Posie Gets Cozy

Sequins, Sparkles, and Sweet Stitches

Pretty little bags of sugared candy beads and sequins pile up on my work table, and I am making progress, which feels so good in a week that has felt more like slogging through molasses than what commonly passes for "progress." These are for the Walk in the Woods ornament kits, which are coming together around here and making me happy. (A few people have asked when the kits are going to ship, and, as mentioned in the original blog post about these kits and on the order page, we are aiming to ship all kits around mid-October, so start watching for them after next week! Oh, and I forgot to say yes — the patterns will be available as downloadable PDFs in a few weeks, too.) I love the busywork of actually putting together kits so much. I love going through all of the packing slips and seeing so many names I recognize from orders past, comments, emails, real-life and pen-pal friendships. I love that a little piece of our life here is going out to your cozy homes all over the world. I think about it a lot, and it makes me so happy to imagine you receiving them, and opening them, and making them. There is just something cool about that, so thank you for being part of it.

This year, I am also very excited to announce that I will also be able to make these kits with you in actual real life on a couple of occasions! The first is a very special one-day event hosted by the lovely Emily Ruth and Friends called Come Play: Portland on Saturday, November 7. Emily has such a totally adorable way of saying everything, I am just going to let her tell you about all the details when you click on the Come Play: Portland link, but in her words

we hope you will join us for this day of
sweet stitches,
old & new friends,
yummy treats,
& creative fun...

I can't wait to go play! :-) I hope you can come!

Walk in the Woods (and Ice Skating Afternoon) Ornament Kits Now on Sale

Good morning, crafters! Please allow me to introduce this year's handmade felt ornament-making kit, Walk in the Woods, available for pre-order now!

It includes the Cozy Cottage, with the wood fires burning:

The Snowy Tree, sparkling with ice crystals:

And my favorite, the Little Deer, who watches shyly from the trees:

Each Walk in the Woods Felt Holiday Ornament Craft Kit includes:

9 pieces of wool/rayon blend felt in assorted colors
9 skeins coordinating DMC cotton embroidery floss
3/4 yd French rick-rack (for hangers)
Sequins and beads
Wool fluff (from a local Oregon sheep farm :-) for the chimney smoke
Stitching instructions
Pattern templates
Illustrated embroidery tutorial

You will need to have your own:

Wool batting or Polyester Fiber-fill
Sharp embroidery needle
Dressmaker's chalk pencil or fabric marker
Dressmaker's chalk carbon paper
Iron-on transfer pencil
Sharp fabric scissors and paper scissors
Fabric glue

This year's ornaments were inspired by our walks in the Oregon woods, and designed to compliment the ornament set I designed last year:

There's the Hot Cocoa Cup, to warm you up:

The Ice Skate, with pom-pon for good measure:

And the Gingerbread Girl, the sweetest of all:

Ice Skating Afternoon kits are once again available now for a limited time as well! All ornament kits cost $25 each, and if you purchase both of them together you will save $5 (yay). Please use the special Paypal button on each page to get the discount (you'll see it). We'll leave the pre-orders open for the next couple of weeks, and make some extras if you miss that window, but if you are interested in these, it's best to order now and make sure we have one for you.

My dynamic duo (and if them working together last year wasn't one of the cutest things I've ever seen in my life) are once again helping me in a major way (thanks again, honey, seriously) to put all of these kits together, and we are planning to ship them all to you around mid-October. That will give you plenty of time to finish them for the holidays. I do ship overseas — just click on the "Buy Now" button and enter your country as the destination to see how much the postage is before completing the order. Please also check your addresses in Paypal before completing the orders, as well. Thanks!!!

About the skill level needed to complete these: Last year I said that, while I don't think of these kits necessarily as a children's or a beginner's project, if you have some experience working some basic stitches, these ornaments take more time and patience than skill. I will include directions on transferring the designs to the felt, and basic diagrams for completing the types of classic embroidery stitches you will need to know — backstitch, lazy-daisy stitch, satin stitch, French knot, and blanket stitch — but once you are comfortable working those stitches, if you just take your time and settle in, you will be fine. These ornaments are about 6" or 7" big — so, they take a bit of precision and attention to detail, but, you know, that's a handmade felt ornament for ya!

