sheppard girls

What to do next?

Attention people in my family.  I am going to be posting bits and pieces of things I am making for Christmas gifts.  If you don't want your gift ruined, then stop reading right now and check back in January.  If you have no fun surprises later on this month, it is no ones fault but your own.

Here is a little embroidered girl that I made to be part of a gift for my new niece.  I have other vaguely nautical things to go with it, but know people (her mother) are probably still reading this post, so I won't tell what, so that is why she is wearing a sailor dress.  The head was inspired by Wee Wonderfuls stitchettes and the clothes were inspired by Olive Juice.  That clothes is always so amazingly cute, that I knew there was a reason to keep those catalogs. 

My embroidery leaves something to be desired, but it was so fun.  She took me the length of Mary Poppins to make.  I am hoping to make her a friend during the American Girl movie this evening.  But I don't know what to do with her then.  A little pillow, tiny stuffie.... 

Looking for inspritation

It is late November and I am still looking for inspiration for little ornaments to make for the nieces and nephews.  I heard that Hillary Lange at Wee Wonderfuls is featured in the new Cutting Edge with some adorable little sewn ornaments.  I know there is some amazing inspiration out there somewhere, on a blog, a magazine, in a book, or on Flickr.  Or in the genius that is the Japanese craft magazine.  Seen anything super sweet?

Let me know.

Edited to add:  The above ornaments are vintage Shiny Brites.  I love them so very much.  I've been collecting them for years and long for the day when you could go to a garage sale or country auction and buy a whole huge box of Christmas stuff that no one else wanted.  The ornaments, the vintage tinsel, the paper goods, amazing.  The wire tree came from Junkmarket about three years ago.

I would drive 500 miles...

...to get fun fabric. 

                   

I have been getting a bunch of emails, thanks to Little Bird, who included me in a post a few days ago, asking where I get the fabric I use for my bibs.  The vintage inspired Christmas fabric is from Michael Miller.  Most of those pictures above are from Moda.  I will truthfully go to just about any store to get fabric, but I have the best luck with fabric lines from Free Spirit, Michael Miller, Kaufmann and Windmere.  National chains like Joanns and Hancock have begun carrying some Michael Miller and Kaufmann.  Otherwise I look at local quilt stores or online.  I try to keep really good records of the fabric I use and unless I really love something, I try to use fabric from recent lines.  In the past I have found myself trying to locate a fabric by driving around to shops asking "did you ever sell this fabric?" "do you know who made it?" or searching for hours online by typing in words like "rabbit" "bunny", etc.  So if you see a specific fabric you are wondering about, please email or leave a question in the comments and I will do my best to let you know.

If you are interested in buying a bib, I will try to open my Etsy shop this weekend.

Christmas bibs

Christmas bibs on their way to a store.  Five down about thirty more to go.

Putting these together used to be my least favorite thing.  I would leave the neckbands until the very last minute because I made so many mistakes.  The pattern is from my grandma.  And by pattern, I mean an outline of the bib on a County Market grocery sack.  I have since figured out all the secrets and these come together pretty fun now.  I wish I could keep that in mind when I am trying new patterns.  Because I bet by the 50th attempt or so, I would totally have it down.

On the lookout for....

the perfect tree skirt.  I have never liked our tree skirt, but I sewed it BY HAND about 15 years ago.  Every year I pull it out and think,

this is ugly

but I worked so hard to make it

but it makes me unhappy

I would love this one

I

from Hable Construction if it was aqua and didn't cost $400.   I should make one.  I am thinking felt with a big scalloped edge, or I am kind of drawn to the quilted silver fabric used to cover ironing boards.  I have this mental discussion every year, but maybe sending it out into the "blogosphere" (did anyone else watch election coverage on FoxNews and get driven crazy by the constant use of the word blogosphere?!) will encourage me to come up with a plan.  Coming next, my hunt for the perfect garland.  I dislike our stockings too.

carnival time

Each year our local elementary school has a huge fall carnival.   These are the baskets I put together for the silent auction. 

I am most excited about the Little Golden book collection.  How sweet are these stories?

Next comes the classroom theme basket.  Our theme this year is "That's Italian".  The contents depend upon classroom donations.  I am nearly certain we will end up with 8 jars of pasta sauce and 14 boxes of pasta.  I bought yards and yards of red, white and green tulle, so I think it will end up looking fun.  And I found some amazing vintage Bocce ball, and some vintage Italian travel guides.  I can hardly stand how cool these are.

If no one else thinks it is wonderful, I am taking it back home with me.

Boy oh boy

Since I only have girls to shop for, well actually I have two nephews, but mostly girls, I pretty much just tune out the boy side of the store.  The fact that the Gymboree and Baby Gap boy sides are all dark colors and muted patterns, and only make up about 1/3 of each store, pretty much never bothered me.  So when I started making baby gifts for other people to buy, it took me a long time to remember to look for boy fabric and boy colors and make boy designs.  Gingham is not considered all that masculine, I learned.

I have been working on a big order of bibs, and since the store "will take anything [I] come up with sweetie", I have just been working out of my pre-cut-bib-front basket.  For days I have been putting these bibs together, until I began to look at the growing piles and realized - hardly any girl bibs. 

The green one and the aqua one at the bottom, maybe the ducks.  Man.  It's gonna be a long weekend.