Wee Wonderfuls

yesterday's post

I tried. I finally sat down at 10pm last night to write my Saturday post and typepad was down. So I had to improvise and posted a little bit on flickr. You were spared. Yesterday's post was all about how there is just no time. No time to do all the things that need to be done. And how it was 10 and the day was over and barely anything was crossed off my list. But now it's today, and it's still morning, the optimistic part of the day. The Peppermint Fairy stitchettes are stitched and photographs are being taken (in my new gnome xmas pjs).

My Sunday post will be coming later today. We'll see how I can do on my list...

the real peppermint fairy

my muse and her friend the polar bear...

now all she needs is a pair of these!

leaf swooshing

pepperminty

Oh yeah, have to post today too don't I? Why do they pick November for this post every day thing? Don't they have house guests, patterns to get out, lights to hang...

Here's a pic from the work table...picking out colors for peppermint fairies.

Mr. & Mrs. Gnome

Attention holiday crafters! Today there's a new toy pattern in the shop. And before Thanksgiving even. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that was possible. The Mr. and Mrs. Gnome pattern is available as a downloadable PDF pattern (like the make-a-longs). The instant gratification of not dealing with a printer is pretty darn appealing. If I wasn't such a sucker for printed matter we'd definitely be running a paperless office around here.

Juliette's gnomes

I owe a huge thanks to all my wonderful pattern testers. They came up with some really great ideas (spray adhesive - brilliant!) and caught all my mistakes, and all at lightning speed. Thanks to them gnome-making should be a really enjoyable experience.

Just make sure you don't make bossy gnomes like ours, which are still running us ragged with yardwork. They've even got the boy raking leaves!

** updated to add: I set up a gnomes flickr group for you super speedy types ;)

sugar

The theme of my Christmas crafts seems to be turning towards the sweets. My thoughts are all gingerbready and gumdropped. Right now I'm going to go see if I can muster up either a gingerbread fairy or a peppermint fairy for a Winter Stitchette. I'm thinking peppermint. I bought these delicious dots with a Christmas quilt in mind. Carol, you must come with me every time I go fabric shopping! I'm so excited about my new fabrics.

And for the record Amy, you kickstarted pre-thanksgiving christmas over here by posting about those darn gingerbread boxes. Which you can see I had to go get for myself.

I've got just one more stop on my Martha Stewart Christmas tour. She's got me running all over town! If I can get all my shopping done now I can spend next month doing all these with Oscar. MS is becoming so synonymous with Christmas that someday it will be her coming down the chimney!

**updated to add: the two fabrics at top are by Timeless Treasures Fabrics, the dots one says Mag and Mimi for Timeless Treasures. Not having too much luck finding it online. The shop we got it at was Stiches n Stuffing in Naperville. Wait! Found it!

tim's are so much better than mine

Playing with Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Trucks and Trains

gnomes and bibs

Cotton laminate dots from Michael Miller and some terrycloth (from jcaroline creative) for bibs. Kim's post clued me in to cotton laminates and I was looking to make some Bend the Rules Sewing bibs for Phoebe so it was perfect. Maybe some pretty new bibs will make me less lazy about feeding Phoebe solids. Oscar was on steak by 5 months but I'm not so anxious about moving along to the next milestone this time around. And yes, Phoebe is 5 months! Time is flying!

experimenting with glitter

Man I really want to work on Christmas crafts right now. I'm trying to put them off til next month though and spend this month trying to get new stuff in shop. But I had to cheat and play with my new MS glitter a little bit. I've been waiting for months to have an excuse to buy this glitter and now I do, this year the Langs get new stockings. Excessively glittery stockings!

Hey, anyone feel like making a gnome this weekend? I'm looking for pattern testers. Shoot me an email at hillarylang at gmail. thanks!

fantasy doll list continued

Here are a few more cuties for my list. This is fun! First is Miss Miriam. I've had a long-term crush on Sweetnellie's beautiful creations. I almost bought this one for Junebaby, I had her in my cart but Tim was particularly cranky about the finances that day.

And here's a new crush of mine, Ashley Anna Brown and her gorgeous fernanimals. I hope to catch one of these fuzzy guys on her etsy someday. They go fast!

And since I'm dreaming, how about this frigging amazing conjoined geisha by the unbelievably talented jamfancy. I love them so. Check out their little conjoined teddy!

I've been following links and have some great new dolls for next time...