rostitchery

it takes a village...

...in which i ramble on even longer than usual about stuff that mostly matters only to me.....

rudi had an orchestra leaving for china this morning, so we got up at 2am so he could meet them at the theater and get them to the airport.  rudi could have gone on this trip--he has always wanted to travel outside this states and this would have been courtesy of the dean--but he sent two of his technicians in his place.  rudi chose to stay home with us for christmas.  even though ella is still too young to appreciate it, i am looking forward to one day telling her all about the christmas her dada gave up the trip of a lifetime so he could wake up with his little girl on christmas morning.

by the time he left this morning, i was wide awake and thought about getting online and posting all about this wonderful little idea i had, but then ella woke up and called me back to bed.  we milk-sided until she fell back down to sleep, and then something wonderful happened--she laughed, out loud and with a big smile on her sleeping face.  it was spectacular, and i was there for it. 

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something weird happens to me from time to time--one day, i'll be completely disinterested in a thing, and the next day i'll suddenly become consumed with that very same thing.  today, it is christmas villages.  as of yesterday afternoon, i really didn't care for them--but something about my laughing, sleeping child made me crave something homey and conspicuously homemade.  so i did what anybody else in my position would have done--i took all the christmas cards we've received--which until this morning were just tucked between all the gack that lives on our mantel--and turned them into little winter houses.

there is a little surprise to see inside each one of them.  one has a smiling baby in a christmas tree costume--another has santa talking to a doggy--one of them has a picture of our friends' children wrestling on the floor.  but my favorite is what you can see inside "the apartment building"--a little fairy.  the three windows where the fairy's face shows represent the three windows of the apartment we lived in for almost 10 years--we kept the christmas lights in the window year-round, and whoever got home first each night would turn them on to let the other one know someone was home. 

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no, those are not digital cassette tapes on the village--those are the cars for the house--we would probably have even more cars, if ella could have reached the rest of the tapes. 

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trees.  i have always loved the trees in "rudolf the red-nosed reindeer"--they are layered, and clearly hollow.  i made a pattern for mine by tracing around a party hat and adding rings for cutting shorter and shorter layers.  some of the trees are made of green felt (different colors--just scraps i had), some of them are made from a wool blanket (scraps leftover from padding the ironing table at the shop), and one of them is made from fun foam.  the pattern is here:

christmas_tree_template.pdf

  --just cut as many or as few layers as you wish, sew/tape/staple/glue the sides to make a cone, and trim the bottom edges with notches, curves, pinking, or just leave them plain.  stack them, set them side by side--you could trim the trees if you wish.  just don't ask me why some of my trees are snowy and some are not--i live in nashville, we don't get enough snow to know how it works.

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by now, i know you're worried about me burning down my christmas village--and thus my actual house--with those candles.  fear not--these are the coolest thing i've seen this christmas:  battery operated tea lights.  they are so realistic that i was standing with my friend gayle, moving things around on her manger scene, and was warning her about her sleeve getting in the flame.  she had to draw it to my attention that these were battery candles.  ok, so maybe everybody else has already seen these, and i'm just not that much in touch with my surroundings these days, but i'm telling you they are well worth a last-minute trip to the dollar tree.

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ella has at least absorbed the concept of how snowmen are built, and is not about to let lack of snow stand in her way of getting that snowman experience in her very own home.

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time to get ready to bake cookies!  santa's plate is already in place in the village square.  i'll be back again later today--i might even have pictures of santa!

almost christmas

well, "as often as possible" didn't turn out to be that often, did it?  first ella got sick, then my computer got sick, then ella got sicker, and now it is the day before the day before.  but i couldn't just leave you hanging, so let me see what i can do to make it up to you.

this is a simple little dress that you really can make at the last minute--i know this, because i make them at the last minute all the time.  (i made this one in an afternoon, and ella wore it to a christmas party that same evening).  it is just a purchased t-shirt with a skirt added, and some embellishment to make it look like it was supposed to be a dress and not just a t-shirt with a skirt added.  ella calls these her twirly dresses, and she stands by the sewing machine as i sew them, checking on their progress--much the way a child does on a road trip--"are we there yet?  are we there yet?"  (or ella's variation:  "are we here?").  she has been known to strip naked where she stands to put on a new twirly dress--or the complete opposite--to put a new twirly dress on over whatever she is wearing.  (as far as i can tell, this is completely unconnected to the weather--she is as likely to put a dress over her clothes in 90 degrees heat as she is to strip nakie in the dead of winter--which we don't get enough of here--but that is another story.....).

