Wee Wonderfuls

swap heaven

A fantastically fat package of swap showed up on Friday. Thanks so much Dionna for all the wonderful treats. Check out my flickr for more pics of all the yummy vintage fabric pieces and other great finds she sent.

the littlest things

I swear. Only I can get hung up on a baby bootie for an entire week. Here are the finished baby presents. I started out trying to make beautiful booties like Catarina's. After mucking up the 4th or 5th prototype I finally gave up and made felt shoes from a vintage pattern I had. They were fun to sew up but it's taken me awhile to grow fond of the boxy shape. Very retro though. And huge! These better be big babies girls. The bonnets are from my angry chicken mailorder of course. So cute and easy to make. Ok, now that I've got this gift down all upcoming babies better be girls. Got that Rosa?!

redhead

I've made another little (6" tall) embroidered doll for a baby gift. I'm working on matching booties and bonnets for each of the gifts and then I can switch over to another little baby that's coming soon, my neice Maggie! My sister and I have picked out some beautiful fabric for her quilt. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

The Whole Package

One of the trickiest parts of having a small crafty business (yes, I'm actually calling it a business now. I figure that's a good start.) is deciding on all the supporting materials that go with the work.  It is easy for me to lose hours working on doll designs or under the sewing machine but stopping to take the time to work on labels and business cards and stationary is always a challenge. I think because there is so much more involved than just the design. All the production stuff eludes me. With no art school background I always have to start at the beginning when trying to figure out screening or printing or stamping or what not. Of course Tim is a huge help with all of it but the poor fellow can hardly keep up with the demands I make on him so I'm trying to get my act together and actually do some of these things my damn self!

I am reinvigorated in my quest by this cool book by Ellen Lupton, D.I.Y. Design it Yourself. The table of contents gets my heart pumping: press kits - yes please!, stickers - right on!, stationary - of course!, books - yes yes!!

The book is a collection of amazing design ideas all created by students and faculty in the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art and they're all very do it yourself. Printing stickers on your home printer, make book covers out of beer cases, iron on transfers on t-shirts. The work they come up with is so inventive. You can see some of them over here at their website. I love the tote bag and embroidery ideas. The book is very inspiring and definitely has me wanting to create everything myself.

I'm always trying to achieve the perfect balance between doing it myself and having it look professional. We were kicking around the idea of printing up the booklets ourselves. We were pricing color laser printers and fancy papers. I had all sorts of cool ideas for the booklets including printing pattern pieces on vellum and gluing envelopes into the back cover of the booklets to house them. Ultimately though, I think a little less DIY is going to win out over here. Tim had to take me by the shoulders and shake me around a little bit until the reality of gluing hundreds of envelopes into place finally sunk in.  So publishing is being sent out, but I'm still keeping myself busy with projects I can do here. I printed up some new thank you cards to fit some cute square vellum envelopes I found at Paper Source  and then stamped up some little 5" square canvas bags I found at Hobby Lobby to send my pincushions out in. Tonight I'm going out for sticker paper that can be sent through the printer.

deeply felt

I've received a lovely gift from one of my mom's friends who just traveled to Germany. 2 pieces of super thick wonderful felt and a little bunny cut out of the same. Thank you Joann, I love it so much! You've got my number that's for sure! I googled the store name and here's what I found. What I wouldn't give to visit it myself. Their felt reminds me of that great thick felt on this Parkhaus (they have a new site!) egg cozy.

bunny, kitty and bear

do you want to make one of us?

I really hope so because work on patternbook volume number 1 is underway! Dolls are done, pattern pieces are scanned and now it's time to get working on the diagrams and instructions and the fun stuff - design and layout. Right now we're in the middle of a heated discussion on scalloped borders. Wish us luck!

Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy

We rented the new Pride and Prejudice (the Keira Knightley one) the other night so I was looking for a in-front-of-the-tv project I could work on. I have a lot of baby gifts to make so I thought maybe I'd try to embroider something. Very Regency of me I think. I came up with this little embroidered doll. Jess' excitement over this type of drawn/embroidered doll and all the beautiful embroidery Maitreya have been doing lately got me all fired up to give it a shot. (speaking of excitement, have you seen Jess' latest knitting project - love it! can't wait to hear what it's all about).

This may be my most successful embroidery outing yet. Hooray! Lots of things I would improve on but not too many flubs and I think she'll make a cute baby gift. Ok, enough with the crafting, on to the Pride & Prejudice review. I had to watch it twice -- in a row -- because that's how one watches Pride & Prejudice. I pretty much agree with all Claire has to say on the subject. A dreamy new Mr. Darcy (Collin Firth really alright, almost killed it for me with that Love Crap-tually) and it is such a good story that it can stand to be reinterpreted over and over. I liked a lot of the casting. Jena Malone was perfect. I much prefer this Mr. Collins. And the scenery was gorgeous! But in the end it just doesn't ring true the way the BBC version does. And I'm just not even going to get started on Miss Knightley. I'll always be a Jennifer Ehle devotee. And um, "Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy". What the heck?! Kinda has a 'whatever you do, stay alive, I will find you' ring to it don't you think? Suffice to say I'm halfway through the real Pride and Prejudice and feel all purged and clean again. Maybe even ready to start another embroidered doll.

Alex Noriega

I've found another amazing illustrator to add to my favorites list, Alex Noreiga, from Barcelona.(via: oh joy? sorry, can't remember for sure) Check out his wonderful sketchblog and shop.

fun mail monday

my mailbox was a happy place yesterday...

a clothespin peep bunny from sarah. yay!

and 2 very cool dishtowel calendars from karin. oscar is very excited about this car one! (other one here)

thanks girls!

Easter togs

I finally got around to Oscar's Easter outfit yesterday. Here he is sporting new yellow pants (on deck: purple and green) that I made up for him following Kathreen and Amanda's examples, one of his new freezer paper transfer shirts and his new Easter basket - actually more like an Easter boat & tote -  made from some amazing car fabric that Stephanie sent me that's been waiting for the perfect project. Every time Oscar sneaks into the craft room he grabs it and shoves it at me saying 'knit something!' I had been saving it to make a crib caddy for him to keep his books and toys all nice and tidy so I made the Easter tote with a snapping flap thing on the side to affix it to the crib for after the jelly bean hunt tomorrow. Hope everyone's having a great weekend!