Posted on by — 58 Comments

drafting monkeys

I had a sudden burst of energy and thought maybe I’d try to get one more toy pattern out in time for Christmas gift giving. I’m thinking boy gift and also thinking quick and easy. With these two criteria in mind I’m using fleece to draft this little guy and I have to say it’s turning out pretty cute. I know fleece isn’t everyone’s favorite and it’s definitely not scoring points on the natural materials scale but it’s super easy to work with, cheap and really easy to find. And it’s soft and the kids love it. Sometimes there can be so many hurdles to actually completing a project, ordering supplies from different online sources or scouting all over town for the perfect fabric. I was thinking, especially during Christmas stress-crunch time, wouldn’t it be nice to walk into a Joanns, Hancock Fabrics or Hobby Lobby with $20 and be able to get all your supplies to make something cute!

I’ve been wanting to make a monkey forever and thought it’d be perfect for this project. Using some of my favorite storybook monkeys as inspiration, I came up with these guys. They’re a little different from each other but I think the final design is there between the two of them. The sitting monkey has a shorter tail because dang, stuffing a long skinny tail is not exactly what I’d call relaxing crafting.

Posted on by — 44 Comments

my knitty kate kitty

I made this very round, super-cute kitty as a new baby present for a friend and I just can’t part with her. I’m so stressy and anxious lately (b/c of current affairs, nothing personal) and every time I look at my knitty kitty I smile so I’m keeping her around for hugging and comfort. She’s made from jess hutch’s brilliant kate kitty pattern on knitty. I highly recommend you make yourself one if you need a huggy buddy.

ok, so now… where do I find a cute replacement new baby gift?! (to buy)

Posted on by — 30 Comments

dream bubbles

The other day I was asking Tim to give me some ideas for Christmas embroidery patterns. As always, he gave me ‘I don’t know’ but I forced him to spit out Christmasy things… santa, reindeer, candy canes, kids in their beds dreaming about what they want for Christmas.. ahh! I ran to the bookshelves to find one of my childhood favorites, Gyo Fujikawa’s A to Z Picture Book. I loved this page when I was a kid. So I loved this idea! And I swear it was like the 5th thing he threw out there. I’m going to force him to brainstorm more often.

Here’s my first dreaming-of-Christmas fellow. Remind you of anyone?

I was thinking of doing this as redwork but wasn’t really feeling it. But I also didn’t want to get a bunch of colors going because I’m thinking maybe 10 of these in the series (wouldn’t that make a cute quilt!) and man that’d be a lot of work, it’s so much easier to embroider all in one color. So now I’m thinking maybe all one color for each design? This guy’s in navy.

It’s hard to believe I’m thinking Christmas, especially since I’m in total denial that it’s already Fall and the air conditioning is still on. But it’s feeling pretty easy to be overrun by stress and uncertainty this past week and I’m really trying to focus on our own little reality here, like how Christmas is fast approaching and I’m going to try to make it as fun and awesome as possible for these kiddos.

Posted on by — 18 Comments

dress for Phoebe

I did it. I said I was going to make something and then I did. The very next day. I was almost derailed by the ‘it’s in japanese’ factor but I stuck with it and ta-da. It turned out really cute! (here’s the back) I love this style. It fits in very nicely with my strong desire to dress Phoebe as Laura Ingalls Wilder everyday. The fabric is fig and plum. I love this print. I also got it in blue.

This shot below didn’t turn out so well (none of them did actuall) but I had to include it… she hopped up there and I caught her in this funny toe-gazing wardrobe re-mixer pose. hee! Do they have one of those types of sites for kids? They totally should.