Ready for Christmas

Finally all my Christmas projects are done! I'm still sick, and I stepped on my pin cushion the other day- ramming a needle into my foot, but I still managed to get almost everything done. What didn't get done, know one will know. We are heading to Idaho today to enjoy a Christmas at the farm. Unfortunately most of the snow has melted with the warmer temperatures, but at least we will have good roads.
Here are some little snowmen ornaments I helped Elsie make...



... I had a moment of weakness at Michael's and bought all these little bits and pieces.

Trees finished and mantle decorated

I've almost finished the house decorating... but I'm running out of time. Christmas is coming so fast this year! This week marks weeks number 5 of being sick. It's not a bad sick, but a lingering cough and occasional nose blowing... and then being tired all the time. It makes it challenging to decorate and chase after Elsie. But I'm carrying-on since this is my favorite holiday.
We finished the little felted trees and added all their petite ornaments and garland:



Here is a shot of the mantle:



The white Santa in the middle belonged to Dave's grandparents. They had an artist/friend named Crackers who made him. She bought him as greenware and then added the glazes and the gold. I just love him and put him out every year.
I'm quite proud of myself for finally working up the courage to switch my digital camera setting from auto to manual. I've had it set on auto since I bought the darn thing 5 years ago. The manual setting works so much better on the Christmas lights. Instead of little deer candles in headlights, I get this nice wintry scene with Christmas glow! I need to try this setting on other things tonight. Also the focus is GREATLY improved.

Making Trees

I was so inspired by Molly Chicken and her pictures from the Japanese craft magazine Cotton Paint, that I've decided to make a forest of softie trees. These trees are made out of felted wool sweaters. The picture shows them in-process. Elsie was testing some of our decorating supplies and gave each tree a healthy helping of holiday glitz. She made me promise not to finish them until she was up from her nap and could help.

Neglecting the blog

I've been neglecting the blog again. I was gone all last week with Mister Judy, but am back in town and ready to do some Christmassing! Will update as the decorating progresses.

Christmas is Calling

I'm so anxious to start decorating for Christmas. I just love this time of year. It's cold outsite and supposed to start snowing at 1000 feet in the next few days. One of our neighbors put his Christmas lights up two weeks ago!... but I have to be patient and finish my projects for Mister Judy. If I get distracted, I won't finish my aprons. I also have another tentative Patache Trunk Show on Dec 10 and 11. My friend Erica at Garnish Apparel is letting me share some space with her. I didn't sell any of my felted hats at the last sale, so I thought I would try another Trunk Show venue. I don't think I had the right clientelle at the last show. The last show was more about gift type items... which has me thinking about other interesting products to add to the Patache line for the next holiday season.
On a positive note, I've almost finished my Christmas shopping. I have become rather over-organized and started an Excel spreadsheet 4 years ago. All the gift recipients are listed in one column, and their respective gifts are listed under a separate column for each year. That way during the year, if I come up with a gift idea, I just add it to the spreadsheet. Then in October when I open the file to start my shopping, I have all sorts of ideas ready to go. It's a huge time saver and gives me a consistent place to store ideas... rather than my over-abundent sticky note situation... and then the sticky goes away, they fall on the floor, or Elsie turns them into art... you get the idea.
Back to the Christmas thoughts, here is a picture from last year of our three glorious aluminum trees.... and Miss Elsie.... who no longer fits in those pyjamas... they grow up so quickly.

Trunk Show Pictures

The Trunk Show was wonderful! I had modest sales, but a great time and met some wonderful artisan women. The house looked like Christmas morning once everyone had their products all set up. There were Christmas lights and candles glowing- very festive!

Felting Continued

When I pulled out my pile of sweaters from the dryer this morning, one of them had shrunk to a perfect 18-24 month size. So with a little modification, I turned it into a cardigan complete with blanket stitching and a vintage ribbon. I'll be taking it to the trunk show tonight.

Last Minute Burst of Creativity

Unfortunately I caught some sort of flu last Friday which made it impossible to do any last minute projects for the trunk show over the weekend. I've been incredibly tired and spending a lot of time with my vaporizor. However, after a very inspiring conversation yesterday with my friend, Mo, regarding the felting of sweaters. I remembered my sweater stash in the basement. I had not finished felting all of them, but one was ready to go. So I cut out and stitched up these jaunty little hats. I have a few more sweaters "processing" in the washing machine right now. Hopefully I can get a few more done tomorrow morning while Miss E is at preschool.

Setting Up

We are setting up for the Trunk Show, and things look great! Everything is so festive and holiday sparkly. We will hold a preview tomorrow night from 5-9pm and will serve wine, cheese, and light snacks. Please come by! The trunk show is at the home of:
Sandy Bakken
3375 Rigewood Avenue
Portland, OR 97225
It is a rather large house with cedar shakes on the outside. There will be lots of Christmas lights on the front porch.

