Geez, there are so many good calendars out this year. I’ve used the Nikki McClure one three years running now by my desk at lab, and I always use seamripper‘s computer desktop ones (the December one is uber cute, and don’t forget the matching gift list download), but I like to collect a couple more for around and about. I joined applehead‘s handmade calendar swap, so I’m looking forward to what I might get for that one, maybe for the kitchen. I’m responsible for January 2008 (it’s a 14 month calendar). And for my craftroom I just bought+downloaded this by lovexevol. I only found her site in the last couple of months, and I absolutely love everything she does. So, a whole calendar to print out, for just $2, such a deal! This is my favorite page from it.

oh, and here she is on lj

eta: was rummaging around on my sewing table tonight and uncovered yet another calendar that I had forgotten about, by snow & graham. It has a different lovely pattern for every month. The only thing that would make it more perfect is if it were letterpressed. (The link is to Luxe Paperie, but I bought mine at peek keep, which appears to be out of them at the moment.)

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My cheery clover web theme got annoying awful quick, especially with it getting colder here, so time for a redesign. Doesn’t it seem warmer already? And look, I finally made a banner. It only took me, what 3 and a half years? I liked cutting out the little letters; now I want to make a font of them to go with my redwork font that I finished but never fontified. One of these days…

Oh, and I updated my bloggy links. Enjoy

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A friend of mine is having a baby soon, which calls for my baby shower gift of choice lately, a Wee Wonderfuls doll. I made a kitty last time, so now it’s on to the bear. While sewing him shut, I accidently cut one of the dress corners a little funny, which fortuitously created this bloomer effect. Since the parents don’t know the gender, I like the little extra gender-neutrality of the bloomers vs a dress. The bloomers are Denyse Schmidt cotton, and the rest is wool-blend felt. I ended up not having quite enough felt, so he has little stubby legs, which I also like. My friend Becket, who is going to start guest blogging on craftlog any day now, made a matching baby quilt that you are just not going to believe. It’s even got a pocket to stow bloomer bear. We’ll get that posted as soon as a photo shoot can be arranged, believe me.

I’m at my sister-in-law’s house for Thanksgiving, which means seeing my niece, which means props for the photo! :)

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After my last improvised attempt at a skirt, it became clear that I should try one from a pattern. Enter Sew U, the Built By Wendy book that you have no doubt seen elsewhere in blogland. I really really like the book. It is a perfect combination of complicated and simple, by which I mean that the instructions are easy to follow and well written, but the techniques range to the more complex. I felt like I was really learning to sew how you *should* sew, not some oversimplified way that was bound to disappoint in the construction. This is in contrast to how I felt about the Sew Fast Sew Easy book, which also has a skirt pattern that I have never made because it seemed so lame (and that was before they turned so evil).

Anyway, back to the skirt. It only took one night, and it has everything: nice zipper, darts, finished seams, facing, little button-loop to close the top of the zipper, everything. The fabric is a slightly stretchy, thin wale cordoruy that I got on sale at Reprodepot. The instructions were really good at every step. The book is organized with a kind of abbreviated 1 page recipe for each item (skirt, pants, and shirt), and more detailed information about particular steps and techniques organized in chapters, plus a bunch of reference information on sewing machines, patterns, fabrics, etc. I like this because I could flip to the long description for steps that I wanted more info about, but the big picture was all in one place. Also, as I learn the steps, I won’t need the long directions. Incidentally, I use the same system in writing my lab protocols. :) The only place where I felt the book had insufficient instructions was how to undersew, which I’d never seen before but is the magic that keeps the facing folded over just so. It fits great, and I am confident it will survive the washing machine.

I also feel like I actually learned something about sewing. I now understand facings, and what ease is, and all these little things that seemed kind of mysterious before. I already have the fabric for the cute shirt I’m going to try next. Thanks Wendy!

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My ornaments for a number of swaps I signed up for: one on Swap-bot, ornamental, and Holiday Ornament Swap. The first one has a deadline of November 13 for some unknown reason, so now I’m nice and early for the other ones. They’re gocco on felt, much like my yeti ornament from last year. This time I did 2 layers of wool blend felt plus a fabric backing, all fused together. I wanted the tags to look like specimen labels, with the scientific name of the tree on one side and my URL on the other in this cool typewriter font called Ghostwriter. I am very pleased with them. My yeti swap last year yielded all sorts of cool ornaments, so I have high hopes that I’ll get some good ones this year too.

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I’ve had pine cones on the brain lately. I believe it started a while back with Karen Gelardi’s pinecone prints (which you can buy at ferdinand.)

The last week I’ve been seeing them everywhere:

DeLuce Design

Walter Erhard reprints

and these 2 beauts from blissen

I signed up for some ornament swaps and decided pinecone prints it is. First order of business is doing the drawing. I found a nifty website for a cone collection. Who knew there were so many types of cones? Fascinating. Anyway, I printed out a bunch of different ones and tried tracing them with a sharpie (one of the 29-pack I got for my birthday!) I kind of like the effect, although you can see this method worked better for some than others.

The gocco prints are drying now, so tune in later for the finished ornaments.

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I finally finished the matching needlebook for the pin cushion swap. It’s 4 panels of the same fabric, each backed with felt, satin stitched around the edges. It folds accordian-style and closes up with snaps.

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I seem to have come late to the red-black-white (plus some gray-brown) party. Remember backtack III, when that color scheme was everywhere? It didn’t do a thing for me at the time, but suddenly I love every print I see in this range. I have aspirations of a quilt, or at least some patchwork placemats or something. Here’s the pile I got at Joann’s today:

If anybody has some fabric along these lines that you’d be willing to part with, I’d love to do a swap.

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