Michelle of greetingarts.com organized an embroidered button swap and I got my package a couple weeks ago. I really like how each button shows off a different stitch. I know it wasn’t intentional, but it’s a nice sampling. I never thought of cross stitch as being so classy, or using french knots to create a shag rug look. They are all fantastic and I can’t wait to put them on coats and sweaters and pillows and whatever else I can find.

1. flower by regina

2. boat by calicodaisy

3. crown by junie moon

4. strawberry by jessi

5. heart by anina

6. and a robot from the woman who made it all happen, michelle

Here are the how to use chopsticks buttons I embroidered for the swap!

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.