Other Projects

If you noticed, I added an additional link to Mister Judy. This is a project that I am doing with my sister. It is a line of wonderful children's products and things. Click on the link to see all the details.
This is one of the reasons that I have not been blogging regularly on Patache.

Inspiration Trip to Uwajimaya

How much do I love Uwajimaya! The packaging is so vibrant with color and graphics. I always buy more things than I need because I'm such a packaging nut! Sometimes I buy things that I don't even know what they are. Like today, I almost bought spinach flavored hard candies because the bag was all blue and white with green leaves and swirls. Fortunately there was an English ingredient list stuck on the back. That would have been quite a surprise.... considering I thought they were lime.

Hanky Skirts

I make these cute skirts out of hankys. For the summer, I sell them with little camisole type tops with ties at the shoulders. I didn't know what to put with them for winter, but my darling daughter does. Miss E went upstairs and put on the following outfit. I like the long sleeve tee with the skirt.

Making Some Progress

Here are a couple of pictures of the new tops I'm working on for the trunk show next week. They have numbers that have been cut out of t-shirts and stitched down around the edges. The effect is really cool. I'm also making some skirts using the same technique.





...and here is the pig-pen of a studio that I'm working in. I seem to do best with the pile system, but it does start to overtake things.

Mailing List

If anyone wants to be added to my mailing list to find out about upcoming Patache trunk shows, please email me at patache@comcast.net. The majority of these shows are in the Portland, OR area. I'm trying to update my mailing list right now, so if any of you have been to my sales in the past and want to make sure you are still on the mailing list, email me.

Exciting Things to Come

Work has begun on my official website www.patache.com. I sent off the files last night. I am so excited! It will be hooked to Paypal, so I will be able to take orders from the site. This is new territory for me, so I am not sure when it will be up and running. I will, of course, put any updates out here on the blog. Check back frequently. I'm also working on a few new pieces for the upcoming Eclectic Collective show. The show will be Nov 17 (5pm-9pm) and Nov 18 (9am-3pm) at the home of Sandy Bakken 3375 Ridgewood Ave, Portland, OR 97225. There will be a wine and cheese reception the night of Nov 17. There will be seventeen artist total selling their work- everything from jewlery and paintings to scarves and baby blankets. I hope any local fans will be able to come.

Post Halloween Recovery

Miss E had a wonderful time trick-or-treating. Now we are in the candy rationing mode. Of course the contents of her pumpkin is way more interesting than the Cheerios that I was trying to feed her for breakfast. I am now trying to rank the candy in order of quality nutrients and feed her the more nutritous items in the morning. This strategy is not going so well. So she had 2 tangerines, 1 bite of Cheerios, a cookie, and a kit kat for breakfast. Unfortunately she can now open the candy wrappers, so I'm going to have to keep on eye on her. Putting the candy up high doesn't always work, since she can easily move chairs and climb on things.... oh well... eventually we will run out of candy.... just in time for Christmas.

Unfortunately....

Unfortunately as I unfolded the Tammis Keefe tablecloth to wash it, I found a hole in it! Dang it! I've got to remember to unfold things all the way when I'm shopping. The hole is about 2" across, so it will need patching of some sort... maybe I can get creative with some table runners or somthing.

On a positive note, I finished a Tinkerbell costume for Miss E. The wings were extrememly challenging, as the cheap fabric that I selected unravelled right before my eyes. Eventually the wires were poking through and there were no seam allowances left. Darn my penny pinching.. I got sucked into buying the cheap fabric. So I re-made the wings entirely out of various fabrics that I had on hand. After 3 hours of working, my lovely daughter informed me that the wings were "pokey, too big, and make my tummy hurt". Ahhhh.... the insight of a 3 year old. After a lengthy break from the project, we returned to trying on the costume in the late afternoon, and it was a great success. So we had to take some pictures.....

Goodies from the trip

Here are my latest additions to my vintage tablecloth stash. My best buy was the one with the tulips for $1.60 at a thrift store. It is printed on a herringbone weave. Very lovely and somewhat shabby chic... but a wonderful cloth. The great deal offset the not-so-inexpensive holiday tablecloths. I love the intensity of color in the morning glory print on faille. Extremely vibrant... holiday yet not hit-yourself-over-the-head holiday. The more traditional cloth with the red center and greeny-gold accents is a Tamis Keefe. She was an amazing textile artist. She only had a short career but was very prolific. I also have several of her hanky designs.

