belle epoque

Whoo! We had a surprise broken bone and some surgery chez belleepoque in the past ten days. Thank goodness the invalid is pretty much fine now, but it sure put a wrench in the delicate works of keeping up with NaNoWriMo, crafting, blogging and a ridiculously mobile almost-9-month-old (man, that kid is into EVERYTHING). Anyhow, I’m not here to complain. I’m here to tell you about TWO EXCITING THINGS
1. I am participating in the Cotton Spice Last Minute Gift Countdown again this year, so on the 23rd look for a pattern and tutorial for this guy posted here and over there

2. I am also honored to participate in the San Francisco Bazaar Bizarre again this year! On November 30 at 3:00 pmI’ll be teaching a demo on making this guy

If you are in the Bay Area and want to come, please head over to the site to find registration information. The demo costs $7 but includes a kit with everything you need to make two penguins, and even turn them into tree ornaments if you like! If there are leftover kits I will put them in my etsy shop for those of you who aren’t local but want to make one anyway.

I can’t believe it is almost December. Where the heck did 2008 go?! Ok, back to catching up on my NaNo wordcount while HMB is taking a nap. This kid doesn’t like to sleep so I have to make the most of every second!

A little break from NaNoWriMo (broke 10,000 words yesterday!) to share a bloggy brainstorm: a music swap for the littles in our lives! HMB loves music and dancing

Shakin’ It At Music Class
So I thought it would be fun if we all put together mixes and shared our favorite songs, complete with decorated sleeves and playlists just like in college (or at least back in the olden days when I was in college and we used to make tapes). Please head over to my Mixtapes for Minis page for the details and to join in!

Back to cranking out the wordcount…

Thank you so much for all of the sweet comments about my Halloween post! All of a sudden I’m excited about my closet again. My favorite fall clothes have been in waiting since 2006 (too preggo for most of them last fall) and while I’m not back to my pre-pregnancy shape (hah! hardly), all but the very snuggest fit again! It is like having a whole season’s worth of new clothes, and I’m putting them together in different ways than I did before. I got myself some inexpensive knee socks in bright patterns at Marshall’s awhile back to keep my legs warm when the chilly weather finally arrived. I think all of the bright colors and wild mixing of patterns I do when dressing HMB is having an influence on me!

Nothing in the outfit is handmade, but I wanted to show it to you anyway, since dressing in something other than Old Navy roll-up pants and long sleeve t-shirts is inspiring me to get back to making clothes. My latest obsession is a super-soft baby wale corderoy a-line shirtwaist dress in some divine fally color– perhaps slate or pumpkin, if I can find the fabric at a good price. I’ve found the perfect vintage pattern (I searched for new ones and was surprisingly dismayed at the shirtwaist options out there– lots of ick!), so I’m waiting on it to arrive then I’ll track down the fabric and be on my way!

In other news, if you look at my right sidebar you’ll notice I’m participating in NaNoWriMo again this year. I’m finding I actually write more now that my writing time is broken up into baby-sleep time– I know my time is very, very limited so I just type away the minute she goes down to the minute I hear her peeping! If you see that word count lagging, feel free to prod/encourage me to keep it going! I shall try to continue craftiness and blogging while noveling too. I think creativity nourishes itself, so I often find when I’m doing one creative thing, I’m all the more inspired and energized to do others. Hoping that is the case this month!

I also have a HUGE backlog of crafty show&tell + thank you’s to blog about (you wonderful, generous people know who you are, and soon anyone else who reads the blog will too!), so I’ll hopefully be seeing you all again soon.