hello again! I’m feeling a little sheepish after have been away for this space for more than a month (oof!). That is the longest I’ve gone without a post in the 6 years I’ve been here. These days I’m finding it difficult to know where this blog fits in: fits in my life, fits in the blogging world, fits in with you. Blair said it so nicely, I need not go on and and on about it, but I feel I need to refocus. There are posts I have been meaning to do for years (years, people!) and it’s about time those got written. And one of those things is a FAQ page, which seems like a good way to get back in the game.

So if there are any of you out there still reading elsie marley (mom, I know you are) I’m ready to answer your questions: about me, about sewing, about fabric, about food, about my home, about creativity, about this blog, about whatever. Ask away in the comments or over email. I can’t wait to hear from you–I’ve missed you all!

the photo above was my submission to Anke’s beautiful photo project Learning from Kids: and Advent calendar. If you missed it in December, do go see it now! 

We took out our advent calendar and hung it up yesterday. The children were ecstatic–their mother less so. I’d like to make a new advent calendar, something sparkly and with more candy involved.  Sounds like an easy sell to a bunch of kids, right? Oh no, my daughter started asking about advent activities before Halloween. I do love many of the things we do during advent, but around the 20th I run out of energy. If my kids weren’t such sticklers for tradition, these are some of the advent calendars I might make:

Books! 24 christmas books! Looks awesome, but sounds expensive, right? All the books don’t have to be new: use what you have, hit the thrift store, wrap a library book (why not?!). I think this is a great, simple, no-stress advent calendar. The kids get the excitement of opening a present each day and you all get to cozy up together on the couch every evening.

Many Christmas songs and traditions come from Germany, so why not an advent calendar too? All 24 of these sweet boxes are printed with a christmas scene or saying (in german). And they are available as a free download!

I love the idea of lighting a candle every night for advent. And I love even more the thought of having 25 candles burning for christmas dinner!  Here is another advent calendar that uses tea lights and a tutorial for numbered luminaries.

Martha Stewart always makes office supplies look awesome. This would be a great advent calendar for flat gifts: stickers, temporary tattoos, coloring pages, more stickers, cards, other flat things.

Yes, this is an activity advent calendar, but it’s free and printable and totally awesome! Plus Mr. Printable is a great site for (flat!) things to put in all these advent calendars too! Go check him out.

Delia from delia creates made this super huge! super fantastic! countdown to christmas advent calendar. Pop on over to her post to see this and so many more amazing christmas things she made.

Have you unearthed your advent calendar yet? Or are you making one? Or are you going the chocolate calendar route?

This cashmere baby set is very quickly becoming my go to baby gift to make. One shrunken cashmere sweater will usually yield one pair of pants and a hat (both in newborn-ish size) with some scraps leftover for a toy of some sort.

The hat pattern is the same martha stewart pattern I’ve used over the years, but I’ve redrafted it so many times I don’t know if it’s the same as hers any more. This one turn out a little helmet-y. I wanted to add ties to it, but nothing seemed to work: the jersey bias tape I made was too janky looking, the braided jersey was too thick, and the cashmere wasn’t stretchy enough.

Instead of continuing to fuss with the ties, I just made another hat. This one is made with the pilot cap pattern from Sew Liberated–an excellent pattern. I added a lining to the pattern because the striped jersey fabric I was working with was so thin.  I love this one to bits. I don’t know why I never made these when my kids were little, but everyone I know who has a baby is getting one from here on out!

Last time I made this ball, I hand stitched it. This time, well, this time there was less time. The ball turned out a little pointy–not really what you are looking for in a ball. Next time I might try hexagons. Jennifer Murphy has a lovely tutorial for pentagon balls that I used for this ball. She had the great idea to add a bias tape handle! There is a little jingle bell inside the ball, so the baby can hold on to the handle and shake it until her mother goes mad.

Do you have a signature baby gift you make?

I have been on a bit of a crocheting kick recently. After all the sewing for kcwc I got rather sick of looking at my sewing machine. And I got sick of certain little people poo-pooing things I made for them. So I went to the yarn store and bought some beautiful, soft, and squishy yarn to make something just for me.

I’m not usually a fan of things trying desperately to be something they are not–think tofu dogs. Crochet is not knitting, even though they both use yarn. Crochet is its own art and has its own strengths that I try to showcase. But I wanted so badly to make the bandana cowl pattern by Purl Bee.  Looking at it was painful, because it is so perfect, but I can’t knit to save my life.

Thankfully someone made an equally awesome crochet bandana cowl–no tofu dogs in sight. The cowl is the same shape as the knitted version, but I think the stitches were chosen by someone who loves crochet and knows how to show of its strengths.  It worked up super fast in the gorgeous wool/silk blend yarn I bought. All the cowl details are on ravelry if you are interested.

ooo! looks like there’s a little crochet on crochet action going on in this last picture.

I’m over at a happy stitch today for her new series fail friday. I was so happy that Melissa asked me to contribute, because crafty/sewing blogs really need to talk about mistakes more. The pretty pictures are nice, but everybody screws up sometimes! Failures are hard to own up to, but honestly they are a lot more interesting and a hell of a lot funnier than perfectly perfect projects all the time. So go check out my post about my kcwc double fail!