Lovely Little Thing

The past few weeks have creeped along, as days seem to do here in January and February but in the last week or so I've felt a noticeable change of the pep in my step with the days becoming longer. It makes such a huge difference to me when it's not completely dark at 4:30pm! Light! Bring on the SUN! Ahhhh. Keeping busy is the best cure for the winter blues, I think. I finished reading Life After Life, which was wonderful. I've also been doing the usual crafting. Finally finished a simple scarf and now I've started sewing the quart coat but I probably should have done that in the autumn because now I'm feeling a bit over winter and would rather sew summer dresses. I made a detour for a while to make some of the Purl Soho City Gym Shorts. Love those, but I must finish the coat! I also have a few little Easter dresses in the works for the girls. AND it does help to have some lovely press about your life and work from wonderful magazines to get you through a winter funk.

In Bloom

I love Christmas and the weeks leading up to it--the ornament making, cooking baking, tree decorating, shopping, wrapping, Christmas music, seeing family and friends, food, food and more food--I love it all. But I'm equally over it almost as soon as 25 December passes! I'm ready to put all the decorations away, clean out closets and cabinets and think of things I want to accomplish in the new year. I don't make resolutions as such, but I often make a list of things I want to get done around the house and goals I'd like to achieve. This year some of those include ordering many photo books and yes, I've made a long list of them. Lois is now 7 and I've only been meaning to to that for all of those 7 years! (Only just today I uploaded her 5th birthday photos to an album online.) I want to organize and clear off the 2,000+ photos on my phone and about a bazillion on my computer, which I have a hard time keeping up with regularly. I want to keep challenging myself with new sewing patterns. Though I still haven't knocked out the quart coat it's next on the sewing table, yay! Ah, there are really so many things on my list! I'm sure it would be a bit boring to hear me rattle on about too many more of them, but one crafty thing I'd also like to learn is how to make beautiful paper flowers, and I think it would be a fun activity to do with the girls as well. I've made some basic paper flowers in the past but never detailed, intricate or particularly life-like flowers.

Holiday Cheer

I love holidays and Christmas is a favorite. This year we're staying in London for Christmas, which we've only done one other time in the 5 years we've been here. Even when we go away, we always decorate a bit, 2013 being a favorite, before we re-arranged our house. I thought we'd go all out decorating like mad, but I'm a little behind in all the things I had planned. But it's still quite festive and we've done a good bit of Christmas crafting and baking. We made a lot of paper snowflakes, which are addictive and really easy to make. They're in our front window and so pretty to look at in the evening light.

Little Christmas Dresses

I'm so happy I finished the girls' Christmas dresses! I wasn't sure I'd get them finished in time (I'm pretty slow at sewing actually) but I got them done with about a week to spare before Christmas. These actually went a lot faster than I was expecting. Since I've made the pattern once before for the girls for Easter, I was already familiar with it so I knew they wouldn't be too challenging but they do have a lot of steps, and I needed to make two, so there was that to consider time-wise.

Sewing Jeans!

My head is a flurry of Christmas to-dos and excitement right now. So much to do, so little time! This week I want mail our Christmas cards, most of which go to the US so need to be mailed soon, make stockings, start the the girls Christmas dresses, which will be a Christmas version of the Oliver + S fairytale dresses I made a while back, and wrap lots of presents. The girls and I have been having fun making some Christmas crafts and are looking forward to getting our tree this weekend as well. Soon I'll post photos of our merry making. But now, I'm happy to have finished my most ambitious sewing project that I tackled solo, which is a pair of jeans! They are Jamie Jeans, a pattern by Named Clothing. When I saw the the pattern on the web site, I thought, woah, those are some great looking jeans! And how amazing do they look on their model? I love the contrasting piping on the pockets and the shape is great too. I wanted to step it up this year and challenge myself with some more ambitious sewing patterns and this was one of them.

Favorite Outtakes

October was a busy month! My mom was visiting, which was great but she got a terrible cold while she was here. Still, we did get in some fun time, like going to Columbia Road and Liberty on a few days. Despite not feeling well she was really helpful with our girls since Andrew was away for a bit of that time. My book launch events were great as well. It was a lot of fun to meet people who are genuinely interested in crafty shops in London and to sign my book for them. Quite a strange feeling to sign your own book but one that was very enjoyable! And it was fun to bake some cute sewing themed cakes and cupcakes.

