Posie Gets Cozy

Miss Ingrid Marigold

This is Ingrid Marigold!

I made her last week from the Nutcracker Doll pattern in Stitched in Time. What I love about these dolls is that every single one I've made, and I've made ten of them now, has her own style and personality. And the cool thing about it is that you don't even have to try to make that happen. You just stitch. And it happens. A distinct little spirit comes out in cotton, yarn, and thread. I was never really a doll person, but these girls just charm me.

I stuffed Ingrid with cotton upholstery batting from Fabric Depot. (And by the way, Portlanders, if you are wanting wool batting, the lady at Fabric Depot says that if enough of us fill out comment cards asking for it, they'll probably try to stock it, though at this time they do not.) Cotton batting is very different from polyester fiberfill. Cotton is clumpy, and sticky, and it doesn't puff up to fill its spaces the way that fiberfill does. Because it's not slippery, it's a little harder to work with. But it makes such a lovely, old-fashioned, lumpy-soft doll that I have to say I much prefer it these days. The doll feels completely different. She is heavy and malleable. I fill all of these skinny arms and legs with a hemostat. I wouldn't do it without this tool. Everyone has their preferences, but I'd be lost without this one. It still takes a good amount of time to stuff a doll like this. It's a time-consuming doll, no doubt about it. But you don't do it because you don't want to take some time with it.

For Christmas, I made another doll for the little girl Andy and I sponsor through World Vision. I was thinking about how I could best contribute to the charities that I care about this holiday season, when so many are in need, both here and around the world. I decided that I would make seven dolls, including Ingrid Marigold, and put them up for auction on eBay, with half of the proceeds from the sale of each doll going to a different organization. I wish I could send all the money, but mama gotta keep the lights on around here, too. I have never auctioned anything on eBay before — but I think I can figure it out. I have made five dolls so far, and I have two more planned. I hope to finish them today, and then take photos of them all and have the auction early next week. I am kind of excited about this idea!

*Update: Look how cute Hillary's dolls came out — so, so sweet. If you'd made one, add a photo to the Flickr group or let me know — I'd love to see her! :-)

Festivity and Fun

We always take the train to Seattle. I love to travel by train. I've ridden the rails for tens of thousands of miles, literally, criss-crossing the country from Pennsylvania to Montana, Seattle to Phoenix, San Francisco to Salt Lake City. And many points in between.

The trip between Portland and Seattle, about three and a half hours long, is lovely. It's the only way to go, in my opinion. Here's a photo through my window on the moving train, somewhere in Washington, around 10 a.m. on Saturday morning. I've gone back and forth on this route many times, but the scenery this time — early morning, fog in the valley, a thick ribbon of opaque clouds resting above the wooded banks of too many rivers to count, russet brush and fallow fields, horses standing next to barns dark and hollow-looking. About an hour south of Seattle, the rails begin to run along the water. Just sit back and watch it all. You'll be in Seattle by noon.

Urban Craft Uprising hosted over 130 indie crafters over two days at Exhibition Hall at Seattle Center, a giant complex of buildings, parks, and attractions, including the Space Needle and the Experience Music Project, that is truly awesome. Very cool place.

Fun! I signed books at the UCU booth in the afternoon, then we walked around and did a little visiting, a little looking, a little shopping. So many great artists and people. the place was packed. The extraordinary Kristen Rask and the rest of her team did such a great job with this event!

We met up with beautiful Blair and walked down to the food court in the Seattle Center House for some lunch and a visit. We were treated to a holiday concert by the Northwest Boys Choir and stopped to look at the amazing miniature snow village, complete with several working miniature trains. So cool.

We stayed at our favorite hotel, the Inn at the Market. It's just steps away from Pike Place Market, and central to just about everything we like to do in Seattle. We've stayed there often enough now that it does sort of feel like our home base in Seattle. I love it. It sits above Campagne restaurant, over Post Alley, and the smells of roasted garlic and caramelized onions waft up to you all night. This is the view from the window seat in our room, looking out over Puget Sound, just as it was getting dark.

It was changing by the minute, and only got better.

We headed out with our friends Erica, Glynnis, and Mark for one of the best meals I've ever had at Elliot's Oyster House. A Seattle institution, this gorgeous restaurant sits right on Pier 56, and you can watch the sparkling ferries shuttle in and out of the harbor in the dark. My photos were not too good because it is quite atmospheric in there, and beautifully decorated for Christmas. But you get the idea. We had such a wonderful night. Both the food and the company were just perfect.

