The Year in Review

Amy had a great suggestion today; instead of making resolutions about how next year will be better than the last, one should celebrate the year gone by and all the successes along the way.

This year we reveled in the best things there are:

Beauty,
Creativity,
Treats,
Love,
Togetherness.

A pretty good year.


1. Chocolate Dipped Doughnuts, 2. Felted Sweater with embroidered pocket, 3. Cinnamon Sunrise, 4. going quickly, 5. Heart French Toast, 6. planting, 7. Sculpture Garden, 8. Stream under Summit, 9. Up a Tree, 10. reflection, 11. Sweet Ride, 12. Dewdrop, 13. Strawberry, 14. Fathers Day Cake with Strawberry Jam, 15. Sunrise, 16. heron, 17. Through the woods, 18. Harvest time, 19. Untitled, 20. Teeny Tiny Frog, 21. Face Painting, 22. In the River, 23. As Big as a Falcon, 24. Sky-Blue Water, 25. Last Beach Day of the Summer, 26. Is that my bus?, 27. dribbling, 28. Pumpkin Whoopie Pies, 29. Brown/Teal Scarf Close, 30. Binoculars, 31. October Morning Light, 32. Reading at the Breakfast Table, 33. Arr, I'm a pirate!, 34. homemade marshmallows, 35. Waiting for the Bus, 36. Snowy

December Five and Twenty, fum fum fum

So far we've had a perfect morning of presents, burned bacon, more (not burned) bacon, waffles, Charlie Brown, and cookies.
I hope you find togetherness and love today.

Merry

Making

The present extravaganza is fully underway, and I have some goodies to show for it -
Scarves for various folks on the list.My kids keep telling me that their teachers have scarves already, but they're all getting one anyway.
I have seen homemade marshmallows on more than one blog this season, and (follower that I am) I just couldn't resist making a mountain of them myself.

I tried my hand at coating some of them in chocolate too, they're tasty but not too pretty.
Still to come, more scarves and cookies...

Fa La La

I am fully in the spirit of the Christmas Season!
I have been making sweet treats all day, cookies are on the horizon, and I have been listening to Christmas music all morning.
New this year -can I tell you how happy these make me?
I don't really know if I can put it into words.

My lovely Elder Hug-a-Bug is 6 today.
These are two songs that are on our playlist lately.
The first one makes me think of our not-quite-so-little lady, who really is quite remarkable.
The second one is her current favorite.

Brrr

Swapping Complete (at least on my end)

The deadlines for two swaps come up this week, and I have everything finished, and I am making my final trip to the post office this morning.For the Holiday Traditions Exchange we were supposed to share our favorite holiday traditions (duh) and I chose handmade gifts and baking.
I wove a small neckwarmer type scarf, embellished a stocking and baked some cookies.
Now, I am off to the post office, via the Children's Museum with the Younger Hug-a-Bug, and my swapping will be complete.
This whole thing has me feeling quite Christmas-y, and I am happy to say that we got our tree and village up yesterday.

They look terrific when all the lights are out, even with the sun coming up...

Fun Stuff with Felt

I am teaching a new class at Treadle Yard Goods this weekend.
This is my first time teaching sewing.
I have taught knitting for 7 years now, and I am sure this new class will go o.k., but every new endeavor brings its own anxiety...

We're making different projects with hand sewing on felt.
When I peruse all of the crafty blogs out there sometimes there are projects that are too good not to make at home - Juicy Bits' felt crowns and Angry Chicken's barrettes are two of those projects.
I modified each of their designs to hand sewing, and did some other tweaking, but I really want to thank those ladies for their great ideas.
I'll be sure to tell my students about these creative ladies when I get to class.

The Elder Hug-a-Bug loves her crown, and it's such a fun project, I hope it'll be a hit with the class. (this picture is from last year)


For the class, and because there's a 4-year-old's birthday coming up in a month, I made a birthday crown.
Another project that I am really excited about is this treasure bag - I took inspiration from a piece of vintage ribbon.
The vines are embroidered, but everything else is little pieces of felt that I adhered with wonder-under and then sewed on with a running stitch around the edge.
I was a little worried about the lack of symmetry in my stitching, but I am choosing to embrace it.

Swap Ornaments

I took a little time this weekend to make my ornaments for the Swap.



