for the love of creating

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As I am sure it is quite clear, I really like to make things.

So I have put some of the things I really like to make into a little shop on Etsy.


I have considered doing this for several years now. And over the summer I have been doing a bit of creating here and there with ideas of this shop in my mind.

And then summer started passing, and a few weeks ago I decided that I needed to stop putting this off and really commit to it. So I did.

Sewing has been such a big part of my life for so long, and sewing clothing for children has always been my focus. I would love to someday have a shop full of beautiful clothing for children. For now though I had to start smaller. The shop has mostly just little handmade things, but I of course had to include a couple of pinafores :)

This pinafore above is kind of extra special. (I had Chessa try it on for some pictures. She says she loves it too much and that it has to be hers. I feel kind of sad about it. I promised I would be making her one this next week.)
So, why this one is so special... The white floral fabric is a vintage calico that I got just a while back. And about 18 years ago, when I first started sewing, I went to a little vintage fabric shop in northern CA and got another version of this exact same print, just a slightly different colorway, it was a creamier off-white. And with that fabric, combined with some light blue plaid, I made myself my very first dress.
Oh yes, it is kind of hard to be possibly parting with this pinafore.
I will definitely be saving the rest of the fabric for myself, or for my sweet Chessa.

I of course have all kinds of other things I would like to be making for the shop. But this week I will be taking time to create for my children, my most favorite kind of creating of all!


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handmade ~ birthday gifts

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Her birthday was at the end of May. I actually did pretty good getting most things made in time. Quite surprisingly I had her skirt and top sewed like 10 whole days before her birthday. This has never, ever happened before. I have always made the girls dresses, or once in a while now skirts, for their birthdays (and winter solstice). And I am always sewing in the days just before, and of course many times till very, very late the night before.

So it was nice to have some more free time to consider what else I might like to make her. Our gifts are always few and fairly simple, but still there is so much thought put into the specialness of each gift. Also for the set of books they always receive, often the only gift that is not handmade, how I love to choose their stories for the season or the year.

And since Chessa was getting two very sweet gnome books I decided that she must have a little gnome. This little gnome has been given the name of Leaf. She was very fun to make. I thought I would want to add some embroidery to her dress, but then I felt like I really like the plainness of her just as she was. Chessa loves her.


And I knew all along the other gift I was going to make her. My mother helped us get her this set of beeswax stick crayons. Since she will be beginning first grade this year! It would have been nice also to give her these when we were actually starting school in september, but this way it helps us so much when it comes to getting what we need for school supplies and books for the coming year.

So I made her a crayon pouch to hold all of her new crayons. I made crayon pouches like this for their block crayons, which they have had for a few years now, and it really helps to keep the crayons clean, organized, and all in one place. Chloe has a set of stick crayons but I never made anything to hold them. They are just in their tray, and Chessa uses them too, and that has worked okay, but not as nice as the crayon pouches.

And then there are always the handmade birthday cards. This one made by Chloe, because she knows Chessa likes when she makes her this kind of card, meaning a door that opens, the house opens up too. And she wrote "cats", I guess in case anyone was confused as to whether they were cats or mice, which is exactly what happened.

Cats can be very wild in the house you know.. (We know, we have four cats..) Do you see the one inside the house standing on it's head? That's the one you see when you open the door from the front. I think this is very funny...

The green top you saw in the last post. Chessa says one of her favorite colors is green. So I wanted to use this piece of treasured vintage calico to make her a top, to go with the green corduroy skirt that also has a trim of the calico. The skirt fits her a little big, which is just fine really (I always make everything big, but sometimes way too big) and I don't have any pictures of her in it yet. The top has a trim of light green on the front, really the pictures in the last post were better to really see the top.

Here you can see the back, it has some of the green corduroy to match the skirt. You can also see that the button is a little too small and the back keeps coming undone, so I will have to change that. I didn't have many button options, and Chessa always reminds that she doesn't like it when her gift doesn't have it's buttons sewn on. Just because that happened once...