The next morning, we woke up early and headed downstairs to Le Panier for cappuccino and the paper.

Gorgeousness.

The angelic meringues.

Fortified, we had an early-morning walk-around for a bit. Sunday morning. Quiet, cold, cloudy.

An octopus star at the just-setting-up market.

Decorations through the window at closed Anthropologie (too early).

The city starting to shuffle and move.

And then it was time to meet our college friends Wendy and Bob, South Park denizens and organizers of another fantastic Seattle event, Art Under $100. They are both incredibly talented. We had breakfast at Maximilien at the Market. Kind of an odd little place, painted very dark inside, with a classic view, and I must say the croque madame with its cloud of scrambled egg on top (I don't like them fried) was absolutely delicious.

This was the morning view.

All too soon it was time to go. We went back to the hotel to check out, and had one last sit in the window seat. This was my Christmas-colored view, zoomed.

Just over twenty-four hours in town this time. On the way back to the King Street Station, we stopped off at the lovely Elliot Bay Book Company in Pioneer Square, and I signed their copy of Stitched in Time, just for good measure, and kissed Seattle goodbye, just for now.

Seattle Weekend

We returned from our very quick train trip to Seattle last night, exhausted but positively glowing with happiness and good cheer. Thank you to everyone who came out to Urban Craft Uprising over the weekend! I was just so excited to meet all of you and sign your books and put faces with names. It was a great afternoon. I'll have more pictures and details as soon as I get myself more organized, hopefully by tomorrow. But until then, I just wanted to say thank you, as always, Seattle. You are so, so good to us. xoxo

My Christmas-Movie Screenplay Plans

I've almost convinced Andy to write a Christmas-movie screenplay with me. Not an awesome movie like Elf, or Prancer, or The Family Man. But a made-for-TV one (what's not awesome about these!) like Boyfriend for Christmas (pictured above), Christmas Do-Over, or Holiday in Handcuffs. I've told him that it's easy: All we need to do is pick out and incorporate about ten of these Christmas-movie must-contains and we'll be set:

A character named Holly, Mary, Merry, Chris, Kris, Christy, Kristin, Nick, Nicholas, Rudolpha, Carol, Noel, Noelle, or some diminutive of Ebeneezer.

A widow.

A widower.

An orphan.

A soldier, sailor, or marine.

A homeless person who is, it is suspected, actually Santa/God/an angel.

A soup kitchen.

A workaholic corporate suit who schedules meetings on Christmas Eve and has clearly forgotten the reason for the season.

A cottage industry/family business in danger of being put out of business by big-box store/urban development/greedy coporation.

A character who pretends to be someone else.

A blizzard that knocks out all forms of transportation or communication.

Two characters who hate each other forced, by the blizzard, to spend the night in a cabin with no utilities and who wind up in love by the next morning.

A stinky, drunk department-store Santa. Who hates kids.

Someone in a Santa suit who stole something who is now being chased by a hundred other people in Santa suits. Through Manhattan.

Santa who falls ill/is too old/has lost hope, and Christmas is in danger of being cancelled.

Santa's son or daughter who must take over his job reluctantly, or with difficult conditions (must marry today by midnight, e.g.).

A child who knows more than all of the adults combined.

Stupid adults.

Toy freak out: not enough toys, wrong toys, toys lost, toys not able to reach their destinations.

A character who absolutely hates Christmas due to some past loss. Loss occuring around Christmastime.

A character who loves Christmas when everyone else around him/her hates it.

Overworked elf. Lazy elf. Cranky elf. Naive elf. One nice elf.

A character who returns home to find that things have changed. And, in a weird way, stayed much the same.

A character, unlucky in love, who returns home to find their high-school sweetheart conveniently unmarried.

A deer. Could be reindeer. Could be Rudolph.

Miracle snow.

Right? Now, which ten, which ten . . . Hmmm.

Holiday House

It is a gorgeous morning here. The sun is just coming up, throwing beautiful golden light onto the front porches of the houses across the street. I must say, Winter, that you haven't been too gloomy yet this year. I'll begin my wishing and hoping for snow — anytime in December would be good for me, FYI. Just sayin. Did you know that the Christmas season is five days shorter this year? I heard it on television the other day. I was kind of bummed about that. I like this season so much. Especially when it snows (alas, almost never).