I think that's it. Any questions, let me know, and thank you again for your enthusiasm for these! I really appreciate that so much. Thank you!

New Ornament Kits Coming

I spent the weekend tracing, cutting, and stitching tiny pieces of wool felt into another set of Christmas ornaments for this year. This is my Walk in the Woods ornament set, which includes the Snowy Tree, Little Deer, and Cozy Cottage. (Can you see the "smoke" coming out of the chimneys on the cottage?) I am really happy with how they turned out! I really get into these. You get obsessed with blanket stitch (one of the coolest stitches, don't you think?). I think they are such a fun project to work on in the fall, especially if you give yourself enough time so that you don't have to rush.

If you were hanging around these parts last year, you'll remember the Ice Skating Afternoon ornament kits that Andy and I put together last September. I designed these new ones to be companions to those, and I am going to try to do a new set of three every year, I think. This year, we are putting together kits for the new, Walk in the Woods set as well as a whole new batch Ice Skating Afternoon kits as well, if you missed out on those. I know it seems early for Christmas, but rushing around during the holidays and trying to squeeze everything in just takes the fun out of all of it, for me; I want all of these kits off to you by mid-October or so.

To that end, we'll start taking pre-orders for both of the kits tomorrow, and leave the orders open for a week or so. I'll show you close-ups of each of them tomorrow and give you all the details then, too. This is just a sneak peek 'cause I was excited and couldn't wait! And Andy has been begging me for three days to please post again already.

Happy birthday to you, sweet, endlessly sweet, dear-sweetest of wonderful people, my love. Happy birthday. xoxoxo

My Pysanky Eggs

Whew, I really needed that break. I am soooooo ready to be less busy now. My manuscript was on its way to New York by noon Monday, and the minute after I dropped it off at FedEx we went immediately to the plant nursery to get some vegetable starts. The timing couldn't be better. As I am ready to go outside, outside is almost ready (it hailed like crazy yesterday, so I say "almost") for me! Yay!

On Saturday, I made my first pysanky eggs for Easter. A pysanka is a traditional Ukrainian Easter egg, made by layering wax and dyes to create incredible designs. I made five altogether (three of one design and two of another), and it took the entire day! But it was wonderful. I had wanted to do some last Easter but I ran out of time, and only had a few cobbled-together supplies. This past fall at the Oktoberfest in Mt. Angel I got this egg decorating kit, which made it very easy to understand how to make these and gave me step-by-step instructions to create the two designs.

As soon as I started working on them, I knew I had done these once before as a child; I have a vague memory of a lady coming to our school and showing us how to use the tools and the candle, and I remember sitting at our dining-room table and working on them, and really enjoying it. Basically, you create these eggs like this: First you draw the design in pencil. Then you add wax to everything you want to stay white (or brown, if you're using brown eggs like the one on the left). Then you dye the egg yellow. Then you add the wax to everything you want to stay yellow. Then you dab on some green, and add wax over that. Then you dye the egg orange. Then you add wax to everything you want to stay orange, and then you dye it scarlet. Then you add wax to everything you want to stay scarlet, and then for the last color you dye it dark blue or black. When you're finished, you hold the egg over a candle until the wax melts, and then you wipe the wax off with paper towels.

To apply the wax, you use a small tool called a kistka, which is like a tiny funnel attached to a wooden handle. It has a small spout on it; when the wax is melted (by holding it over a candle) it runs out of the spout, and you draw directly on the egg. This article tells you more about the history, tools, and process, if you're interested. It is soooo much fun to do! Even Andy made two of them. I think I've described this correctly, but I am still kind of wiped out, so forgive me if it's not quite right. Also sorry for these crazy pictures. I took them early Easter morning while they were still sitting on my shelf, before I gave them away.

