Wee Wonderfuls

planning a new quilt

in for sure. picked up at quilt merchant.

think it's working.

ooh, liking the castle peeps (by lizzyhouse) in there.

pile of maybes.

let's not talk about how much licorice I've eaten this week

It's been a real run around week. Do you want to know the price and location of any type of licorice candy anywhere in the Chicagoland area? I'm your gal. Now I'm all set for our school party's craft - decorating popcorn balls. Thanks for Cathy of California for the awesome idea ( and here I am busy at work)!

new patterns in print

Fresh from the printer this week are printed booklet versions of previously PDF-only Kit, Chloe and Louise and Mr & Mrs Gnome. We made them up for shops to sell (wholesale shop here) and are happy to have them in our shop for everyone else as well. PDF versions are also still available.

I love getting boxes of patterns from the printer (for these booklets we use PsPrint). They're so pretty, the stacks and stacks of them in their bright happy colors. Of course it's a little panic inducing too, as in oh man that's a lot of patterns to sell but overall it makes me very happy. Designing works to be printed is a fun challenge and Tim does such an amazing job with the layout and design. Can't beat the lickity splitness of PDF but having an excuse to design endpapers is pretty awesome too!

weekend update

Okay October. Why are you so busy? This weekend went by in a blur! I need to squeeze an extra week into this month. We hit the pumpkin patch and got our cute-kids-with-pumpkins-photos for the year so I'm relieved about that. We're afraid to actually put them outside. Our squirrels are crazy this year. They're sitting out there rubbing their little hands together just waiting. What are you supposed to do? Rub the pumpkins with something gross right? I have some googling to do.

We hit a lego show and book sale, 2 of our favorite activities. Here's some of our loot. Can you guess which pile is mine and which is Oscar's? I'll post some pics from my finds later today on flickr.

I also found 2 new Heidi stories for my growing collection of Heidi books for Phoebe. Ha, anyone remember how I was going to do a Heidi theme for Phoebe's room? In the end I just couldn't figure out how to do a theme and still have all her stuff. I haven't given up on the idea though. She does have one blank wall left so maybe something cute and Heidi will end up there.

While I'm in her room... we bought her this duvet cover at Ikea. I love it but I think I'd love it more faded a few shades. It's reeeeally bright. Does bleaching work for fading? Or, there's RIT fade stuff right? More googling for me to do.

The tooth fairy has seen a lot of action this month. All Oscar wants for Christmas is his two front teeth. And General Grevious' star fighter of course. Want a fright? the toothless ninja

le chat

Doesn't this kitty look sort of French? Like she needed a beret? I made her from the Kitty, Bunny, Bear pattern as a gift for a little girl having a kitty theme birthday party. I was digging around in the craft room thinking, oh I must have something kitty-themed around here and then remembered how fast these dolls go together. I made mademoiselle here in an afternoon!

 

today is not sunday

This weekend has me all screwed up. I keep thinking I have another day. The endless 3 day weekend. Further adding to my confusion is the weather, mid 80s in mid October. It's all well and good but the family's biorhythms have switched over to Fall and we were all about the indoor activities despite the warm weather...lots of coloring and drawings and lots & lots of Pokemon. We did some crafting. I was super inspired by this fuse bead project. Oscar was all over it too so we got the big jar at Ikea and have been toiling away on our creations.

(In full disclosure of my holiday craziness: while we were at ikea we noticed they had their xmas stuff out. Every year there are a few things we can't live without.)

But back on track, we're getting ready for Oscar's class Halloween party. We made the treat bags and are starting next on Heidi's ghost cozies.

We did get out for a quick run (and about 300 pictures) through Fall's splendor. Hope you're having/had a great 3/2 day weekend!

Halloween decorating

Oscar has been dying to decorate for Halloween for weeks now. We told him we'd have to wait on the official decorations until it was actually October so he took it upon himself to start early. These stealth decorations keep popping up.

But don't feel sad for him, everything is up now. These are my favorites, our owly bats.

want to like me? and some knitting

I have a new Wee Wonderfuls page on facebook. Want to like it? I'm going to add all sorts of cool and interesting stuff there. Right after I get done knitting more hats. Hm, maybe I'll put my Ravelry up on fb. Can you do that?

really, I had no other choice

Honk if you love vintage fabric!

I was remembering the other day when I was having my fabric shortage troubles, that the reason I started making toys was because of the nature of my fabric collection. I'd been thrifting fabric for years for my vintage clothing shop and had amassed a collection of cute but unruly fabric...scraps, pieces cut out from clothes, aprons and scarfs, sheets and pillowcases, just a lot of bits and pieces. So when I sat down to make things for baby Oscar all those years ago I kept running into walls. I didn't really have the fabric for baby clothes or for quilts but it was perfect for toys! Thrifted sweaters to felt for bodies, scraps of vintage prints for outfits or the linings of ears. And the best part is it was easy on my stash so I rarely used anything all up which is hard for stingy old me.

The Kims at True Up are as hooked on vintage as I am. They're the next stop on the blog tour and there is a giveaway of some of my vintage fabric over there if you'd like to go sign up.