belle epoque

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…

Ok, you guys are too sweet– thank you so much for the offers of hand-knit sweaters for Miss S and suggestions for idiot(aka me)-proof patterns to make one myself. We’re very spoiled girls!

When I pulled out the denim for my skirt, I also came across some grey knit fabric I bought at the same time to make a maternity version of my favorite wrap dress. Which project also fell by the wayside back then due to pregnancy fatigue and malaise. But hey, now I can fit into the original again, and it does that figure magic that wrap dresses do so well, so how about one for fall? Then it came time to search for the pattern, in the craft closet of DOOM. Seriously, it is a disastrous and pitiful scene, rather like a graveyard for half-finished and abandoned craft projects. I found the pattern (finally) and made the dress

I’m not as thin as I was back in the day(aka April 07), and I used heavier knit which meant I should have faced the bodice like the directions said instead of fully lining it (whoo, that’s a bulky waistline there), but it is comfy and wrappy and so I will wear it anyway.

I also came to the conclusion that, along with stopping with the peanut butter cups, some serious de-stashing must occur pronto, in addition to finishing or chucking the half-finished bits and pieces in that closet to make way for more focused crafting. After the past few weeks of creating with abandon, I’m feeling disorganized and sort of blocked (this may be because I looked in that closet). There’s so much inspiration out there, and I have so many supplies, but I just don’t know what to do next. HMB needs fall/winter hats for her rapidly expanding noggin, it’s never too early to get started on holiday gifts, but…nothing really feels that exciting.

This is where you come in: when I went to the post office today I picked up a few flat rate priority mail boxes to fill with crafty odds and ends– good ones, I promise, decent sized lengths of fabric, strands of beads, packs of notecards etc. And I will send them off to some of you, my faithful readers. If you’d like to be in the mix for this giveaway, please either comment and let me know what crafty projects you’re most excited about right now (if you have links or photos, go ahead and link to ‘em!). Or if you like, blog about it and then comment here with a link to your post. I’ll leave the comments open until Monday, September 22, then randomly pick 3 commenters to each get a box ‘o’ fun–if possible, I’ll try to make your box contents match up with the project you’re working on. I hope you’ll join in and help inspire me to make way for new projects!

Before I went on my trip, a lovely friend (who I won’t link to only because she hasn’t blogged in awhile and I don’t want to give her update anxiety) put a copy of the book Softies in my eager little hands. I poured over it and seriously considered trying to unearth some felt and cut out one or two of the darling projects to stitch together on the plane. I didn’t manage to get my act together and to that. But I did bring the book with me so I could plot which to make when I got home.

I loved this project the minute I saw the picture in the book, even before I knew it was designed by the divine Alicia Paulson. Of COURSE it was my favorite one, that explains it. Instead of stuffing the skirt with fiberfill, I used lavender so these little ladies are sweet sachets. Now there’s a little plaid dog calling my name… This book is wonderful. The instructions are simple, almost every project has a full-sized pattern included in the back envelope, and each was designed with love and personality by a different crafty blogger.

Though the dresses are not strictly patchwork, they are ushering what looks to be a happy trend around here for fall. I was lucky enough to squeak in to Linda’s wonderful Patchwork Swap (click her beautiful button over on the sidebar to learn more) which is really perfect timing, since I have tons of scraps that need a new home, and I also just ordered this book, which will surely inspire a perfect patchwork gifty for my swap partner. The MSL first serial only whetted my appetite, and I cannot wait until it arrives.

Hope you are having a happy Friday, and enjoy a crafty weekend!

Today was a banner day for mail chez belleepoque! Inside the first thrilling envelope:

The super exciting Hilary Lang/Wee Wonderfuls hand sewing for fun pattern cards! I knew these would be coming, so I kept some felt in my little bag of crafty tricks. I can’t wait to get started on one of them, I just have to decide which!

In the second package? The amazing treats from Bethany’s handprinted fabric swap.