I had a vision of a tiny stocking with some fantastic embroidery across the cuff, but I couldn't quite make the fantasticness materialize, so I went with some holly.

Thankful

The Season of Swap

It's swapping time again!
I am signed up for 3 so far this Season, and I may join one more if it repeats from last year.
I have already started receiving Christmas ornaments, and I haven't even begun on mine.
I do have an idea cooking, so I don't feel too bad, but I gotta get going as a couple of my swap partners are abroad in England and Australia.

So far I received this wonderful package as a part of the Daisy Quilts Christmas Ornament Swap, and a super cute little felt Christmas tree as a part of the Fourth Annual Cake & Pie/ Freshly Blended Holiday Ornament Swap.
I also signed up for Meg's Holiday Traditions Swap at Sew Liberated.
I may come to regret my decision to join these swaps as I have house showings to clean for, and work knitting to finish, but the pay-off in the wonderful piles of creativity coming in the mail every week up to Christmas is well worth it!
I must get myself to my needle!
Have a Happy Thanksgiving if I don't see you,
Jess

Fun day of fun at the zoo

Thanks

Thanks everyone for your kind comments about my Rocketship to Dreamland!
And thanks too for your kind thoughts about our moving adventure.
I'll keep you all up to date on any developments in that arena.

Almost Late for School

because she was reading at the table.
I would gladly have driven her if she'd missed the bus.

One Yard Wonders

So about a year ago, I submitted a pattern to a couple of ladies who were putting together a book of sewing patterns.
I got in, and the book came out a couple of weeks ago.
They threw a party at Crafty Planet last week, but I was recovering from the flu (I thought I had THE FLU, but it seems like maybe I didn't) so I missed the party.
This was a colossal bummer, as I hadn't seen the book yet.
Anyway, I went in to Treadle Yard Goods today, and they had a copy, so I quick searched through it and there was my pattern!
The book is One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric! and my project is the Rocketship to Dreamland.

It was super fun to see my project in a book, but also super duper fun that they put a tiny Tin Tin and Snowy in the pocket of the rocket in the photo.

All the contributors get a copy of the book, but mine hasn't arrived yet.
I can't wait! I flipped through the rest of the projects and this book looks terrific!

Whoosh

I have had a very interesting couple of days.
We decided to sell our house.
We have a house where our two Hug-a-Bugs are sharing a bedroom and the Elder has been asking for her own space for a while now.
Something about finishing the bathroom must have spurred us on, because we were able to fix the ceiling in the living room where the lack of any watertight walls had allowed water to leak slowly for what must have been years and years.
We also were able to get rid of the horrible stall shower in the basement where we have been showering with centipedes for nearly 6 years.
Somehow, we're able to totally let this house go, safe in the knowledge that the house is in good shape for its next owner, whoever that might be.
It all has been a bit of a whirlwind, and we'll see what happens, but I am allowing myself to get a little excited.

Hello November

October in Minnesota was a little on the completely unexpected side.
We had snow, we had wind, we had rain and rain and rain, and then a perfectly lovely Halloween to top it all off.

Yesterday the weather was a wonderful 65 degrees and we high-tailed it to the playground.
We have been stuck inside for almost a month with the ridiculous weather and sicknesses, it felt so good to just be outside.

Finished!

Long ago I warned that I would bore you all with pictures of my bathroom remodel, and the day has come.

These first two are from the day we went through with the inspector. You can just barely see the Elder Hug-a-Bug in the blue sling.
She is 10 days old.
We decided to buy this house after my water had broken, but before we went in to the hospital.
Yes. We were a little crazy.
The floor was this lovely (not really) green linoleum tile that was peeling up, but we didn't need to worry about that happening around the toilet, as there was no floor covering there at all.Now there are easily cleanable tiles on the floor. We also got a new vanity. The old one had out-lived its usefulness.


We decided to ditch the gold veined wall board, and went with tile around the tub (where none had existed before) and a soft green for the walls instead of the garish yellow from before.
We have been here for nearly 6 years, and even though it might mean that we eat spaghetti 3 out of 7 nights, and never go out to eat again, we have a functioning shower and a beautiful bathroom and I am over the moon.

Here ends my bathroom worship, thanks for humoring me.

As a clarification, I did no work.
I hired a lovely man to come in and do everything.

Boo part 2

Happy Halloween!