mr. monkeysuit

overalls

After the debacle earlier this week I had to address Cissie's urgent need for overalls. Urgent, I tell you.

 

 

Cute buttons from cottonblue. I have the wolf left...which I guess will need a very specific project. When am I ever likely to need one large button with a wolf embroidered on it? Only time will tell, I guess.

 

I used Burda pattern 9772. Loved it. I have to tell you, as someone who is not so great at garment sewing, I find Burda patterns so much easier to follow than Simplicity. It is like the folks at Simplicity want to make me swear.

I also have some super lovely fabric heading my way. I know I said I wasn't going to buy any more fabric until January, but I must have been drunk, because what was I thinking. Like that's going to happen. Anyway, my local fabric store had a trunk show with all kinds of fabrics including stuff from the ultra lovely Neige kids line. Gahh. I can't wait to get it. I'm on a promise to drive directly to Vicki's house and show her the loot and, seeing as how I am missing out on the Blogger's Tea this weekend, I may even be prepared to share a little with her.

Hope you local blog ladies have a lovely tea!

Update:: Considering I spend all my time thinking about fabric I can't beleive I forgot to mention the fabric I used for the overalls. Guess what? It is Liberty. Shock! I got it from my favorite ebay seller, though it was a good while ago and I can't see any in her shop but she does have some other pincords...and this...and I didn't even realize she was selling Liberty kids clothes now. Hmmmm. Oh and look she even has some trousers like my overalls. Thank you to gwensmom for making me look up this shop again and spend the last bit of my paypal balance.

last bits of fall

Sorry for the longer than intended absence. Some of you caught my grumpy (now deleted) post about needing a break from blogging. Well, I took a break and I do feel better. Thank you to all of you who wrote. Such good people.

This week the weather has taken a turn for the worse and winter looms large but I still have a few fall favorites to share with you.

 

Catching a little bit of Fall and bringing it indoors was something both Cissie and Floyd loved. We gathered our bits on a walk around the block and wove them into these looms. Thanks to Kristen from Kleas for the idea.

We've also loved these. A little too much.

 

recipe here....but watch out.

I spruced up a pair of overalls for Cissie....

 

 

...only to find that she has outgrown them already. She wore them for about 30 seconds.

So if anyone would like a size 2T pair of red Carter's overalls with some wonky hand sewn appliques please let me know, they're here for the taking.

I am super excited to be popping down to NYC this weekend. Just for a day to see some old friends. They are in town to promote his new line of shoes. I've known David forever and he spent many years dressing me up in ridiculously high heels, he once bought me a pair of Vivenne Westwood shoes almost identical to these only in red patent and then made me wear them out to night clubs. Ah, the memories....I can still feel the pain of them even now.

He'll probably be mad at me but this weekend, I'll be wearing these.

Have a lovely weekend, filled with comfy shoes!

autumn scarf

A new patchwork scarf, just the right weight for autumn.

 

Made with linen, some cute Japanese fabrics and a little autumnal embroidery and backed in flannel for extra coziness. But I think this might end up on Cissie instead of me, I think all that gray hair precludes me from wearing hedgehogs.

On another note I entered the baby quilt contest over at Make Baby Stuff and my quilt is looking all lonesome and unrated so in a shameless plea for help, please pop over and say hello to it. It is called circles and lines and you can leave a comment about it here. Thank you in advance sweet friends.

book nerd

I love kids books. I know that isn't unusual, there are so many great kids books around these days it is hard not to love them. We have a lot of books in this house. Between Andy's million books, my art and craft books and now the kids burgeoning collection we have quite the library in this house.

I always quote 'the books' as one of the many reasons not to move again. The last time we moved, the movers took one look at all the books and nearly walked out on us, several hundred dollars in cash bribes later (not joking) they moved us and frankly, I am reluctant to repeat that experience.

The kids have inherited our love of books and from a young age have had lots of exposure to all kinds of literature. But the books were getting a little out of control, they were in need of some organization, some classification. Just the kind of thing the ex-teacher in me loves. Seasonally seemed the best place to start.

Now I know what you're going to say. Why only three baskets not four. Well,

a)We hardly have any books about Spring or Summer.

b)Spring is really short here so it kind of just merges into summer.

c)There were only three baskets left in the shop.

Details of how I made these signs::

I ironed linen on to both sides of timtex rectangles, then sewed around the edges...there probably will be some fraying. Then I stamped the fronts using my very lovely ABC stamp set plus some from the small object and craft pudding...between these two places I doubt I will ever buy stamps from anyone else.....unless you've got some really good ones you want to tell me about!

Oh and I used versa-craft ink for fabric so they wouldn't run when the inevitable juice or hot chocolate gets splashed all over them.

Here's the finished result that sits on our seasonal table right now, and for those of you interested in what's inside I've put up a book list on the side. (I've taken down the quilt month information but I've saved it if anyone is looking for anything in particular).

Happy Fall reading.

tulle twirl

My friend at my local yarn store said she had several rolls of tulle left over from a display and did I want them? Uh, yes. Does a crafter ever turn down the offer of free supplies? I think not.

 

A few inches of elastic, a quick bit of sewing, some flowers and a glue gun later, a frilly, fluffy tutu emerges and a prima donna is born.

 

Hope your weekend was as fruitful.