the woods are lovely dark and deep

and i do have promises to keep, and miles to go before i sleep.
oh sleep.
who knew crafting with baby could be so wild. i guess i should have thought of it~!
getting the TWO of us ready to fly to the west coast on wednesday in preperation for the renegade craft fair...packing a suitcase for em and i and another full of mosey's wares. i feel like a traveling salesman...in a good way. i am so glad that my family will be there to recieve me on the other end of this flight!
so-
this is a project i have been dreaming of all month. well since my wedding really (which was woodland themed, of course!)
the tiny moss terrariums have arrived!
made from rummaged vintage glass bottles and moss from the maine forest, a pinch of sea glass and a dash of vintage millinery.
i hope you like them as much as i do.
they look socute on my windowsill i almost hate to give them up!

the new crew!

some new woolens i've felted...
the red white and blue ones are inspired by my mister's mistress...his new bike.
over thanksgiving we went to boston to visit family and friends and mr. mcgregor and i caught up with a few old friends, one of which had a bike for the taking. as it turns out it is an older version (by just a few years) of the bicycle he has been obsessed with for the past three months solid.
and it's orange. and it was free. merry christmas!
anyhow- he was in need of some wrist warmers for riding his dream bike into the winter.
the bird ones are a version of my mittens from last year with a cable-knit-felted twist.

bucky bliss

so i had this little pain. a crick. in my neck..and it kept on getting worse and worse. i would move my head at night and craaack! very uncomfortable! and i kept on thinking...i really want one of those fancy buckwheat pillows. so i went to the fancy greenie store here in gloucester..and boy they were so pricey. then i got smart. i went to the co-op and got a ton of buckwheat hulls. well not a ton but about 6 lbs. and away we go. sorted through the fabric stash of flannels and sewed two up quickly. alex and i thought we'd give them a try..and i swear we were both out in five minutes. and what a blissful sleep. we woke up a few hours later revived! stayed up late last night making a full sized pillow with my crick in mind. i have to tell you - i slept like a baby in a buckwheat and lavender induced slumber. when i awoke this morning the crick was gone. really.
i'm ready for the bucky revolution.
are you?

inky gets some love!

once i made this little guy iwas in love. his face is so lonesome and his cheeks are all blushing.
i'm glad he got a little love on emilias blog today!

 www.kiwee.com

the new unit.

okay...so now i am rethinking snowmen. or at least why i suddenly love them so much...and then my grandmother reminds me that that old frosty cartoon movie..i knew all the songs and was especially concerned with his two eyes made out of coal...and that i won a contest in kindergarten by drawing a snowman which then appeared on the school play program. i'll have to dig that out and take a look at it- i'm sure my dad has it filed away somewhere.
so these are the new guys. and they have new hats, and new scarves, and new eyes made out of coal...well almost.
i got some of the felt on mad sale and decided to try dyeing it myself- wow- what a thing to love!

what else is been keeping me busy!

dear david at kaiju big battle hooked me up with this gig.
i'm up to my elbows in plantain brothers but i think they are turning out oh so cute and i love the way 'limited run' sounds on my cv!

work space

this place needs some cleaning up! time to put some elbow grease into it!
thanks to karen who always makes my life look too lovely!

my 2 days early birthday present

so i found my fave person on etsy! grandmas girl has a great new shop...all items listed are cute and oh so affordable. i had her sew me up a custom order and she graciously offered up a bit of vintage red calico fabric that had been in her family for years! also she was so fast in sewing up the new item i could hardly believe it!
i thought it would be many days to a week but woke up this morning to discover my new birthday bonnet!
thank you grandma's girl!

etsy contest winner - confections!

so here was the contest:
tell me your fave vintage/thrift store find. simple right. i had a lot of posts, a ton about finding something amazing on ebay and being able to sell it for a ton of money, and one guy who bought a jacket at his local thrift and found 100 bucks in the pocket. but the one that stole my heart from the minute i started reading was this story.

in cheryls own words:

"My 5-year-old niece and I found this forlorn-looking vintage Effanbee doll last month at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. We had been to tea earlier in the day, and Grace had brought her American Girl doll, Elizabeth, along to the festivities. When we entered the thrift shop, she made a beeline to a group of dolls which included this well-loved charmer."
read all about "helene elyse's" new dress made from cherlys own vintage calico stash and all about the tea parties she's been attending here and here.

be sure to check out cheryl of confections amazing fiberarts etsy shop too! thanks to all who posted and thanks to cheryl and her niece for rescuing such a prize!

button bags

when i was a kid i had one of these. it was all my own. it came with 3 different "outside purses". one was pink corduroy, one was tiny green whales and the other was my initials in navy-blue on white. we moved when i was about seven and my purse(s) did not make the cross country trip. i was devastated. ever since then when i was thrifting i would always pick them up. i now have a decent sized collection.
BUT what i really wanna do is make them, so that all the loveliest girls of the world can skip around with one of these on there elbow.
does anyone know the real name of these cuties?

whale of a tale

i have always been in love with sea creatures. starfish, stingrays, sea urchins.
but these lil' guys were inspired by a story that one of my kindergarteners told me. it involved her great grandfather being swallowed by a whale. audrey said he was a sailor who got thrown off of his boat, swallowed by a whale and lived inside of the whale for months. think gepettos workshop in pinocchio. and anyway when he was finally rescued all of his hair had turned white. i know this is the kind of story for which phrase "whale of a tale" was made and since she was only five at the time i figured she was really working on her story telling skills. at the end of the year i mentioned the story to her mother who then brought in an article from a 1940's newspaper about this very whaling disaster/triumph.
woa!