1950s instant dress kits!

How cute are these kits? I found them on ebay, the seller has a whole bunch of them! The whole dress pattern is printed on the fabric, ready for you to "Cut 'n' Sew". I know from experience that it would be useless to get one of these and make it for Emily since I doubt you can alter them and they would be far too short (or too wide if I got a larger size). And I can't really justify buying one just to display....although I think it would be an awesome thing to put on the wall of a sewing room! (You know, if I had a sewing room....). Something to keep an eye out for, I'd definitely grab one if I ever find one thrifting someday!

the crazy ice cream cone

That is an ice cream cone I ate in Toronto two weeks ago. The flavor was "MIckey's Birthday Cake" and it was cake flavored ice cream, with frosting swirled in (frosting!!) and lots of sprinkles swirled in as well. With whipped cream and a mini-oreo on top. Holy smokes. To heck with everyone else and their "cupcake" flavored nonsense. It was amazing. But....I had to let Evan eat half of it and I still felt awful later! Emily had french vanilla and said it was delicious. (Both bought at "The Big Chill" which was, I think, right on Bloor College! Thanks, Gal!)

prettiest matroyshkas ever

So adorable. So sold out. But so easy to copy! I am totally going to have to make myself Emily a set of these!

the panda is back!

Remember the awesome Fry Pan-da that Fred Flare had a year or so ago? (Which, I can testify is actually a pretty awesome pan in daily use.) Well, they've got a Baby Pan-da in stock just in time for the holidays:



Much smaller, just 7" so not as useful. But just as cute! And yes, one is already stashed away in our house for Emily. So, everyone who's been wanting a Pan-da of their very own - now's your chance!

crazy doritos

I rarely eat junk food, but maybe once a year there will be a strange flavor of doritos I'll have to try (or, I'll just get the urge to try some anyway) and I'll buy a bag. This time, what called to me were these wasabi-mayonnaisse doritos! I was afraid they would be too wasabi-hot...but actually, they were sickly sweet, I guess for the mayo part of the flavor? Anyway, super-nasty. I barely made a dent in the bag before finally giving up and tossing them. Well, it was fun to try!

recent round-up

With so little time to blog, twitter's become my main brain dump these days -- for anyone's who's not over there, here are some of the tidbits I twittered about this week:

At ikea, a new baking line includes dala horse cake pans! Also, they've got a lamp coming out that looks like a dandelion puff. Emily is obsessed with dandelions...if she spots it we'll be getting one I think!

We got a butterfly kit; the caterpillars arrived within days of ordering and they are growing like crazy! Also, I helped Emily make a pill bug terrarium. As it turns out, there were a few eggs of some sort in there, we've got two inch-long caterpillars in there too!!

Watched Court Jester, which none of us had seen. We all liked it, and it's Emily's 2nd favorite movie night feature, after Singin' in the Rain. Neither Evan nor I are Danny Kaye fans, so we were surprised how much we enjoyed it. (The marvelous Glynis Johns certainly didn't hurt.)

We sorted our huge stash of archived t-shirts and pared it down to just 1 of each (these are our designs on shirts we'd put away when we got them). I did not want to take the giant stack to Mocca to sell, so I got the idea to put them up online. And a few days later they're mostly gone! So that was pretty cool.

I also have been following astronaut Mike Massimo's tweets from SPACE. Really from space. So amazing. They'll be landing tomorrow and I'll miss the reports from orbit!

Finally, after a few weeks of test and dr. visits, the mystery of my shoulder is not solved. It looks like I suffered a serious dislocation at some point, but we don't remember anything happening!! I've got at least one more test and then physical therapy to regain full movement...we'll probably never be sure what really happened there. As long as it works again I won't care though!

an explosion of cute!

so, I've been trying to blog for weeks, but time has been even more limited than usual. twitter is about all I have spare time for! instead of trying to finish any of my pending posts, let me just race through a few quick things:



check out that box of cuteness! I treated myself to a load of stuff from ichiban kan, where you can get all the cute little bento-y things you've seen on ebay for about $1 a piece (instead of $5 or so on ebay!) Favorites so far are the ultraman forks and the silicone pancake rings (they work amazingly!)

Also amazingly cute -- this little pegdoll I won from one of my favorite blogs, creative breathing. She's on my desk right now, and the only thing bad about her? She looks like she needs company!!

Final cuteness? Emily, who is now cooking at the stove. (Don't worry, closely supervised.) She is so proud of herself, it kills me!

goofy happiness

The Bedroom Philosopher's "Wow Wow's Song". Should so totally be on YGG!

