Thank you so much for your enthusiasm over the Halloween project. It was fun. Real, bonafide fun. It turned me on to Halloween big time. I made a little button and put it up on the sidebar <-- over there <-- for the bewitching season, for easy reference.
OK, I got 2 lovely books the other day that I just had to share. You see, there are very few things that make me pine for a 3rd child, but these had me daydreaming for at least 30 seconds, possibly a full minute.
Carefree Clothes for Girls: 20 Patterns for Outdoor Frocks, Playdate dresses, and More by Junko Okawa has crystal clear instructions, color photos, and full pattern pieces for 20 designs for girls sized/aged 4-7. The model is so cute, love the red hair and, of course, the little braids.
That last one is making me a little crazy with how badly I want to make it. I'm thinking Emma could wear it as a smock. Not really doing dresses these days, so I'd have to call it a long shirt and probably buy her some cool new jeans to wear under it, maybe even shoes, but it would totally be worth i! I mean, double gauze with exposed waistband seam....and unfinished hem...and quilted bodice! I'm in love.
The second one is called Felting for Baby: 25 Warm & Woolly Projects for the Little Ones in Your Life by Saori Yamazaki. I've wanted to create more felted things since my first experiment and there is plenty of project ideas for baby and home in here.
This books takes you through all the steps to create fabric and molded shapes out of wool roving by wet felting it, a process which I think is fascinating in and of itself. But on top of that, the featured projects are gorgeous. And you know, you need a surprisingly small amount of materials to create these projects (and wool roving? inexpensive and highly addictive, trust me if you don't know that already).
Both of these are set to be released on October 13, but you can preorder them now at the links above. And then you'll kind of forget that you ordered them, and one day in October you'll get a surprise on your doorstep, which is cool.
This week, I am trying really hard to finish Ian's quilt. I've cut out the squares and finished the patchwork strips (well, ok, no, I've got 3 more to do, I need 14 total, but I'm thinking I may need fewer than the pattern calls for...wishful thinking). I jumped ahead in the process a bit and scheduled an appointment to take it into The Quilting Loft for the beginning of October to be quilted (they did such a great job quilting Emma's), trying to avoid the Christmas rush. So I've got around 2 weeks. But every time I walk in here to sew I'm torn because I'm doing some more patchwork pieces too, which I just get so excited about, I have a hard time putting them aside. Such a conundrum of craft! Plus, patchwork is messy business, at least when I do it. I only half joke that its really a "family" commitment for me to sew patchwork, because there will soon be little strips of fabric and stray threads will be hanging off the furniture and everyone's clothes tlll I'm done.
Back soon!
