While She Naps

patterns and books

I have two things to share today.

First, I have had the most wonderful time choosing books for my new Amazon affiliate bookshop. The bookshop has several categories, each filled with books I love. When you click through from my links and purchase a book I get a very small percentage of the sale. It's small, but when you are working to earn a living with your craft, even very small earnings count. I added a tab to the navigation bar up there so that you can easily click over to the bookshop.

One category is, "What's Roxanne Reading?". As you may have figured out,  Roxanne, who is now in second grade, is an avid reader. Really, avid doesn't express it fully. She is a constant devourer of books. It is a joy to choose books for her because she gets so much pleasure from the really good ones.  I have put all of her very favorites here, in one list, in case you have a young bookworm in your life, too. This list will be updated frequently.  She reads at least three hours a day.

There is a category of "Books I've Reveiwed" and another of "Sewing Books I Like".

My favorite category of all, and the one that I think may be most valuable to you, is the "Soft Toy Books". I learned to sew toys by reading soft toy books and sewing through pattern after pattern.  Here you can find the books that I found to be most valuable in my learning. Many of them are out of print.

Which leads me to the last category: "Abby's Books". Right now you'll find The Artful Bird there (which was just named a top ten craft book of 2011 on the ALA Booklist!). But in the spring of 2013, you'll find my book about soft toy design there as well.

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And also, today, I wanted to show you a huge box full of vintage sewing patterns that my friend gave me recently.

There are a lot of gems in here.

Maybe 50 patterns in total, all in their original envelopes. From the 1970's, or 1980's?

I don't sew clothes and I don't use traditional sewing patterns. What can I say. Cutting in a straight line, doing math, following someone else's instructions - none of that appeals to me. But I know these patterns would be awesome for someone.  Maybe one of you?

So I'm giving them away! If you'd like this entire lot of patterns, I'll mail it to you for the cost of shipping!  Leave me a comment saying you'd like them and they are yours. I'm imagining shipping within the US will be under $10. It could be significantly more outside the US.

Awesome.

So thanks in advance for checking out my new bookshop. And happy sewing!

 

a hairclip and a pincushion

Josephine's hair is starting to grow in and it's strawberry blond.  So pretty. Last night I made her a hair clip from this tutorial on the Purl Bee.  I got to dig out the yo-yo maker for this, plus some pink Kona and wool felt scraps.

She hasn't figured out that she's wearing yet it so it's still there.

I rescued this little milk glass footed bowl from the dump this morning and made it into a pincushion with some brown linen and vintage cheater's patchwork.  I stuffed it with steel wool wrapped with wool batting to keep the pins sharp.  It's in the shop now. And I'm offering a 20% discount in the shop during the month of July. Just enter JULY2011 at checkout!

snake

Man this guy took forever to stuff. 

I found this fabric at a church rummage sale on Saturday.  It is some kind of wool-polyester blend, probably originally intended for making a women's suit jacket.  It just looked like a snake to me. I couldn't resist. And it was 25 cents for two yards. 

dump find!

Man, I love the Wellesley Recycling and Disposal Facility. I stopped by this morning on my way home from preschool drop-off.  It's so hard to resist - the dump is literally on the way home.  I can't tear myself away.  I was walking up and down the aisles at the take-it-or-leave-it and there, stashed under the table, was a big big box of fabric just waiting for me.  I hoisted it into the car, which was a bit tricky because Josephine was in the sling and this box was huge, but *somehow* I made it.

Here is the box in the back of my mammoth car (three car seats = huge landship):

I waited until I got home to sort it out.  I can always bring stuff back, right?  Hmm...probably not, though. Check out this tower composed of about a third of the contents of the box:

There was a whole dress cut out, with the patterns pieces still pinned.  I'm sad it never got made. It would have been one funky, 70's polyester dress of fabulousness.

Okay, now for the gems.  This one has asked to be made into a reptile:

And these prints are gorgoeous. The one on top is my new favorite piece of fabric of all time. 

Sometimes I wonder what is at the dump on the days that I don't get over there.  Or what arrives the hour after I've left? 

People ask me sometimes if I like living in Wellesley. You know, we've got great public schools, and a walkable town center, and a premier college full of fantastic potential babysitters, and safe pretty streets and all that good stuff.  But most of all, we have the dump. And that is reason enough for me to stick around.

jingle snails

Another windy, rainy November day here in Wellesley.  The leaves are falling off the trees en masse and it's getting dark early now.  I think winter is just around the corner. 

I made this pumpkin pudding recipe this morning and it is delicious. I used one of our last pie pumpkins from our CSA share.  I've made this recipe twice and the pudding seems to magically disappear around here. 

My baby is due in three weeks!  I can't wait to meet her.

I made a set of snail ornaments over the weekend. 