Back from vacation and trip to the farm

I haven't touched my blog in 3 weeks! I feel so neglectful. We were gone to Chicago and Michiana (northern Indiana/southern Michigan) for 10 days, and then Elsie and I went to Idaho to visit my parents on their farm for another 5 days. Hillary at Wee Wonderfulsgave me some wonderful advice for a place to stay and do some antiquing- St. Charles. Which is my new favorite city in Illinois. Such a cute town and 45 minutes from O'Hare! Thanks Hillary!
I have greatly expanded my 40's tablecloth collection as well as other treasures. We did quite well in Elkhart, Indiana and Schoolcraft, Michigan. Of course, estate sales and thrift stores always have the best deals over antique malls, but it is still fun to look. I'll try to post photos tomorrow.
At the farm we made 20 gallons of apple cider. Every fall my family and family friends get together to grind apples into pulp and squish them into cider. Very yummy! But drinking too much can keep you in bathroom for extended periods of time... if you know what I mean. The spouse will be turning 5 gallons of the cider into apple wine. Always a fun project. Last year's apple wine is quite strong with alcohol, but has a wonderful apple-y smell.

Getting Ready for the Holiday Shows

I pulled out some of my Patache products to see what else I need to make. The Treasure Dive (the artists' collective that I am a member of) is meeting with another artist tomorrow who is hosting a Christmas show in November. This artist wants to see what each member of the Treasure Dive collective makes, and if she likes what she sees she will host us as guest artists at her show. Yippee! All of the fun and sales, with none of the planning. Here a small sampling of the product:


I have woven items too. I will post more tomorrow.

Back from Boise

Elsie and I spent a lovely week in Boise, ID with my sister and her family. We flew this time which was very exciting. One the return, our flight was cancelled and we were rerouted through Seattle. Which made Elsie extremely excited. When we got off the plane in Seattle she kept saying over and over "Oh my gosh! We are in Seattle!!". Leave it to a 3-year old to make a travel detour into an event.
I am currently trying to get the house back in order and start on a bit of fall pruning in the garden. We took a walk this morning and fall is definitely in the air. Some of the trees are even beginning to turn....hmmm... time to start thinking about Christmas!

Comment Spam

In an effort to control comment spam, I've turned on the word verification.

Goodies to share

I feel like I have been neglecting my blog. So I will be making a better effort at regular posts. Especially now since fall is here.
I discovered a fabulous store within walking distance of my house called Knittn' Kitten. They sell nothing but vintage fabrics, patterns, books, and other sewing supplies from the past. It is an incredible treasure trove! Here are two craft books I found. One has knitting patterns and the other has crochet doll dresses.

It's Finally Done!

Here is the finished playhouse. There are a few more details that will be added such as the mailbox (you can see the post to the left of the house), a chandelier, a rug and curtains. But the big time construction and painting is finally at a close. Now on to a bit of relaxation for the last two weeks of summer.

Continuing on the Playhouse

We are working like beavers to finish the playhouse this weekend. Dave put on the siding last week while Miss Elsie and myself were visiting the Grandparents on the farm. Today we primed the house, inside and out, and put on two coats of the robin's egg blue interior. It looks something like a pool house without the exterior color. Hopefully by this time tomorrow night, the little house will have all it's color and accessories on. Stay tuned....

Trunk Show Update

The trunk show was a success! I didn't have quite as many people as I would have liked, but I still sold a fair amount of product. I will be taking the remaining pieces to Last Thursday on Alberta Street on Aug 25. I'm not sure where I will be setting up yet. I will post that information closer to the date. For now here is a picture of the garden at Digs inside and out. It is really a lovely place for an event.


I did learn that I need my own sandwich board to put out at events like this... and it would probably be a good idea to run an ad in the paper.... live and learn.

Patache Trunk Show

This Saturday, my dear friend Jen is hosting a trunk show for me at her shop Digs inside and out. My blog will be rather quiet for the rest of the week while I get ready. Here is the flyer:

Playhouse update

After working all weekend, we have the steps finished and all the trim on. It doesn't look like we did all that much for the amount of time we worked... but we now have all the fine detail stuff done... so it's on to the siding! We will be using a 2" beadboard style siding that our neighbor removed from his porch roof. Old growth fir, so the pieces are incredibly long. It should make a lovely little house when we are finished.

The Playhouse

The spouse and I started building a playhouse for Elsie on Memorial Day Weekend. We are hoping to have it completed by Elsie's birthday, August 30. We do not have the trim and siding on yet, but do have windows and the door. We are going to work at it again this weekend and hopefully will make some good progress.

Miss Elsie wearing the goods

Here is a picture of Miss Elsie wearing some of the Patache product.

First Blog

After enjoying many other blogs on the web, I'm finally getting around to starting one of my own. Please forgive the learning curve over the next few weeks as I get things up and running.
Lori