We decorated the dining room last weekend. Our dining room is actually the living room, if you think that fireplaces are normally in living rooms. In our house, the "living" room (with the fireplace) was just too far from the kitchen — one of us was frequently watching TV in the living room, and the other was cooking in the kitchen. This resulted in lots of shouting back and forth during "together" time. "Can you bring me a Coke?!?" "Yes!!!" "What channel are you on!?!" "ABC Family!!!" "Okay!!!" "What are you listening to?!?" "The Avett Brothers!!!" The dining room was between the living room and the kitchen. So we switched the living and dining rooms a couple of years ago — it's one of those houses where the front door opens right into the middle of the living room, no entry hall or anything — and we like it a lot better. But I do kind of miss watching TV and sitting on the sofa near the fireplace.

I moved the table into the middle of the dining room so I could move the dresser in that was in front of the window to the wall, and then the Christmas tree could be in front of the window. (Here's how things usually look.) It's a very, very old tree. Silver tinsel. I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to keep it. The branches are falling apart, the tree lists dangerously to the right, and the tinsel is shredding. We bought it from an antique store about six or seven years ago. It was expensive, but live trees are so expensive that I think it paid for itself in just a couple of years. Andy thinks we might get a real tree next year. This is Clover's first tree (we didn't put it up last year because she was too young to manage something so fragile, and covered with glass balls) but she's totally oblivious, so that's nice. No problem there.

I got these snow-cabin dishes at Goodwill a few week ago. I have always wanted Christmas dishes but I never found any that I really liked, and as I discussed with my sister, if you're gonna have Christmas dishes you gotta love the Christmas dishes. These are nothing fancy, but I liked them, and they reminded me of Polish pottery, which I love.

Naturally I have absolutely nowhere to put them. You can see my other thrifties just piled in the cabinet back there.

So I am just going to leave them on the table all winter, and bring them into the kitchen when it's time to actually serve something that will be eaten in the dining room, in front of the fireplace, which is a great way to eat breakfast. Or dinner. But breakfast is great. I'm making waffles for Andrea this morning, so I should probably light that fire. The tablecloth came from Goodwill, too, and have I or have I not just been so totally scoring at Goodwill lately? I know.

Here's my sideboard. I am going to make another one of Jennifer's poinsettia garlands for myself this year. I gave the one I made last year to my mother-in-law but now I want one for myself. I got some little tiny clothespins and I thought maybe I'd hang whatever Christmas cards we get from the ivy, because I never know what to do with the cards.

Now. This little collection is cool. These are these little tole-painted boards that I got from an estate sale this summer. This guy's mom made them and he was selling about fifteen of them for about a dollar each. Dude!!! Aggh. Too good. I adore them. Next is the wreath I made a few years ago — remember that? Inspired by this? Phew. That was quite a project, I have to say. And then our little collection of hand-carved Santas, all made by Andy's grandpa, Mark Thomas, who sends us one every year. I love these so much. Let's look at them closer.

So cute. I think each one is a kit that he orders, and then makes for everyone in the family. I just love these.

Then there is my snow-village mantle. I've photographed and written about this several times. One of my favorite blog posts, from 2005, is about it. This one from last year kind of made me cry. This one always does. But it wouldn't be Christmas unless I was crying about something.

I've gotten several emails this year asking me how I put this village together. I wish I had photographed it before I'd set it up (because, trust me, once it's up, it's not coming down until the new year). But basically I took a bunch of four-inch foam, like upholstery foam, blocks that I had (I know, who has these just sitting around? I do, because I used to make baby blocks out of them for Posie several years ago — but you could easily use boxes of different sizes, or books) and just stacked them up, tall ones in back, to look like hills. Then just plop some white Christmas lights all around the boxes — the icicle kind are good, because they have these long tendrils and you can have those reach into little corners and stuff. Then I just draped the whole thing with a couple yards of white linen, doubled so there wouldn't be too much show-through. Just bunch it up around stuff to look like snow drifts. And that's it. Easy.

I try to keep it simple.

Busy Season

Good morning, dears. It's silver outside, early morning. I love the way the Christmas lights look in the early morning. I'll take more photos once the sun really comes up. For now, all is calm and quiet.

I was totally cracking up at the comments yesterday on the plaid parade. Andy P. really does rock the PWS (Plaid Western Shirt). Major babe. I found out yesterday that he is getting all week off next week — a real winter break! — so I am thrilled about that. We head to Seattle this weekend for Urban Craft Uprising, so if you are in town, don't miss it!

Urban Craft Uprising
Saturday and Sunday, December 6-7, 2008
11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
Seattle, Washington

Please note that I'll be there officially only from 1 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturday, signing books at the UCU booth, so please come see me! I'm very excited to go to Seattle again. We're only staying the one night this time, but still — I am excited to go to a big city decorated for Christmas.