By the way, in that last picture she is tying a rope to a little wooden rocking chair. All the dolls were having a picnic down by the garden, but then became to warm from the bright sun, so the girls had to quick get them all back inside, by making this rope pulley thing with the rocking chair and lifting each doll individually up onto the back deck.

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Also, I really like to make things. Really really really. I love to sew, and often it's all I want to do, and I feel like I could just go on making things forever, which I probably will.


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Sewing Time!

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The spring Kids Clothing Week Challenge comes at a very convenient time for me. Chessa's birthday is in just a couple weeks, so of course I would be sewing anyway, but the challenge is fun and very helpful in keeping me from procrastinating!

I actually didn't get any sewing done on Monday, but I did think about sewing lots, my how contemplating patterns can keep my mind occupied for hours.


I made up for lost time on Tuesday when I started and completed this skirt for Chessa. Of course finding the time for sewing would be a lot easier if this wasn't secret birthday sewing, but somehow I managed.

You will probably be seeing a lot of this green corduroy. I got 8 yards of it about a year ago, for only $12. Or was it 12 yards for $8. But then it took me about a year to get green thread to sew it with...

The corduroy is supposedly vintage, 70's I would guess. The green floral is definitely vintage, another one of those great fabrics that reminds me of when I was a little girl. I am making a blouse out of it to go with the skirt, got the pattern pieces cut out today. Chessa says her favorite color is green, so this outfit should make her very happy.

So, I had planned to post pictures of our day in the forest, but have now been interrupted by sewing.

Here are a few to get started with though...




Cause there are many more to come...


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recent creating, sewing love

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I would really like to post here more than the barely once a week I have been managing. We'll see, I may become quite chatty...

More sewing love with my vintage feedsack scraps. The natural/white fabric I use is an organic poplin, which is my current substitute for linen.

First I made this little piece. (Patchwork trivet? Sure, let's call it that...) The colors feel nice and warm to me, wishful thinking...

And then I made this piece, the coming Valentine's holiday offering a nice excuse to create with one of my most favorite colors, pink! Both of these little pieces are being sent off to some very sweet friends. I hope they bring some cheer to the recipients.

And here is the bigger piece that I recently finished. I mostly love it, but not completely. I tried to be a bit carefree and do some random stitching on the white part. Well to me it just looks like I can't sew a straight line. I think I would like this look if someone else did it, I guess I am just too particular/critical about my own work. And clearly still need to work on letting go of some of my perfectionist tendencies. (Let's not even mention that upper left-hand corner...)

I wanted to show some of the girls recent creating too, mostly in the form of artwork, but the pictures are on the camera and the battery is dead so maybe next time.

Wishing all a creative and inspiring weekend!


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yarn along and library luck

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Once again joining my friend Ginny in her Yarn Along... (though I totally break the rules, sorry Ginny, too many photos, lots of books...) And the only thing I made from yarn this past week was a pink crocheted dish scrubber. A granny square dish scrubber actually. Yes, I love granny squares that much. And you see I am about to make a cheery orange one too.


Lots of excitement at the library yesterday when Jason discovered a wonderful stack of hardcover National Geographic books on the free shelf! We did our best to think of others and left more than half of them behind, still bringing home enough for us to have quite a collection.

Such neat old books with all kinds of wonderfulness to them.

The cover on the right here totally reminds me of our farm friends!

Beautiful hardcovers underneath their pretty paper jackets.

Jason had just chosen a John Muir book in the library and now we have this great book too.


Simpler times. How we long for them!

So really it was a crazy library adventure, cause we brought home 15 of these new/old hardcovers, 28 books checked out of the library, and then realized that our home is literally piled up with books at the moment! Jason is finishing up some house painting and so most of our books have been relocated to various stacks around the house.

Random books piled on and around shelves.

