It will be very hard to resist the charms of Target in all its hip holiday wear, but I took the pledge.

Did you?

I didn’t actually notice how christmasy all this fabric was until I was checking out.  But now that halloween is out of the way, bring on the plastic glowing santas.

We are on a strict budget in these parts and impulse fabric buying sprees are not looked on favorably.  And I haven’t really bought anything in the past few months–I sure as hell have enough.  But a good friend and I went to a beautiful quilt store last weekend and I couldn’t just look at all the beautiful fabric.   It was such a treat to see all the fabric in person I have been looking at online for so long.   Though none of the ladies knew who Denyse Schmidt was and they had heard of Amy Butler, but didn’t think they had any of her prints (I really wanted to see the katie jump rope line and some of those crazy paisley  Amy Butler prints).  On the other hand, they had this amazing Kaffe Fasset shot cotton.  But I just got a couple fat quarters and remnants–to be good.   It was a really lovely trip: a huge fabric store, a friend as excited as I was, and time to look at everything without dealing with whining and boogers.

A couple days later I went to Joann’s to pick up some fiberfil (I used to get it from thrift stores, but then I found a bug in one…) and came out with a hell of a lot more. I had both babies in tow and saw a sign on all the cotton prints that said, “$1!”  I thought it was my lucky day and picked out a bunch of fabric and said a yard of each please! I couldn’t believe what a great deal I was getting and couldn’t figure out why people weren’t bum rushing the bolts.  As soon as all my fabric was cut and I was holding the receipt I figured it out.  Read the whole sign doofus–a dollar off.   But I did get some nice stuff that I wouldn’t have otherwise.  The lace print is really beautiful and the stone print has already given me a bunch of new ideas. But blew the budget.

After two days of two children whining non stop, I needed to reward myself with a little project. I started this digger months ago, but it sat in parts without it’s digger since then. So last night I watched some trashy tv (is there anything but?) and stuffed and stitched. I stopped working on it because I wasn’t happy with the design and because I wasn’t sure the digger part would actually come out. But it did. I never want to start working on the hardest part of whatever I’m making, but of course it always ends up being the most satisfying. I made some covered buttons for the button joints (do buttons with shanks even work for button joints?) but I liked the way it looked without them, so they went in the cab. There has been construction in our neighborhood, well, since my daughter was born and she points out all the diggers to me everyday. I thought it would be nice to make a digger for her that was a little on the girlie side. So there you have a slightly tufted, movable, flowery, digger. I’ve got another already cut out, with a slightly different pattern and I thought a patchwork digger would be cool. So more to come, hopefully.I think I’ll enter this into the Holiday Softies Central Awards (right under the wire) because I think it would be a great toy to find under the tree (if you are a 2 year old girl obsessed with diggers, that is).  Here are a bunch of other entries that I think are fantastic. Go look!

Isn’t it lovely? This was my little patchwork swap treat from my partner Clara (who has no blog). A little quilted zipper pouch done with some beautiful fabrics. And she sent me a big stack of patchwork squares. Here are just some of my favorite ones (the little black and white drawn vegetable print is fantastic–anyone know where it’s from?).

I sent out my little package today. I made a patchwork needlebook that turned out a little too big, so I hope my partner has lots of needles to store!

And of course she got a big stack of scraps as well. I hope she likes it (I’ll tell you who she is as soon as she gets it).

That’s it I’m afraid. I’m worn out from 2 whiny babies who don’t seem to need sleep.

little jack horner sat in a corner,

eating his christmas pie:

he put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum

and said, “what a good boy am I!”

Here he is pulling out the plum! I was really nervous about tackling the pie and the plum, but surprisingly I didn’t have problems with either (problems with my sewing machine that resulted in very loud swearing, yes). The pie plate has pintucks all around and is stuffed with foam and cotton batting. The pie is a natural linen lined with a purple and red print that I have ridiculous amounts of. I don’t normal like purple, but I thought that it almost looked like the inside of a plum pie: all red and purple and oozy. The pie is just gathered and hand sewn to the plate. I have no idea where this idea came from, but I think it actually looks like the crimped edge of a pie. And as I used to be a baker, I am especially proud of it. The pie also has a little pocket on top to hold the plum. I sewed the pocket in and then made a little bias tape and finished it with that. It looks okay, but I think there are neater ways of doing something like this (putting an invisible pocket not on a seam) that I don’t know of yet. I made the plum from this beautiful deep purple (really, I never liked purple before this) cotton that feels very fine and soft. A half yard of it cost me a whole quarter at my local thrift. It has a little elastic at the bottom to fit over Jack’s thumb and to make it more plum shaped. The plum is stuffed a little and lined with the purple and red print as well. Except for the pie, I stuffed everything with the new eco- friendly fiberfil which is made from corn. It worked pretty well, though I’m not the world’s best stuffer so I don’t trust me. The package doesn’t have any washing directions on it, so I have no idea if you can wash it or not, but you must be able to right?

All in all, I’m really happy with how everything turned out. When I started to make toys from nursery rhyme characters I had this idea that they should be slightly interactive–not really the right word, but you know what I mean. So, Jack, the pie, and the plum are all separate and you can act out the rhyme (if you are so inclined) or just put them in different poses on display. See the whole rhyme in pictures on my flickr page. As I mentioned before, this is my entry for the Softies Central Holiday awards (holiday smorgasbord category). So go look at all the fabulous entries right now!