Happy Halloween and a button winner

Congratulations Nicolemiko! I sent you an e-mail and will send on some buttons once I hear back from you...

I let my son pick a number and he selected three. I thought that this might be because he is about to turn three, but when I asked him he told me that he had selected three because it is the best truck number (???!!!). I have no clue what that means, but it made me laugh when I clicked over to Nicolemiko's blog and the most recent post is entitled "Three". Fate, I tell ya!

At any rate...thanks for playing along! Who knew that buttons are so universally loved? (I'm thinking: not by this grumpy jack!)

Oh joy! Oh bliss!

Look what was waiting for me when I got home from work today...A box full of surprises! (weeeell...not reeeeally surprises...more like impulsive Internet purchases).

Shall we take a look at all of the treasures inside?

Sorted and stacked and ready for inspection:

Fabric.com had the Denyse Schmidt "Country Fair" line on sale for $2.99/yard people! I would have jumped on the blog to share the happy find, but I discovered the sale around 11:30 pm and it was over at midnight. If you haven't had the chance to hold this fabric in your hot little hands you might not know that it is a lovely thick weight. I'm not really sure if they would call it decor weight, probably more like a linen weight?

I seem to have developed a fondness for toadstools. I believe that this fabric is from a line called "Shade Garden". It was also on a sale too amazing to pass up.

Finally, we have orange. Not on sale orange. Just orange. The fabric at the bottom is for the quilt that I am making my sister for Christmas. The other orange is going to be used for an iPod cover. There was a special request for orange...and who am I to pass up an opportunity to acquire some lovely cheerful orange for my stash?

Finally, thanks for all of the button comments. Glad to know that there are so many others out there who have such happy memories of sorting through button jars. I'll do a random draw at the end of this week. The lucky winner will get some random selection of buttons. That will be part of the fun...I'll just take a few mitt-fulls to provide some happy button sorting time for a fellow blogger.

Too many buttons and a give away

Finally! The new computer is all ready to go and I can show you far too many pictures of fabric and buttons. Good times. These are the promised pictures of my fabric sale loot.

Fabric scores. On the top of the pile are two pieces of vintage linen (what a find!). In looking at this picture I see that a red/turquoise and cream theme has emerged. Also, I am a bit obsessed with the idea that gingham is the ultimate Christmas print.

Some luscious threads:

Also, too many pictures of buttons. I spent a happy hour picking through to create colour/themed combinations and then taking snapshots of them:

Berry and green:

Creamy whites:

Lovely pinks:

Yellow and golds:

Greys and browns:

In deciding which button pictures to post (oh the agony of tough decisions!), I came to the realization that I may have been greedy with the buttons (gulp...is that even possible??? It's just so fun to sort through buttons!). I think that it might be a good time to try a little give away of button-y goodness. You know - share the joy and all. So if you would like some buttons please leave a comment about how you would use them, or why you love buttons, or prove that you are a bigger button geek than me (NOTE: I did have to edit down from 25 pictures of buttons. I am not healthy!).

Is it too early to be excited about handmade Christmas ornaments?

I recently had the good fortune to partake in a fabulous "girls craft night in" with the lovely ladies from Kindred Crafters.

Donna and I became fast friends when I moved into her (now our!) neighbourhood. Not only do we have children the same age who love to play together, we discovered a common love of crafting! She has heavily influenced some of my new crafty pursuits and I am forever grateful for her friendship.

Donna's crafty-blog-o-sphere friend Sara has also become my crafty friend. We share a common hesitation to cut into our favourite fabric stash. It is good to know that I am not the only person who likes to fold up and admire fabric (and can do so for many happy hours each month). Donna and Sara are old friends who have been kind enough to fold me into their crafty friendship.

I had not met Sara (in person) until very recently when she travelled to Ontario. I wanted to offer her a crafty token of friendship and stitched up a Christmas-y toadstool (with holly, from Holly - so glad you got the reference Sara!!). The lovely Sara has posted some of her signature BEAUTIFUL photographs on the Kindred Crafters blog.

This gift was modeled on a tutorial found here (just in case you want to go make your own). They are good handstitching fun!

And Donna....no need to be jealous. I have one at my house waiting for the Christmas season for you...

A FABRIC SHOW - without the show & tell

My friend Donna and I have gone to the local "Fabric Flea Market" every year since we discovered it 3 glorious years ago. We have both developed an unhealthy love of the fabric find. Vintage, new, sewn into something else. All fun!

This event is jam packed full of excited fabric shoppers. I didn't think to take a shot of the inside of the packed hall (I was too busy trying to stay on my feet in the throng of happy fabric hunters). The fact that this is a fund raiser for a local school and that there are mountains of fabric to be had makes it worth wading through the excited crowd.

The lovely Donna and I were seperated in the crowd, but managed to find each other and sneak off to compare our treasures over a coffee. Donna found a crochet doiley with either William Shakespeare or Sir Wilfrid Laurier (an early Canadian Prime Minister). Very funny! I'll have to ask Donna to take a picture so that we can take a poll, although I think that Donna might be right, I think that it is an image of a former Prime Minister. Can you picture this face in crochet???

What about this handsome mug in crochet form?