you've probably seen this sort of dress countless times online, but here's the thing:  i don't cut the t-shirts.  i just mark a line however far down from the underarm i want the waistline to be, and sew the skirt there.  and here's the other thing:  i don't measure the pleats.  in fact, i don't even measure the fabric--i just rip two pieces of fabric the entire width of the yardage and whatever length i decide to make the skirt.  i seam the two pieces together on the shirt sides and since it is selvage i don't have to finish the edges.  then i mark the skirt in halves, quarters, 8ths, and 16ths--but i still don't measure--i just fold in half, and fold in half again, and keep folding each smaller section in half, pressing each fold so i have a guide.  i do the same to the t-shirt--fold and mark with a pin, over and over, until i have as many marks on the waistline as i made on the skirt.  i pin the skirt to the t-shirt, mark to mark, then i just fold the pleats as i sew:

i usually fold up a generous hem--i like 2"--but if i don't have enough fabric, i use bias binding and make a faced hem.  the embellishment on the pink dress is just a scrap that i ruffled and sewed down:

and the blue dress in the pleat close-up is the one i made for her to wear to her preschool christmas party:  thomas the train!  the embellishment is an origami flower that i made using instructions i found at this post at craftster.

and lest i forget:  for the SRC, i'll take 3 points each for the t-shirts, the skirts were about a yard each of fabric that i've had for less than a year, i'll just say 5 points each for them--but i want 10 points for each embellishment because, by golly, those things take about as much time as the skirts.  36 points!  wow, if i want to make my goal of 1000 points, i better start moving some fabric off the shelf and thru the machine.

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and speaking of goals, i want to take a moment to thank all of you who have contributed so far to my heifer campaign!  every little bit helps, and i am truly thankful for your gift to this cause.  if some of you have hesitated to contribute because you think you can't give enough, i want to reassure you that ANY amount will be welcome.  if everybody who visits this blog gives just one or two dollars, together we'll go well over the top of my goal!  and if this is not a good time for you to contribute, please know that your prayers or wishes of goodwill toward this effort are also a worthy contribution.

i have a couple of other christmasy ideas to share with you, and even though tomorrow is the day before the day, i think any of these ideas are doable at the last minute--i should know--if it weren't for the last minute, i'd hardly get anything done at all.

give a little, get a little

with one exception, i give away pretty much everything i know.  that's because pretty much everything i know was given to me.  for my entire life i have had the good fortune to be surrounded with talented, generous artists who have shared their knowledge and expertise with me simply because they loved what the did and they wanted to pass that on.

i will continue to do this--further down in this post is a project that i hope you will enjoy--but today i'm asking you to give something back.

i'm doing something really important this holiday season that you can help me with. i'm working to end hunger by raising money for heifer international.

i'm counting on you to pitch in and help reach my goal. any donation large or small will help us get there!

i chose heifer international to help because they are a wonderful organization working to end hunger and poverty in the world. for more than six decades, heifer has been helping poor families around the world become self-reliant by providing animals and the training to care for them. each recipient family promises to pass along offspring from their animal to another family in need.

heifer's simple but effective solution has helped more than seven million families -- 38 million people -- in more than 125 countries including the US, where more than 10 million people are chronically hungry.

rudi and i have been heifer supports for a number of years now--donations to heifer are our traditional christmas gift to each other--and we invite you to join us in this important campaign.

thank you in advance for taking a moment to go online and help me help heifer.

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and now, today's gift to YOU.  this is a simple little wrap that i made on the knifty knitter with just two balls of fluffy yarn and a little over an hour of time.

using the yellow knifty knitter loom, cast on and knit just three pegs for 30 rows.  this creates the first tie.  starting on the next row, wrap the three pegs, skip one peg, and wrap the next peg (K1, 2, 3, skip 4, K5).  knit these pegs, then knit one row plain to get back to the beginning.  from then on, continue skipping one peg and adding the next peg at the end on every other row. knit the rows inbetween without adding any pegs--until you have filled the entire loom.  then continue wrapping and knitting back and forth on just the wrapped pegs until you get to the end of the first ball of yarn.

add on your next ball of yarn, then start decreasing:  take the last loop off it's peg, put it on the next wrapped peg, then knit just THAT PEG.  you have just decreased one stitch.  wrap and knit one row plain.  decrease one stitch at the end of every other row until you are back down to the original three pegs.  wrap and knit these three pegs for 30 rows to create the second tie, then bind off.

there you go, another quickie gift done!  already today i could have sold this one off my own back several times, so when you wear yours plan on having mobs of people begging you to make one for them too.  just don't tell them how easy it is--let them labor under the illusion that you slaved away just for them.  :)