Thankful for: great prices on yummy things I want at ikea's food mart! Hello Kristian Regale at 1/3 the price at Scandinavia house! Hello delicious Pepparkakor! And Ballerina cookies! And cloudberry jam!! Yum!

bubbling insa and halloween tidbits

Halloween week has been very busy! (And it's not over yet!) We went to the zoo for their Halloween "Spooktacular" where Emily gave cotton candy another try and decided that she does in fact, love it (she had it at the shore this summer and hated it). And, she won 3rd place in the costume contest, which was an experience*.

I dug out her TUK knockoff kitty shoes that match my Tredairs and discovered that the size marked on them was wrong -- if I'd waited to pull them out she'd have never worn them! So, whew. And she loves them!



I finished up this experimental Insa skirt and learned that black corduroy is really, really hard to photograph:



I made this Insa to see what it would look like without the overskirt, just as a basic skirt, and I was very pleased. I also was experimenting with some bias tape used as trim rather than ribbon. It even has some little bows at the back, which were much harder to make from bias tape than from ribbon!



Here's a closeup of the bows. I don't love them, but like I said, it was largely an experiment so I'm not going to worry about it. Much!

I also realized I have never posted the shirt I made for myself! It's from the Zoela pattern (the women's version of Zoe, which I've made before)



The body is a very soft cotton baby rib, the sleeves a blend of some sort I picked up a while back. Unfortunately, while the stripes are cool, the fabric is already pilling from the synthetic content it must have. Also unfortunately, I kind of hacked out the applique because I just wanted to be done. But, it fits great and is very comfortable. More Zoelas for me are on my sewing list already!! Maybe even one in velour like Emily's Halloween Zoe!

And now, it's time to get some lunch into a hyper Halloween witch so she has the energy to get through several events today!! Happy Halloween, everybody!!

*To make a very long story not-quite-so-long, I misunderstood the contest and thought it was more of the little kid costume parade type thing I am used to -- no, it was actually a 3-winners-only highly competitive display of bad parenting. A small group of mothers climbed onto the stage and blocked several kids from the judge's view, including Emily -- but the MC called the kids up anyway. Then, these same mothers booed when the last winner -- Emily -- was announced, as none of their kids won. Booed!! All these kids were under 5! I was horrified at their behavior, not to mention the lessons they were teaching their kids, but luckily Emily was oblivious to it and was excited to win when she had misunderstood the contest to be just going up to the judges to see what they thought of your costume.

and the winners are:

Emily isn't feeling well today, so I turned to the random number generator for help in giving away all three sets of patterns I have this week. (Not as much fun as using Emily, but certainly much faster!!) The results?



Which means:

4: Miz K!
1: Thien-Kim!
3: Astrid!

Come on down!! Send me your addresses and I'll get these out asap! Thanks again to everyone who entered, and keep your eyes on the wiki (and here) -- there will be another giveaway in the not-too-distant future!

spooky skirts and birthday fabric

Matching halloween skirts for me and Emily!



Both skirts are made using the Rømø pattern I've used before. The base fabric is a "Spooky Hollow for Joann's" cotton I bought years ago and stashed when it went on sale - I've waited all this time for a good reason to use it! Finally! The orange dotted fabric was left over from making Emily's Halloween costume dress (in fact, the ruffle on her skirt was actually made for her dress, I had a big length of ruffle left over and she asked me to put it on her skirt). Here's my skirt alone, and Emily's. Honestly, I think this is my favorite skirt pattern, so simple to put together (both versions) and also so easy to dress up. I just did a facing this time on mine (instead of a full lining) since I will probably not wear it as much, which made it come together even quicker. The girl's version is so easy I'd make Emily 10 of them....if I didn't suspect she is planning to boycott skirts now (as well as pants and sleeves).

I also have to show off this adorable cotton fleece (think really nice sweatshirt) I got for my birthday from my brother! (Well, with the gift certificate he got me from Bunte Fabrics.)



It's called Knut, after the famous polar bear, obviously. So cute!! I think it will be used for a copy of a favored dress Emily is on the verge of growing out of. I will almost hate cutting into it!! I also got the corduroy you can see in this photo, Emily picked that one out from the choices I gave her. NO idea what that's going to be. It's so adorable. I should also note that Bunte Fabrics is having a great sale right now on Japanese canvas fabric as well as lots of other stuff -- if I hadn't already known what I wanted it might have taken me forever to decide what to get!

the final farbenmix/fledge giveaway!

It's time for our last and final giveaway to celebrate the launch of the farbenwiki! Again, I've got a pair of patterns (courtesy of Nancy Langdon of StudioTantrum/Fledge) -- an Anna and a Feliz. (These are 'scratch and dent" patterns that had folding issues; so they come without the usual ribbon tags and have their titles crossed out to prevent their sale, just so you know. But they are perfectly usable and will make fabulous dresses!) All you have to do is comment on this entry or email me (and mention the giveaway!) by Monday morning -- and it looks like i may even an extra set or two to give away, so your chances may be even better than usual! Thanks for coming by!