I would post all of my lovely finds and treasures for all to enjoy, but the computer went into "early stage system failure" last week. Don't really know exactly what this means...but essentially it turns off whenever it feels like it. Not ideal (especially for my lovely husband who works from home!). We were also running the risk of loosing everything from our hard drive, which as responsible and sensible people we have completely NOT backed up (why would I be organized about that area of my life when I am not about anything else???).

All this to say...I can't wait to show you some pictures of my lovely finds. I am MOST excited about the buttons. My husband was laughing at me this weekend...He could hear the "beep, click" of the camera over and over again as I took pictures of my treasured buttons (sorted by colour palettes, favourites, etc). Yup. I love buttons - A LOT. Laugh if you must.

Tukeyliciousness and balance

Happy Thanksgiving Canadian friends!

I am the designated turkey-maker this year. I must confess that while I really like cooking, I don't really adore turkey dinners. This is why my long-suffering husband gets turkey only once a year for Thanksgiving.

I'm certain that the leftovers will be glorious, though...

This has been a very welcome long weekend. The work week has been one of my longest ever. I made it home in time to see my son only one night this week. Entirely unacceptable. It is making me re-examine my work-life balance and question whether it is acceptable. I think that maybe it is not.

I should point out that I am usually able to manage daycare pick-up and regular home times...except for in the Fall. Fall is the busy time at work when I seem to disappear from my life for 3-4 months. This has always been OK with me until last year. Now I find the travel/overtime too big of a sacrifice. What to do?? I am left in the all too familiar quandary of figuring out a balance between a career that has been cultivated through hard work and my family (who will not be young forever). I don't remotely imagine that I am alone in this quest to find balance. I think that I just imagined that I had set my life up with a lot of room for balance before my son was born. Perhaps not as balanced as I thought. Hmmm...some more thinking and balancing will be required!

All this being said, work has also interfered with my crafting somewhat. Unlike a 2-year-old, crafting can stay up late with me. I have been coming home from work, eating some dinner, and then crafting late into the night! Sleep, shmeep. I am working furiously toward a shared November 14th deadline. Hello Ottawa crafters! More about that soon...

Craft show intimidation

What have I gotten myself into?? I agreed to take part in a craft show.



I think that at the time I agreed to be part of the craft show it seemed very abstract. It seemed like a good way to meet some other local crafters. Besides, I love craft shows! I think that I might mean that I love GOING to craft shows. I love to be inspired by the creations of others. Now I am intimidated...my creations are more "crafty" than inspiring. There are some real, hard-core creative people who will be selling at the Craftalicious show. YIKES! So feel free to come out and be nice to me while I sit at a table and feel somewhat intimidated (November 14th in Ottawa!).



Here is a small preview on what I am working on for the craft show:

• Re-usable Christmas bags. I will have a few sizes, but most importantly one size that will fit wine bottles and another size that is perfect for video games and hardcover books.
  

• Bird ornaments. Some in Christmas fabric, some not.
  

• Card ornaments. These were probably the most satisfying to make. It was really fun to pick out different colour/pattern combinations. The closest to quilting that I could manage on a larger scale for a craft show.

Flea Market finds

I had so much fun at the flea market last weekend! The whole family went, but husband and son quickly retreated to the park and left me to wander on my own (OH BLISS!). There were many toy trucks at eye level and my son was starting to vibrate with excitement (and greed). I must confess that I was feeling much the same way!

Here are some of the highlights of my finds (no pictures of the BIG metal Tonka trucks because Evan has been too busy playing with them to stop for photography). Please excuse the BAD pics. It has rained ALL WEEK and I could no longer wait for natural light - I want to show my fantastic finds!

Pyrex bowl (turquoise with wheat harvest):





Pyrex bowl (avocado green!) - I just couldn't resist this one...my mother had a bowl exactly like this. It was the bowl that was used to make every cookie that came out of her kitchen (likely still is!).


I spent most of my time picking through the most fantastic box of vintage pattern books. This one was my favourite (the photographs CRACK me up!):

Notice the lovely cigarette dangling from his nonchalant hand on the cover:

Another page is an ode to pipe smoking 'gents (not sure if the second guy is holding a fishing pole or a walking stick with his non-pipe hand!):

Here are the alpine loving fellas. Don't you love that there is also a hand drawn dog on each page (with a very gentleman-of-the-manor-type description of each breed)?:

Finally, the ASCOT! The image of this sophisticate (cigarette in gloved hand) makes me giggle:

Finally, some of the vendors had some vintage Fisher Price toys. My heart begins to race at the thought of these fantastic-plastic toys. I had to really steel myself to behave. I wanted to buy them. I wanted to buy them so badly that I can still taste the greed in my mouth. I tried to rationalize that they would be a gift for my son....but I knew this would be a lie. So I walked away from the Sesame Street (with a fire hall, Mr. Hooper's store, etc), and I walked away from the garage with the elevator that dings. I am practically a saint!

I say PRACTICALLY a saint, because I did walk away with a little FP cash register that I will put away for Christmas or birthday for the boy (I do think that he will like it - so I can rationalize it!).

OK - long post over. I am slightly embarrassed by my greedy, consumption heavy post!

NOTE: the last two images are not mine (I took them from Google and neglected to make note of the source - oops!)