Apron Action

Carpenters have carpenter aprons. Chefs have chef aprons. I needed some kind of apron to carry around my sewing supplies when I sew. I spend so much time running back and forth to where I left my snips or seam gauge. So I constructed this beauty from some vintage bark cloth that I found at a yard sale about 7 years ago.


My iphone fits in it too...




So far it has increased my holiday productivity.

Another wintry day....

No school today, so Miss E is home and full of excitement. She has attended school twice this week.
It is snowing this morning with big flakes. I'm finishing sewing a Christmas gift that has to be in the mail TODAY. Here's a pic of my little owls and some Christmas sparkles.


You can kind of see the snow through the window.

Holiday Fairies

So my sister gave me a half dozen or so old-style clothes pins... the kind that make really darling little dolls... as seen here on Alicia's blog.

So Miss E and myself found some fitting inspiration for the season.



This is the conceptual art from Fantasia for the Nutcracker Suite re-envisioned as the seasons through the eyes of the Imagineers.



Armed with a vast amount of sparkly supplies...


we began the project. I have some old reflectors for Christmas lights. They do not fit our current light strands and have been kicking around since last Christmas. So we gave one of the clothespins a fitting....



Little fairies taking shape...



They have reflector tutus and delicate arms made of wrapped wire. Miss E sat with my jewelry pliers and made loop hands on them.



Finished fairies....





We still need to come up with some kind of stand. We want to display them separately along the mantel, but we need little stands for each clothespin. There is ice all over Portland, so there is no running off to the craft store today. I will need to fabricate something from materials on hand.

Last Minute Sale at Mister Judy

My sister and I are celebrating the last minutes of Christmas with a Sale over at Mister Judy.




Come on over and browse the goods!

Small Magazine

Small Magazine has the most beautiful photography and imagery.



It is so inspiring...

Interview!

I have been interviewed by the lovely Miranda at Creative Construction.
Creative Construction is a wonderful blog/think tank/support engine for the creative mother. There are all sorts of great interviews and inspirational things to peruse.
And they have a Weekly Creativity Contest with a $10 Amazon gift certificate as the prize! Nothing like dangling a carrot to get those creative juices focused.

Stocking completion!

Due to the curling of the previous numbers, I retransferred them onto heavier paper and pinked the edges. They still curl a bit but are vastly better than the others. By the second day the first ones had curled up into little rolls are were not readable.



Handsome stockings all in a row....



Mister e repeatedly checking the tensile strength of the supporting ribbon...



We need to get another cup hook in the middle before the whole thing comes down.

A Little Holiday Creativity...

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at my parents farm. Even though the spouse and I were sick most of the time, we were able to get out and enjoy some of the fall color.




And we discovered a quince tree on the farm! Who knew!!! Apparently Dad did, but we never used the quince for anything while we were growing up. So my sister and I trekked down to the quince tree one morning and picked a bucket full... and then spent the rest of the day turning it into quince paste... YUM! Unfortunately we left the whole batch at the farm (and it's a large batch), so Mom is putting into freezer cartons and will bring it down in a few weeks. I'll have to post the paste in another post.

Last year (or maybe the year before) a blogger had posted her idea of an advent calendar made of 24 stockings... or was actually working on the stockings... I can't remember. So this idea has been kicking around in my head for awhile. I didn't get it made last year and have been thinking about what fabrics to use, combinations, colors and couldn't make up my mind. Meanwhile I have been compelled to collect wool plaid fabrics....

I have amassed quite a stack courtesy of my mother-in-law's cleaning out of her sewing room and various finds at flea markets, rummage sales and what have you. I have no idea why I bought all of these, but they look really cool all together.



And then it hit me Sunday night, that my little stocking advent calendar needs to be mis-matched wool stockings! Genius!! Sometimes things do come together...





So I have been stitching away in the basement and falling farther and farther behind. I am heat transferring the cool numbers onto cotton broadcloth. My sister found this awesome site for free clip art, fonts, etc. The timing couldn't have been better! Unfortunately my little labels are curling... I will have to figure that out later. The good news is you can hole punch through the heat transfer medium and the cloth!



I managed to get the first 3 up today, so Miss E and Mister e got to empty 3 stockings all at once.. Jackpot! I have got to get the rest up today. I can't have them emptying multiple stockings at once!