Please note -- if you enter, plan on coming back here on Monday to see if you've won just in case my email to you gets filtered. If I don't hear back from the winner within 48 hours of emailing I will draw a new name and pass the patterns on. Thanks!

and the winner is...

Congrats on winning giveaway #3, Rebecca! And thanks to everyone else who entered -- remember to come back next Friday for the final giveaway, there's one last set of patterns waiting to go to a new home!

friday freebie -- pattern giveaway 3!!

It's time for giveaway number THREE to celebrate the launch of the farbenwiki! Once again, I've got a pair of patterns (courtesy of Nancy Langdon of StudioTantrum/Fledge) -- an Anna and a Feliz. These are 'scratch and dent" patterns that had folding issues; so they come without the usual ribbon tags and have their titles crossed out to prevent their sale, just so you know. But they are perfectly usable and will make fabulous dresses! All you have to do is comment on this entry or email me (and mention the giveaway!) by Monday morning -- and if you don't win, there will be one last chance next weekend!! And please spread the word...so we can spread the love!

And Rebecca is this week's winner! Please come back next Friday for the last set of patterns! Thanks!

and the winner is...

Congrats to this week's winner:



Send me your address, Nicole! And everyone else, please come back this Friday to enter giveaway #3 -- I have 2 more Feliz/Anna packs to give away! And please...pass the word, and visit the farbenwiki!

another Anna/Feliz pattern giveaway!

It's time for giveaway number TWO to celebrate the launch of the farbenwiki! Once again, I've got a pair of patterns (courtesy of Nancy Langdon of StudioTantrum/Fledge) -- an Anna and a Feliz, which is just about all you need to dress any girl from toddler to, okay, not teen, but big girl, definitely. These are 'scratch and dent" patterns that had folding issues; so they come without the usual ribbon tags and have their titles crossed out to prevent their sale, just so you know. But they are perfectly usable and will make fabulous dresses! All you have to do is comment on this entry or email me (and mention the giveaway!) by Monday morning -- and if you don't win, try again next weekend!! And please spread the word so we can spread the love!

And Nicole is the winner! Please come back Friday Oct 10th and enter giveaway #3 for another chance!!

and the winner is...

Congrats to this week's winner:



Send me your address, Leslie! And everyone else, come back Friday for another giveaway -- I have 3 more Feliz/Anna packs to give away! And please...pass it on!

fantastic freebie friday: farbenmix + fledge!!

To celebrate the beginning of the farbenwiki and encourage you all to try these patterns, I'm going to have a pattern giveway! For the next four weeks (ooh, four, another "f" I could have worked in there), every weekend I'm going to give away a pair of patterns (courtesy of Nancy Langdon of StudioTantrum/Fledge) -- an Anna and a Feliz, which could pretty much take care of all a girl's dress needs between them. These are 'scratch and dent" patterns that had folding issues; so they come without the usual ribbon tags and have their titles crossed out to prevent their sale, just so you know. But they are perfectly usable and will make fabulous dresses! All you have to do is comment on this entry or email me by Monday morning -- and if you don't win, try again next weekend!! And please spread the word so we can spread the love!

And Leslie is the winner! Come back Friday Oct 3rd for another chance!!

This is...my favourite fabric/craft supplies shop

Sadly, I have no local shop to support. Yes, I do live in the Metro NY area and have -- in theory -- access to the amazing fabrics and notions in mid-town. However, the reality is that with the little one to wrangle, going there is impossible. And what I actually have nearby is a dreadful pit of a Joann's. If I need a zipper, I go, but I come out cursing just about every time.

So, I shop online! And my favorite shop is the etsy supplies section -- truthfully, I don't necessarily buy that much, but I browse to see what's coming out and what might be cool. I've also been a long-time customer of equilter for their selection, great website and customer service. (The website is an important factor to me; if a website is hard to use, doesn't work in firefox or just annoys me, say, by blocking right clicking on links when HELLO that's how you open that link in another window, you goofuses. Not to mention, blocking right clicking doesn't do anything to prevent image theft. Oh, and in fact it doesn't do anything because I just block your ability to block me, ha ha. It just annoys actual customers, like me, who don't give you their money. okay, I'm digressing here, where was I? Oh, then I don't come back.) And finally, for basics I like fabric.com and verybaby.com, which is a diaper-making supply shop, but carries loads of high-quality cotton you can use for anything!

This week's This Is... theme brought to you by Handmaiden.

yo gabba sleepover!

Reader Gal from Panada tipped me off to this one -- Sears Canada (not Sears US, apparently) has a Yo Gabba Gabba Ready-Bed, a kid's inflatable sleeping bag/bed thing -- which seems pretty cool, actually, the idea of a little built-in air mattress in your sleeping bag sounds good to me! I wish they'd had these when I was little, man did I hate sleeping bags on the floor.