In Love Sewing

Life is whizzing by, and as usual I feel like I'm having a hard time keeping up! I have a backlog of photos I want to post on my blog but they need editing first, and there's projects to tackle, things to sew, lists of stuff to get done, a wedding in the US next week to plan for. I know some people who manage to do IT ALL like Alicia and Artemis, two of my greatest inspirations, but alas, I'm afraid that as hard as I try to get a lot done, I never seem to get nearly as much done (or so well) as they do! Honestly I feel like most of my waking hours (if I'm at home) are spent picking things up and putting them away--I guess that's the life of a mother consistently distracted by clutter and mess. I always try to remind myself of one of my favorite quotes: "a perfectly kept house is the sign of a misspent life" which is also the title of a favorite book by Mary Randolph Carter. Clutter or no clutter, I keep trying to get a lot done...

My Book! London Stitch and Knit

Lately I've been working on a big project that I'm super excited about. I'm writing a book! It's a guide to London's fabric, knitting and haberdashery shops and will be published this autumn. I'm also doing the photos for the book, which is wonderful because I get to go to so many amazing shops and capture how beautiful they are. It's been hard though to keep my wallet from jumping out of my purse at every shop! I've had the idea for the book for a while and I'm really happy that it's now a reality.

Let There Be DIY Light

Every day our colorful family room is looking more finished! I'm happy to have found some great vintage school chairs on ebay with the perfect teal colored paint. We all love them. School chairs are a safe bet, I think. Lamp shopping, on the other hand, is tricky for me because there's often one element of a lamp that doesn't interest me, and actually the lamps I tend to be most drawn to are really expensive. So I've taken to doing some lamp DIY. I've been having fun customizing lampshades for a few rooms and now have the bug to customize some actual lamps as well after completing one. Inspired by my friend Paula who turns interesting and unusual industrial things into lamps, like pulleys, pipes and all manner of other odd bits, I decided to give it a go myself.

Sewing Goals

Sew many patterns, sew little time! In my last post I didn't mention just how many things I want to sew this year. I had a goal in mind of 2 wearable garments a month, either for myself or for our girls, but now I'm thinking that was quite ambitions with all the other things in life I need and want to do, and I don't want the pressure of the goal to take the fun out of it. So now I'm thinking 1 wearable garment per month is more realistic for me. I know some people are able to knock out more than a few projects a month, amazing sewists like Fiona and Katie, for example, whose blogs always inspire me. With the two little ones dangling from me half the time, I'm not sure I can devote enough time to two garments with life's other commitments, but I will still try!

Merry and Bright

Even though we always go home to the US for Christmas, we still like to get in the spirit at home and decorate the house a bit and I always send Christmas cards. We use Tiny Prints for our photo cards. Sometimes I have photos of all of us, but this year I chose two photos of the girls. I always find styles I like from their selection. This year we bought a small tree and put it on a table. It's just about the same height as Lois and fits our favorite ornaments perfectly. Lois actually carried it home herself! 

Melanie Barnes for 91 Magazine

A few months ago I had the pleasure of meeting Melanie Barnes of the beautiful blog Geoffrey and Grace when I went to shoot her cozy house and cute makery beach hut in Worthing for 91 Magazine. In addition to being a busy mom, Melanie is also a talented crafter who sews children's clothes and accessories from vintage fabrics. She also runs a shop with two other talented crafters out of their beach hut studio / shop named Margot.

Craft Room Re-do

I think I mentioned that in our house re-arrange I've taken over Ellie's room as my craft room. We're actually sharing a room for now. She hasn't really noticed I've hijacked her room. My craft bits and bobs, which are mostly pretty florals and many pastel colors, go well with her nursery decor. I switched out the grey velvet curtains that were in her room (which belong to our landlords) and replaced them with the chevron Ballard Designs curtains I previously had in our front room. I wanted to move our old dining room table into this room, but we couldn't get it up the stairs! It's about an inch too wide to fit. So I decided to get this simple table from IKEA.

