37 weeks

The girls from my church small group threw me a little surprise baby shower recently. It was so sweet of them since I wasn't expecting anything at all, and all the little details were just perfect. I love the Anthropologie-inspired hair ties Sumiko made and included in the favor box. Oscar still has days where he drools quite a bit, so I cut up some old shirts and sewed them into bandana bibs. I like how they look on him better than regular bibs. I've been reading this great book (thanks Susan!), and feel inspired to cook with better ingredients. This past weekend I made lentil spread using this recipe, and some almond milk using this video. Both turned out great!

gifts

I celebrated my 34th birthday this past month and received some great gifts - the Moop Porter bag (with my big 32-week bump), and an Orla Kiely wallet. Thanks friends - you know who you are! The last photo shows a couple of little linen bags I made for some special girls. Working on them made me wish I was better about giving more handmade gifts.

This was a full month for us - a weekend in Monterey and a week in Hawaii (will share pictures soon!). And now there's only 2 more months before the baby comes!

one!

Oscar is one! He actually turned one a couple of weeks ago, but we didn't have a proper celebration until this past weekend.

I've been pretty obsessed with stripes lately, so thought I'd do a "sails & stripes" theme for his party with deep blue, seafoam green, and pops of yellow.





Once the invites were done, everything else came together easily..









The idea for the paper sailboats above came from here. I printed some coordinating patterns onto letter-sized paper and followed these instructions to make the boats. For the hat I printed the striped pattern on a half circle, glued it together to make a cone, and curled some strips of vellum to go on top.





I found the perfect striped fabric at Ikea and sewed drawstring bags to fill with goodies for the kids' favors. The adults got fruit jellies in glassine bags taped shut with striped stickers (printed onto adhesive sheets and cut into long strips).



All in all it was a great celebration. I know all the decor was really an excuse for me to have a little creative fun, but I figured a first birthday doesn't come around too often, and surviving the first year with a first kid is worth celebrating. This past year was quite a year for our family, with my dad losing a 2-year battle with cancer when Oscar was only 5 weeks old, and Oscar having some health issues that had us in and out of the hospital quite a bit. We are here today by God's goodness and grace, and are so incredibly thankful for Oscar, for each other, and for our family and friends.

pants for oscar

I've been having a hard time finding pants that I like for Oscar. Since we're using cloth diapers, which tend to be a bit bulkier, I'd rather not put him in jeans as it just seems like it would be too uncomfortable for him. So I found some lightweight denim and used this pattern as a guide to make some trousers for him. I think he likes them, especially the buttons.. as you can tell in the first photo.

emilia's bag

Traci's little girl celebrated her 2nd birthday this weekend! (Be sure to check out the awesome party she threw!) I made her a simple bag for her to carry things around when she's out and about. Emilia is so adorable with her new bag. It's great having friends with little girls to make things for.

(photos courtesy of traci!)

happy birthday colette!

This weekend we celebrated my niece's 1st birthday! It's nice to have an opportunity to do a little crafting and make something girly. I made a couple of felt hair clips (I referenced this tutorial) and a hop skip jump doll. It's a great pattern -- just hemming those little pants with the sewing machine was a bit of a challenge!





The top the doll is wearing is made with a Liberty of London cotton that I bought when I was in Paris last year. I only bought something like half a meter because it was quite pricey. While in France I had also bought Colette a top made with the same material, so of course I thought it'd be cute for her to match her doll!





Look at the cutie giving her new doll a little kiss! I'm so glad I have a niece to spoil.

new tote

I went back to work full-time this week, and missed little Oscar so much! But I'm so thankful for two wonderful grandmas who are taking turns taking care of him during the day. I'm pumping breastmilk for Oscar while at work and have to carry the pump and milk storage bottles back and forth everyday. So the Sunday before I went back I finally pulled out the sewing machine and sewed up a tote bag while Oscar slept. I was glad to finally use some brown duck cloth I had in my stash -- the natural stiffness is perfect for bags. I eyeballed the measurements, but the size turned out to be perfect for all the pumping supplies and also lunch and snacks for work.





With Oscar and working, I'm bummed that I'll have even less time than before for crafting and keeping up the shop.. but I'm hopeful that I'll get snippets of time here and there!

a little more crafting

Some recent little projects completed: fabric storage buckets for the baby room (i roughly followed this pattern), and re-upholstering an old chair our neighbor was trying to get rid of. I bought the fun yellow fabric on our honeymoon in Stockholm.

















And look what I found at Kinokuniya the other day! I've been eyeing all the cute masking tape that has been showing up on Etsy, and am thrilled that I can find them locally now.

baby crafting

I'm finally making some progress in sewing some things for the baby now that maternity leave is in full swing! I debated about the crib bumper pads for awhile, with the SIDS risk and all.. but decided to go ahead and make them, and will just take them out once the baby can scoot around the crib, and put them back in after he's a year old. The pattern is from Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing for Baby, except I decided to make the bumper only about 8" tall instead of a foot tall. The nursing cover was pretty quick and easy - the pattern is from here. I still have a couple more things I'd like to make, but I'll be okay if I don't get around to them since I'm pretty darn close to my due date now!

