early Christmas

Have I mentioned how much I love it when this happens?

Several awesome things I ordered came in the mail all at once today. A couple of them are Christmas gifts, but they might as well have been gifts for me! The beautiful packaging and extra items are so wonderful. Especially from Johanna at 12fifteen, who sent two extra letterpress coasters and cards! Wow!! You know I'm keeping those for myself. And Betsy at foundling's items were, of course, just lovely.

Feast your eyes upon the beauty.



























Also, lately I've been craving some handwork in the evenings... just to sit downstairs with my hubby and have a little peaceful project while we chill. So I picked up a couple vintage stamped embroidery linens on eBay.















Since the ink should fade once I embroider and wash them, I'll probably do the birds' eyes differently.

giving thanks

Many wishes for a peaceful day of thanks with those you love.

p.s. -- I'd like to say "thank you" to you all by offering 20% off all the items in my shop.

just for you

In the shop now, and more being added soon.

perfect saturday morning

socks for chilly floors
wrapping up in quilts
rain on the windshield
kings of convenience
long's bakery
bavarian cream

the gift that keeps on giving: water buffalos

Last year, my husband's side of the family decided we didn't need to spend money on useless stuff for each other for Christmas. Instead, we bought chickens, Bibles, school uniforms, and even a cow for families in Uganda, and that was our gift to each other.

This year, my sister-in-law knew some aid workers that were going to Nepal soon, so we all did Christmas early and gave enough for them to buy a water buffalo.

Here is the e-mail from the aid worker:

Just to let you know, there is a small village in rural Nepal who had eleven buffaloes we had purchased for them that was flooded and ALL their livestock died, leaving them destitute. We were able to purchase a new, healthy buffalo for this village with your donation. The people were SO HAPPY and thankful. This one buffalo will help support them until we can get more. Essentially, it will keep them alive.

Thank you and your family for doing this.

Please consider doing Christmas differently this year, and check out this fantastic video. I've watched it at least 15 times.

vintage reproduction

I've been totally stoked about Spoonflower (design & print your own fabrics!) ever since I first heard about it a few months ago, but this is the first chance I've had to play around with creating any designs. I don't have any kind of background in graphic design, although I have learned to use The Gimp (it's free!) over the last few years, and just this week downloaded Inkscape (free too!) in order to draw freehand. I used the tutorials from MammaMade, and they were incredibly helpful.




















This is a pattern based off a vintage fabric that I only had a little snippet of. It will be a pretty small pattern... and I changed up the design and colors some from the original. It took a little fudging, but I finally got it to tile nicely.

Does anyone know what the copyright laws are for vintage fabrics and feedsack? I've seen reproductions for sale that are exact replicas (I know because I have the originals!), but I don't know if the designer had to buy the copyright to replicate it. I'd like to be able to offer some reproductions or re-workings of my favorites for sale in my Etsy shop, but I don't want to run into any trouble!

Update: Found some great info over at True Up and through numerous Google searches... but the boundaries in this area are murky at best. It seems being clear that the fabric is based on a vintage design, and not of your own design, is the best way to go. Determining whether a fabric is in the public domain seems next to impossible.