Isn’t it all amazing? The sweet hedgehogs come from Wilson Watercolors, the lovely, bright frogs from Pasha Plum, the pears from Mimi Kirchner, cool potato masher/jar lid print on gorgeous green cotton from Dancing Crow Designs, beautiful faces and words on rich red from Fairbanks Fancy Goods, a lily screen print from Bee Creative, deep red with carved wooden stamps from Linda, and a special treat of art nouveau wisteria printed red from Bethany herself, the swap genie! Thank you so much, Bethany, for planning this swap. And thank you also to the makers of the wonderful fabric I received! It is all so beautiful, I can’t wait for the perfect project for each piece.

I couldn’t resist, sorry. I’m having so much fun thinking about and trying out different methods for my contribution to Bethany’s fabric swap. I’ve been intrigued by shibori (aka the ancient art of japanese tie dye or bound-resist dye) for awhile now, so I thought this would be a good time to try a super-simple, modified, and unofficial version of shibori. I hadn’t seen pictures of the technique before I did it (though now I have, on the wonderful All Things Shibori group on Flickr), so I kind of made it up as I went along. I started out by arbitrarily deciding on a grid pattern for my yard of fabric. I used a 4-inch square card to make little dots to indicate where I would pull up, twist and bind the fabric (with rubber bands, though the real technique calls for using linen or cotton thread).

Looks like pretty smocking, doesn’t it? Here it is up close:

Then I prepared a messy dye bath with midnight blue Rit dye (indigo is a more traditional dye for this, I believe, but I’m lazy and they have Rit at Target). I left the fabric in the dye for an hour, stirring gently every so often (didn’t want to accidentally pull out the rubber bands). I rinsed it out with cool water and then took out the rubber bands and hung it to dry:

Pretty nifty! Here is an up close look at one of the little circles:

They remind me of little starbursts. I still have to wash and dry the fabric again to get it to the color it will actually be, which I imagine, sadly, will be quite a bit lighter. But I am amazed at how well it turned out for a very first try! Today I tea-dyed a length of muslin to a pretty peachy color, and plan to work some Gocco stamp kit for fabric magic on it soon. Wish me luck!

People, I am the luckiest swappee there could be. I participated in the Crafty Daisies Summer Swap, and look what my lovely swap partner Candace (of Laughing Daisies) sent me:

Can you believe all that swappy goodness? I’ll just show you a few things so you don’t hate me too much for being so lucky

Could you die? She appliqued those fruits and polka-dotty bits!

Why hello, clutch I will be carrying all summer.

A beautiful fabric-covered box (how’d you do that, Candace?) for all of my summer souvenirs.  Not to mention darling vintage hankies and buttons and fun fabric… well, now it just sounds like I’m bragging. Thank youCandace! I sure lucked out.

In other crafty news– my trousers are all cut out (not the interfacing yet, but everything else), and I’m reading the instructions over and over. Anyone out there who has Sew U realise that ALL of the seam allowances for the patterns included with the book are 1/2 INCH?! Um, except for the ones that are 1/4″, but since they’re not noted in the instructions or on the pattern tissue, it is hard to know which ones those are. No wonder I ruined my spotty-dotty fabric shirt when trying to sew a 5/8″ seam on the collar! But now I know, so I won’t sew tiny pants and depress myself. I’m sure this is neither Wendy Mullin nor Simplicity’s fault– it is mentioned early on in the book, though not in the individual project instructions, and probably the seam allowances were meant to be noted on the pattern tissue and there was some miscommunication. After all, her BBY Simplicity patterns have the standard 5/8″ seam allowance.

/Sewing rant. I have been crafting, though you’re not seeing the results here just yet. Yesterday I made a few things for a wee me and another awesome crafter swap, but I can’t show you because I want her to see them first. And a few things today for an etsy update. Man, I’ve been letting that shop languish with three little items, but NO MORE! Expect fortnightly (except when not) themed updates. I think the upcoming one (Monday, perhaps) will be “Summer Picnic,” and there will be skirts.

Now I’m off to read the Summer issue of Adorn that came in the mail today!  I can already tell it is packed with wild amounts of crafty wonder.