Christmas is over but...

I've got another gift or two left to give.. (wrapped in a drawstring pouch I sewed, which I then stamped with a little tree I carved out of an eraser - forgot to take a picture of it until now!)
















..and I got a bunch more gifts over the weekend when my brother and my new sister-in-law came back from their honeymoon in Asia. They brought me so many goodies from Hong Kong that I nearly fainted. Fabric, trim, and a stack of sewing books! One of them is in Japanese (shown in the first picture - I've seen and drooled over this one before in blog-land), and the rest is in Chinese, which is fabulous because I think I'll actually be able to read most of it. Apparently there is an entire district of Japanese-y things!

A time to sew

Happy new year everyone! It's hard to believe it's 2009 already. Time flies, especially when you're on vacation! I'm super bummed that my 2-week shutdown is coming to a close. It's been so nice to sleep in and take my time with everything. This is a bit late - but I wanted to share with you what Irving got me for Christmas - vintage pyrex! I guess I've been pining away at them enough that he knew exactly what would make me happy. I love them, and they'll be especially useful since I've been trying to phase out most of our plastic food containers.



While we were in Monterey on Christmas day, Irving actually spotted these pods on the ground and pointed them out to me because he knew I'd like them. I've never seen these before and love their simple shape.



I was hoping to start screenprinting this last week, but had an overwhelming desire to sew instead. So sew I did! This plastic bag dispenser was a quickie - just a tube that's open at the top (for stuffing in bags) and has an elastic opening at the bottom (for pulling out bags). It was nice to finally use some Amy Butler fabric I'd been hoarding for a couple of years!



About a year an a half ago my little mustard-colored wallet (which I bought in Japan and really liked) was stolen. Since then I've been using a plain old black leather one and have resisted buying a new one because I really wanted to make one. Recently I fell in love with these wallets and decided to use them as a model for mine. I used cruddy fabric to practice making a couple mock-ups since I knew it would take me a few tries before getting it right. I think the only difference is that I also made a pocket behind the coin compartment. The outside fabric is wool I cut out from an old men's blazer found at the local goodwill for $3. Even though it took me the better part of a day, I had so much fun making it.

Holiday crafting

This is the our first Christmas in the new house, and our first tree together. I haven't had a tree in awhile, so I only have an ornament here and there that friends have given me over the years. I decided I wanted to collect and make my ornaments slowly, so our tree is a bit sparse, but I love all the ornaments we have so far! Below are two I made recently. I love the little bird. It's from Joelle Hoverson's book, and I'm definitely going to be making more.



I also made a couple of soft tree ornaments as gifts for some co-workers. The pattern is from here. I'm pretty sure I'll be making more of these as ornaments and also just as trees to place around the house.



And okay, this has nothing to do with holiday crafting.. more like holiday buying.. for me. They opened a Daiso near us recently and I've been finding every excuse to go there. I found this cute wire basket which is now neatly enclosing the pile of mail and papers on my desk, as well as a little fabric container that can be hung. Both super useful. Oh, and I couldn't resist those fat little clothespins. I'm sure I'll think of something to do with them.



This has been a busy week with preparations for my brother's wedding this Friday and a bridal shower and bachelorette party on Saturday. It's also the last week of work before a company-wide 2-week shutdown, so work has been extra busy.. not to mention all the gifts for co-workers that need to be bought or made. It's going to be a fun weekend, but boy am I looking forward to 2 full weeks of not working!

First Saturday

This past Saturday I was invited to showcase/sell some of my goods at an open house event for a new residential development in downtown San Jose. Not too many people came by but I sold some things and had a good time. They had hot spiced wine there (which I've never had) and it was so good!



Also had a bit of time to make more burp cloths and also a bit of art for a baby shower gift. So many friends are having babies, I can hardly keep track! Gotta look for some more ideas for handmade gifts.

Moss and felt trees

I spent the entire day at home today (except for a quick trip to the post office) and loved it. I slept in, re-organized the studio and unpacked a couple more boxes. Charlie kept bugging me 'cause she wanted to go to the backyard, so I went out there with her and all she wanted was to sunbathe! I stayed out there with her and just sat in the sun for a bit too. It's been a bit drizzly lately and I noticed bits of green moss peeking out in between the patio slabs. Such a beautiful green.



I also tried out an idea I've had in my head for awhile: simple felt trees. I only made three, but I think it'd be fun to make a whole grove. They're inspired by these trees (which I still want to make one day) I found awhile back. I love the simplicity of it, but thought it would be neat to add some texture.



I sewed up little cones out of semi-circles and just stacked them on top of each other. I'll try and post some pictures of the process soon. Oh, and I just caught up on my blog-reading and saw this tutorial for similar trees made out of fabric. Really cute as well, be sure to check it out.

Farmer's market and weekend crafting

I went to the farmer's market with my parents this Saturday since they now live just a couple minutes away. The weather was great and I came home with some nice organic produce that will last me half the week.









I also made some gifts for a baby shower: patchwork burp cloths and a whale softie. So many friends are having babies this fall, I'm already falling behind on gifts!