Jingle Bells...

How was everyone's Thanksgiving?? I had a decent one - the low point was not sleeping well Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night partly due to a 2 year old who couldn't remember where he was (in a sleeping bag not 18 inches away from me) and partly due to the futon cushion that we were sleeping on...

Okay, so no bells but here's a short list of my holiday bows:


Those of you who know me, know I LOVE my angels so I'll probably be making more angels and snowmen are definitely on my list of things to make... reindeer... sleigh... a better santa...

Remember, if you are interested in buying bows from me, just email! You can click on the photos to see a full list and prices.

Hiatus Over - Nutcracker Started

So I've taken a bit of a break from new bows for a while as you may have noticed - well, since Halloween costumes were completed,

a lot of crafts have been put on hold until I felt like doing them again. But I wanted to start making some bows for Christmas. I'll need a bit of a supply and some good photographs so that I can have them ready for Thanksgiving

So without further ado, Clara, Nutcracker, MouseKing and The Sugar Plum Fairy.


I do need to do a bit of tweaking of these but I'm fairly happy with them right now.

yup, haven't done a thing

Since making the Halloween bows, I haven't done a thing (except make Halloween costumes). I'm going to get hopping on the Thanksgiving ones but I really need to start on the Christmas ones as that's the season that people tend to really fancy it up with bows. I'll need to find some skinny gold ribbon without wire but I think I have a lead - perhaps I can find some fat gold ribbon without wire too to make those big flat bows - I'll need to order some french clips as well but I know where to get those that have passed their lead test...

(by the way, I do only use clips that have been batch-tested for lead content. I can produce documentation if requested.)

Halloween Bows

I have been working, despite this awful cold. here's a bunch of Halloween ribbons (not yet on clippies). I'm still working on perfecting these - I'm not happy with either spider and the cat needs work but I LOVE the bat and all 3 pumpkins turned out pretty well too.



More Fall Bows to come...

plush turtles

So, I've been doing a lot of sewing this week (bow are me; sewing is me on Halloween. I start embroidery before Christmas and I'm thinking about taking up underwater basket weaving for Easter). Anyway, I came across a beautiful pattern on BurdaStyle for Canadian smocking - never heard of it before nor tried any smocking but the dress was beautiful and it said that this kind of smocking was easy so off to search for a tute for smocking. I found several but the one that seemed easiest to follow was on Patchwork Underground's blog (she does some awesome things). She used it for a corduroy turtle. I thought to myself - BABY SHOWER GIFT! and heck, why not, I've been to enough lately - so I went and pulled out a cloth diaper formerly used as a burp cloth (no, I didn't cloth diaper - I can't keep up with the laundry as it is!) and voila! Canadian smocked turtle!

With eyes:

yeah - I think it looks dead too so I pulled the eyes out

So whadaya think?

another post not about bows...

So my friend's daughter wants to be Hello Kitty for Halloween so I made her a hat. It's cream instead of white but it's a mock up with stuff I had.

Here it is:

And here with my wearing it:

And me being silly:

And here's the same pattern made into a knight's chainmail hood:

Projects...

I'm a goal-oriented person. I need a goal or it really doesn't get done. Before I had kids, I had goals like "stop tailgating" or "lose 10 lbs" and they were basically monthly and fairly idealized goals - tangible and attainable but still requiring high-level thinking (yes, losing weight is a mind game for me at least). Then I had kids and I needed to have daily goals like "shower" and "get dressed". When I was able to take care of myself and my children, I moved on to the house and had a week-daily chore (gardening/poop, grocery shopping, dusting, vacuuming/mopping, bathrooms) - this worked a lot better when I didn't allow myself to leave the house until my chore de jour was done but the school system frowns upon tardy excuses like "I hadn't finished vacuuming". So now, I can take care of myself, my children and my house, I'm trying to get back into the higher-level thinking goals. I set one for myself here (ahem - a new bow a week - I still haven't posted all of my repertoire so technically, I'm not failing you although almost nothing posted here is "new to me").

So, I'm working on a fall line of bows - leaves, pumpkins, turkeys, cornucopias. Can anyone think of other autumn things to make into bows? Thanks!