. And maybe if I have the energy some new vintage things up for swap? I actually have a handle on my outgoing projects and of course, that means it's time for more suwappus!

new housemates

Oh wonderful Wednesday. Today I the mail brought me two packages! One from Rosa and one from Camilla. I sent off two kitties to live with these gals and they sent me back these two super-cuties, Redtop and Kitty doll #171 (name to be determined). Normally I would dedicate an individual post to each of these amazingly talented women gushing over their creations but I think it's fate that these two showed up together and they even kind of match. I'm convinced they're best friends! I had to take them out and show them the town together.

Here they are checking out one of Oscar's favorite haunts, the park/library combo.

Redtop was anxious to acclimate so we went over to the library for a Swedish/English dictionary.

Plaid-kitty had less academic pursuits in mind...she wanted to climb after Oscar.

Both are a little nervous about living here in the U.S. with this crazy little boy. But Betsy and Pippy clued them in to the best part - playing with Oscar's toys after he goes to bed.

Thank you Camilla and Rosa! xoxoxo

sewing on the go

I've been needing a bag to transport my sewing projects with me when I take Oscar out to my parents' house to visit. While Grandma and Grandpa are busy playing with grandson number one I often have a chance to work on some projects. I wanted a bag with a flat bottom so I tried out the sewing a bag onto a basket trick. My thumb is a little sore from sewing it on the wrong way 3 or 4 times but now that I've got it figured out I think I might make another small basketbag from a cute little bright green basket I found at Pier 1.

This basket is from Pier 1 also. The fantastic fabric is one of my treasured japanese fabrics that Jen sent me. The cute lace trim came from Melissa.

And what spurred the whole project on was this super cute hand drawn felt patch girl that I just ordered from Momomoogie. It's entitled hmmmpf which is perfect for when I'm working on handsewing projects! I just love Stella's illustrations so much and these patches were too cute to pass up. I think I might need one of those ninjas now!

Tania made these beautiful hand carved tulipwood buttons. I've been dying to use them since she sent them.

grasshoppers playing pool shirting for the lining. I made a little pocket for the lining but it ended up being sewn in behind the basket - bad planning.

Here's everything resting safely on the flat bottom of the basket - my beloved pear pincushion, my seamripper, some thread and this little wicker box that I found at the economy shop sale. I sewed it to the bottom of the basket so it'd stay in place and I could transport little whatnots in there.

snapshots

I love photoblogs so much. I often get sucked in to them when I should be doing my crafty homework. My latest favorite is rion.nu, the photoblog of new yorker Rion Nakaya. She presents her photos in sets which I just love. Her latest photos are of Japan and are amazing, like the tokyo subways and this wedding or my favorite the food show in Shibuya. I've been going back and looking at this photo for days now.

I'm always inspired by great photographers to get out and take pictures myself. I try to remember to take the camera with me when Oscar and I hit the town. My photos always suck but it's fun to play. I try to challenge myself to not only take pictures of flowers. Here are some I took today on our walk.

new doll design

I've been working on a new doll design and here's the first one I made up. I'm pretty happy with how she's turned out. I want to change a few things but really for a first iteration it went smoothly. I'm itching to start another one. I have a bunch of sketches of little guys and gals like this one and I've started a pile of fabrics that I think would make really cute dress bodies. I was trying to decide between wool felt for the body or wool/cotton fabric. I used wool felt for this one and it worked very well. And I feel I finally have a handle on yarn hair and cheek blushing. I'm all hepped up on doll-making goofballs.

We took some pictures at the park today...

And we might have got carried away...

Violet you're turning violet!

I just talked to my good friend Laura back in Texas and she had her sweet baby girl last week. Welcome Violet Rae!

Now I've got baby quilt fever again. Namesake aside I'm not sure I'm ready to dive into another purple baby quilt. Laura's husband Chris joked when they found out they were having another girl that they'd have to paint the house pink. So I'm thinking maybe blues. Girly blues of course. Maybe a coin quilt with blues on a white background?

I don't know what I'm doing up at this hour planning new projects. It's a sickness. Off to bed with me.

Oh, and if you're a first timer maybe the project list would be interesting to you. Thanks typepad for the mention!

Thanks Jess!

The mailman brought me the most fun package the other day all the way from Australia. It is the last of the vintage clothing trades. I'm going to have to dig out some more treasures from the basement soon.

Jessie and her friend Claire design shirts! Right now they're stocked in stores in Melbourne and Sydney and they're in the process of creating a website. She sent me these 3 really cute shirts.... I love the patterns on them.

Also this very cool button necklace that I LOVE that Jessie's Mom made and this amazing little sweater pin that was handknit by a friend of hers. And other sewing themed accessories, zipper earrings and a measuring tape flower corsage pin - fun! Speaking of fun, Oscar and I are quite taken with the little wind up robot and chick toys. We like to race them - chick always wins.

Isn't this amazing! I can't imagine what size needles you need to knit this!

Thanks again Jess! Fun trading with you.

patchwork pillows

I've had these two patchwork pillows sitting on my craft table almost done for a week now. I was determined to finish them up today during naptime. I wanted to put them up on the WeeAuction today, but I ran into a snafu. I scanned some illustrations from a cute little vintage kid's book we have and then printed them out on transfer paper, ironed them on to fabric and made them the center squares of little patchwork pillows (like the one I made with the transfer Camilla sent me). So I finished the quilting and sewed them up and was stuffing one when I noticed the transfer image split. bah!

Now I don't know what to do with them. I thought they'd make such cute little crib pillows for a nursery. Maybe I'll take the backs off and frame them and they can hang on the wall. But the backs are so cute. At least then they'll be safe from splitting - since they're such gd delicate flowers.

I need to find some new transfer paper.

what's buzzin cousin

Ok, the librarian in me is sated! Thanks everyone for playing the share ISBN game with me and for all the cool new tips. I think there is enough info in that last post and then all the comments and links from comments to find just about any japanese craft book out there! All the cute japanese stuff can be so overwhelming. I often think about starting up another weblog... zakka.typepad.com and tracking just cool japanese stuff...books, shops, weblogs. But that's way too ambitious for me. Someone out there get cracking on that okay ;)

For now, I'm done looking. It's time to start doing. I have all sorts of exciting (to me) new projects I want to work on. I really want to spend some time just thinking and sketching and trying to nail down a style all my own. I've always been in awe of artists like Rosa or Claire, or most recently Maminka (via Myra) whose style is so evident in all their work. And I feel like the barrier between me and that kind of cohesiveness is my lack of art skills. So I really want to just focus and see what I can come up with. And I'm enlisting Tim's help so I'm very optimistic! Speaking of Tim's help... he sent me an email today saying "i really like the way this site looks: maybe it's just me, but it's laid out so well and so clean looking. it's almost punk rock somehow." So get your fill of the flowery background now while you can!

So what I'm working on is a new doll, hopefully it'll turn into a series of dolls. What inspired me was some fun mail I got from Melissa last week. She sent me some crafty bits and bobs including this cuuute book... The Lucky Sew-it-yourself Book. I just love this little girl!

And in the spirit of doing instead of just looking I've been working on this house pincushion this week. I sewed it all by hand. I cut it out freehand too - just eyeballing it. It was very relaxing to sit on the couch working on a little something. (oh! I just noticed Kitty's has that house pattern book up. so here are the pictures I promised. I'm a cheat!)

But man, my handiwork is crap! I can covet Japanese craft all I want but with stitching like this I wouldn't last a day in Japan! Right Jen :)