I'm late in telling you about some of the really generous publicity I've been so lucky to receive for the book! I finally got it all organized and scanned for the press page at AliciaPaulson.com. I'm so grateful to Hallmark magazine, Romantic Homes, BUST, the Grand Rapids Press, Living Crafts magazine, and Sew Hip! for their gracious reviews and excerpts — please check them out!

I have created a Flickr group for anything you make from the book, so please head over there with your photos — I can't wait to see what you make!

I am sooooo sad to tell you that some errata has come in for the book, too. I knew it was probably inevitable that there would be, but oh darn it!!! My sincere apologies for this. I will be keeping an updated list on the book page at AliciaPaulson.com, and I'll post it to the Flickr group too. If you are working on a project and you have any questions about either the dimensions, or directions, or you just don't understand something, please post your question at the Flickr group so everyone can benefit, and I promise I will help out as quickly as I possibly can. Thank you!

Now, tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. EST (6 a.m. PST!) I will be doing an interview on Martha Stewart Sirius Radio. I don't actually get Sirius radio, so I can't tell you about it or how to get to it, but if you have it you presumably know how it works. The show is called Morning Living. I've never done a live radio interview before so I am excited about that. Must. Have. Coffee. Before. Speaking. At. 6 A.M.! Hopefully actual English will come out of my mouth.

Chicken Loaf Sandwich, or Andy Paulson's Closet: A Tour

I grew up in a house two doors away from my elementary school. I highly recommend this, if you can swing it. It was awesome. In fifth grade everyone in town had to go to the bigger school that was attached to the junior high — too far to go home for lunch — so I started bringing my lunch for the first time.

Not known for having spontaneity, adventurousness, or an exotic palate, the only thing I would eat for lunch was a chicken loaf sandwich, made by my mother, with Miracle Whip, on honey-wheat bread. Pretty much every day. For years. Like my role-model Harriet the Spy, who ate a tomato sandwich for lunch every day, I knew what I liked. I didn't care what anyone else was having. I didn't covet or trade. You could suggest other things to me and I would ignore you. Occasionally, my sisters and I got one of those deep, dark chocolate Hostess cupcakes with the white curlycue icing, and I wouldn't ever say no to one of those. (And for a while, I did go through an egg-salad-sandwich phase, but having an egg-salad sandwich sitting in your locker for four hours, alerting everyone in the entire school to the contents of your brown bag, prompting many, many people to enter the seventh grade hallway and say, "What REEKS???" proved more than my feeble social standing could handle. So I went back to my chicken loaf until high school [where for four years all I and every single other person I knew would only eat cafeteria chocolate-chip cookies (which, if you went to OPRFHS, you know were totally awesome)] and Diet Cokes. And occasionally cheese fries from Tasty Dog).

And, when asked "What on earth IS chicken loaf?" my only answer is, "Exactly."

But anyway, where are we going here. Oh yeah. I think my preference for chicken loaf was similar to Andy Paulson's preference for the plaid Western shirt from Goodwill. Pretty much the only thing you will ever see him wear, besides scrubs, or an occasional t-shirt. For years, skinny plaid shirts. Every time I post a photo of him, people ask if he is wearing the same shirt he was wearing the last time I took his picture. I wasn't sure myself, so decided to find out how many plaids he actually has, all based on chronologic photographic evidence over only the last year, almost to the day. Let's count.

1. Red flannel. Very pilled.

2. Brown Pendleton. Moth holes.

3. Brown and blue.

4. Navy and blue flannel.

5. Preppy plaid. A summer shirt, really.

6. #2. Clover!!! Mmmmwah.

7. California Highway Patrol shirt. Man, that 'stache was . . . Ne'ermind. Clover!!!!!

8. Red cotton plaid. Howdy, pardner!

9. Oooo, cherries! I mean "red, white, and black plaid." California Highway Patrol. And mother-of-pearl snaps, always good.

10. The summer blue plaid. I like this one.

11. Red plaid. Different from the county fair one, I think.

12. #5.

13. This looks like #9, but I actually think it's a different one.

14. Oh please. No one's looking at the shirt in this one, are they? No.

15. #5!!!

16. #5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

16. Black and gray plaid. And another sweet little thing.

17. He even has a plaid coat. Which was his dad's. I tried to steal it.

You would too, it's that cool.

Conclusion: The man loves his plaid. Is it any wonder why I would try to woo him with my super plaid wonder dress???

Yes.