Each one has a natural linen body and a different vintage fabric shell (all from that amazing dump find!).  They hang on lengths of vintage grey silk ribbon with a little bell.   

I stiffened some embroidery floss for their eye stalks with Stiffy.  Have you used this stuff?  It's pretty great.  You just wet the fabric, or floss in this case, with it and let it dry completely and it's stiff.  You could do a square piece of fabric and fold it like origami, or a whole body of a softie and insert lights like this over at Matsutake.  Isn't that cool?!

 

snail scarf

Thank you for all the excitement over my amazing fabric find at the Wellesley town dump.  I had to start using it right away, so I cut into one of the larger floral scraps and made a plush snail shell with a linen snail body. 

And then I thought maybe it would be cool to try to make a scarf using a few of the quilt squares.  Searching around in my fabric cabinet, I uncovered a stack of hand-dyed felted wool sent to me by a blog reader (4?) years ago.  The wool is soft and warm and perfect scarf material.  I cut it into squares, pieced it together and made a long strip for the back of the scarf.

Then I spent a wonderful half hour sorting through all the quilt squares and choosing a few favorites for the front of the scarf.  I sewed them together in a repeat pattern, including two that used the snail shell fabric, and then attached them to the wool backing.  And then I put the snail right on the front. 

And it is wearable plush so I can send it to New York for Luv-able and Hug-able and Wear-able which opens on December 9 at gallery hanahou. I think it would be awfully nice to keep warm this winter with a snail scarf made from 100% reclaimed (and 100% beautiful!) fabrics.

free mouse pattern and possibly the best dump find ever

I spent some time over the weekend finishing things up for the Autumn Arts and Fun Fest at the Mass Audubon Visual Arts Center in Canton.  The event will be this Saturday from 10 am - 4 pm and will include, "a boutique selection of New England crafters, a professional storyteller, hayrides, live animals, pumpkin painting, fall treats and fun for the entire family."  I am not one to sit behind a table at a craft fair, but this one is great because someone else will do that part!  On Thursday I am dropping off fish and birds, along with these little mice.

These mice are quick and fun to make, and use up some of those little scraps of wool felt that are leftover from other projects.  I decided to write up the pattern in case you would like to make some yourself.  The holidays are right around the corner, you know.  

Here are the instructions and here are the pattern pieces so you can make your own mice.  Get craftin'.

This morning I decided to visit the dump quickly after dropping Stella off at school. The dump is down the street from her school so it is very tempting to visit often.  But today I came away with perhaps the best dump find ever. It certainly rivals the $250 Dansk pepper grinder I found last year.

I was walking past a table full of vases and three-ring binders (dump staples), when I spotted this box. 

The obvious age of the box (a quick search after I got home revealed that RH Stearns Company was a thriving department store in Boston in the 1950's, back in the days when department stores sold fabric...) gave me a clue that this might be something special.

I flipped the top of the box up quickly just to see what might be inside and then I just took the whole thing home. The great thing about the dump is you can take something home and check it out and then if you don't end up wanting it, you can just take it back. But I'm not taking this back.

Here are some of the contents of the box.  And it is very full.

This Audubon stationary box is full of perfectly cut feedsack hexagons and triangles. 

And a little pamphlet from the 1940s from a chocolate company about quilting.

And the rest of the box has bigger scraps, pre-cut squares, and strips of triangles hand-sewn together with perfect neat stitches.  The fabrics are wonderful.

A box to treasures.  Oh yeah.

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antique textile show

I spent the morning at the Antique Textile and Vintage Fashion show and sale in Sturbridge, MA. It was overwhelming and amazing.  The amount and variety of vintage clothing and shoes, purses and scarves was really incredible. And the fabric...feedsack galore, lots of old crocheted lace, beautiful brocades, so many vintage buttons of every variety, ribbons and trim, and lots of Vera napkins, sheets and tablecloths.

I was overwhelmed.  But, of course, still managed to come away with several treasures.

Buttons.  The sparkly yellows on top will hopefully become something in the baby's yellow and brown nursery. Three cards of solid colored bakelite buttons that I couldn't resist.  This vendor had dozens of colors of these.  And the red ones are actually buckles, but I think I will use them as buttons. I have a white knitted winter hat that will look great with a big red button.

Woven trim.  I love the green, black and pink on this. I'll save it for something special.

A set of six red white and blue Vera napkins in mint condition.   I am actually going to use these as napkins, which I'm pretty excited about. I have cut up all my previous Vera napkins, but these are too beautiful not to use.

And a linen Vera tablecloth. This will be on our table for Rosh Hashanah for sure.  It is big, and perfect, with such a simple modern, bold border of flowers and tiny lady bugs. 

Thank you, Mimi, for telling me about the show.  It was amazing.