Cambie Dress

Since we've sort of turned our house upside down re-arranging some rooms, I haven't sewn anything in a few months, but I'm looking forward to hearing the hum of the sewing machine again soon. The last thing I made was the Sewaholic Cambie dress. I've stolen Ellie's room as my craft room since we turned my craft room into our grown-up sitting room / library / game room (not sure what to call it really!). But our old dining table that I wanted to use as a desk wouldn't fit up the stairs and the legs don't come off, so rather than chopping it up to fit, I ordered a simple table from IKEA to use as a sewing table and will accessorize it with some cute things. I have quite a few patterns in mind to make on my new sewing table, including making another Sewaholic Cambie dress. I made this dress in the summer and I love it.

The Old Haberdashery

During our food styling workshop in East Sussex, we had planned a pub lunch at The Bell in Ticehurst, which was a really nice lunch though service was quite slow for our large group. But before lunch we had a few minutes to take a peek into one of my favorite shops, The Old Haberdashery, which is on the same street as The Bell. I actually hadn't been before that day but knew I'd love the shop from seeing The Old Haberdashery stall at the Decorative Living fair last year and from a wonderful article earlier this year in Country Living. I'd like to move in there! It's filled with everything I love.

How Fabric Is Made

This week the fabric label Cotton and Steel revealed their first collection at quilt market. Headed up by Melody Miller whose own line of fabrics has been so popular in recent years, Cotton and Steel is a new kind of fabric company, which includes designers Melody Miller, Sarah Watts, Rashida Coleman-Hale, Kim Kight, and Alexia Abegg. Before starting C&S, Melody considered what wanted to do next. She had an idea for a unique fabric company, one that was collaborative and would highlight various designers' individual styles while also working well as a comprehensive line of fabrics. She approached RJR fabrics who loved her idea agreed to produce it. The result looks great from what I've seen on their instagram. This video is a wonderful introduction to C&S. They recently also released a behind the scenes look at how their fabric is made in Japan. I love fabric, and I love to see how things are made. I think most of us often take for granted how and where things are made, as if we're so detached from how things are produced that they just appear like magic in stores. I found this brief look into how C&S fabric is made very inspiring and thought you might enjoy it too. I'm looking forward to seeing Cotton and Steel fabrics in stores soon. (Images here from the C&S instagram feed.)

Just Keep Sewing

Lately I feel like every day goes by in a flash. I guess that's a good thing though! Though don't have a regular full-time job, I feel much busier than when I did have one. Not that having children isn't a full-time job, but really I only have Ellie 3 days a week now since Lois is in school and Ellie goes to nursery. Still, somehow I always feel frantic trying to squeeze all my need-to-dos and want-to-dos. And I'm almost always vacuuming regardless of what needs doing. I swear I'm attached to that thing. But of course I can usually manage to cram in some want-to-do time like making a visit to Sew Over It.

Oliver + S Happiness

So here are the girls in their cute Easter Dresses! I'm really happy I finished in time for Easter. The pattern, as I mentioned before, was really clear and easy to follow.

Happy Easter

I love Easter decorations and really just love any holiday that makes for fun crafting. We haven't done much this year for Easter, though, other than make some cookies and a simple Easter egg tree, but I have a lot of Easter inspiration on pinterest. The girls' dresses are both finished. I'll post some photos after their Easter fashion show reveal tomorrow. Until then, here's a peek at our cookies (using a great, basic butter cookie recipe) and our little Easter tree.

An Easter Dress for Little Miss

Here is Ellie's finished Easter dress! I'm so happy with it! I think after this dress I can now consider myself an intermediate sewist. I've been sewing since 2006 but only recently pushed myself in garment sewing. When I've gotten frustrated in the past, Andrew reminded me that sewing is not a linear learning process and not to be so hard on myself, which I've probably mentioned before. One thing at a time! For this pattern, I did just that. I took it one step at a time and tried not to read ahead and get overwhelmed by the two separate huge pages of instructions front and back. The pattern was actually very clear and easy to follow despite the lengthy number of steps.