Old paperbacks, all collected used when I was about 20 years old. I am noticing a great lack of fiction in my life these days.

Books even stacked on the nature table, which is actually kinda sad. The table has been empty the past couple weeks, waiting for some kind of seasonal inspiration. I look forward to getting things back in order and making this space special again.

I have also been thinking about doing some posts on children's books. Books, books, books, we love all kinds. But our children's storybooks are especially dear to us. Sometimes I'm surprised at how infrequently I share book love here, since it's such a part of our lives.. So yes, perhaps a little series on that.

I have some sewing creations to share next time, I have been much busier with fabric than with yarn these days.

Happy well wishes to all!


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works in progress, yarn along, & a bit of homeschool too...

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I thought I would join in with Ginny's yarn along this week. Then I realized that most of my reading this past week has been homeschool related.

We have been slowly beginning our Norse mythology block, using the very beautiful D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths.

The three fays of destiny who spin the thread of life for all at the foot of the world tree.

(It seems like soon would be a good time to get caught up with a homeschool post...)


And then I realized that I am not knitting anything at the moment either. But there is this granny square that I have been crocheting. Some of you might remember that I had some kind of granny square doll blanket on the list of possibilities for christmas gifts. I was working on them a little bit but then I didn't like one of them very much, and it didn't look like I was going to be able to finish them in time anyway. This is the one I was making for Chessa, I like it mostly, though I'm not sure if it's a little dull. I will do more yellow as I continue to try to brighten it up. And suddenly I have a really good start on Chessa's birthday gifts, (end of May,) I like that.

But actually I haven't worked on the granny square for a while. Mostly the past couple of weeks I have been enjoying embroidery during any handwork time I have.

And some special sewing too. With vintage feedsack scraps that just make me so so happy.


So, it is feeling like the new year is getting off to a pretty good creative start. Though it does seem like we sometimes need to try extra hard for the inspiration during these still dark winter days. What are you creating or being inspired by these days?


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inspiration and gratitude

Well this week sure did not go as I had thought it would. Oh my what a hard day it was yesterday. Why does there have to be such not nice people in the world? And please can they stay away from me and my family?

Unfortunately there was a brief period of time yesterday when I felt totally defeated. I was trying not to be unnecessarily emotional, but I wanted to just run away and hide. (Where to I have no idea. The forest seems like a good idea...) I am not usually like that. Jason was dealing with the unfortunate situation much better than I was, usually he is the one to get more upset and so I guess I have to stay calm, try to be the one encouraging positivity. I never cry if he does, I don't know how it works, it's just how it happens.

It would have been simple to not be mentioning this here at all, but you know, life does not just always go on perfectly smooth.

And I am happy to say that I think I am all better now! (Situation not perfectly fixed, just me and us okay.)

Because you know what? There are really nice people in this world too. We have lots of them in our life. And they reach out with kindness to us in such a generous way. Somehow their simple words help make everything better.

There have also been some kind thoughts and words from sweet friends this past week that brought a smile to my face and just the times I needed it.

So grateful.


I was also cheered by playing with fabric.

Passing by the ironing board, these fabrics were laying out, I had set them together the other day. They make me happy. Started thinking about what I am going to make with them, started feeling better. Got lost in sewing thoughts.

And speaking of friends, we have had company this past week. One of Jason's skateboarding friends that we have known for many years now, he doesn't live here anymore but comes back to visit every summer.

So last week they went on a backpacking trip. Up a river, or, you might say, up a gorge. Since Jason had our camera I thought I would go ahead and share with you some of his pictures.








Jason says it was so incredibly amazingly beautiful (or something like that) and that he wishes we could all go there. But we never will. Because it was one of the craziest hikes they have ever done and they will never be going there again either!

This is near where they camped.

They took the easier way home.

(You may still enter the giveaway through the weekend. Thanks to all who have left comments so far...)

Wishing you many beautiful and inspiring days ahead!


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