So, slowly but surely I am getting caught up and I will be back with more garden photos — oh, and thank you so much for the information about sticks and making edging and where to find cool pavers! I wound up ordering some willow fencing yesterday to cover the chain-link fence bordering our driveway, so I am excited about that, and about making some edging.  I will be back more regularly as soon as I get myself organized — I have so many things to show you.

Simple Quiet

Oh, it was nice. A winter break like those in days of yore. It snowed and snowed, and real life felt suspended as the city shut down to all but the essentials (which means, alas, that Andy Paulson, R.N., must get to work by whatever means necessary, but it was okay — he was coincidentally scheduled to have several days off, including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, which almost never ever happens). The weather kept us from getting out at all, even to our family party at my sister's, so we had our own private party, and Andy made a traditional Paulson-family Christmas Eve dinner for me: Swedish meatballs from scratch, Helen's rice pudding (oh, delight!), potato sausage, salad with walnuts, and honey-baked ham. We sat by the fire and listened to Sigur Ros and played a very well-matched game of Scrabble by candlelight, and it reminded me so much of our first years together in Montana, almost fifteen years ago now, cooking fancy things for each other in our first little apartment, catching myself thinking all the time that we lived in the mountains (it had long been a dream of mine), walking through the woods along the river in the evening, watching snowflakes fall against the dark water. It reminded me so much of that.

Hi!

Guess what? It's my birthday tomorrow!

Christmastime Above the City

Andy went to work yesterday and took some pictures from the tram up to the hospital, which is on a hill above the city. Let's look.

I was home gazing down on my own private snowdrift :-)

Wishing you all a very merry holiday, and so much love and peace in the coming new year. xoxo

Miracle Snow

More snow than anyone's seen here in forty years. It just hasn't stopped in days and days and days, and it's snowing now. We pulled the hide-a-bed out in the living room and have been hanging out here since Saturday night. We didn't want to leave the beauty of it all. It's been truly magical.

[Saturday night.]

On Sunday afternoon, we went across the street to our neighbor's house for a holiday party. All of our neighborhood friends were there — everyone came on foot. It was so much fun. No one had been out of the house much in the past week, so we were all just so excited to visit. It was really great. I had so much fun. I wish I had taken a picture of the incredibly huge pile of shoes and boots by the front door. It told the whole story.

[Sunday afternoon.]

During the party it started to snow heavily again. I could see our house from my neighbor's kitchen window, and I could barely make out our Christmas lights. I'd heard at the party that they'd closed down one of the streets nearby and turned it into a sledding hill, so we tried to walk down there in the dark, but I couldn't make it. So we just went home and Andy made a pizza and we ate it while snuggled with Clovie under the duvet (and the quilt, and the ripple blanket, and six pillows) on the hide-a-bed, and stayed there again until early this morning.

[Monday morning.]

There seems to be no end in sight, at least until the end of the week! I feel so bad for everyone who is trying to get somewhere for Christmas — a lot of the highways are closed, the trains aren't running, few people are flying out of or into town (though hundreds of people are stranded at the airport). We might not even make it across town, ourselves. It's just as bad in Seattle, and although our local news is pre-empting most of the usual national coverage, I know we in the Northwest are not alone in being snowed in. They just said that by the end of the day we'll be breaking snowfall records set back in the 1920s and '30s.

I guess my chalet dreams came true, after all!

Red-and-White Holiday

I started holiday baking over the weekend. This year I am going to make fudge for my friends and neighbors. We have a pretty close-knit group of neighbors, about seven families, and we all exchange little gifts every year. My mom has a great recipe for fudge that I am going to use — I will post that, and photos, when I do it, probably sometime this week. It's so nice and easy, and really, who doesn't like lovely, smooth, chocolately fudge? Even I do, and I am not a huge chocolate fan. But fudge I love.

These little berry-buttons, above, are my mom's raspberry thumbprint cookies, making their national debut in this month's Hallmark magazine (and that link will take you to the recipe). They are a standard part of my mom's awesome Christmas-cookie plate. She makes plates for all of us kids and her local friends, and even ships lots of cookies to peeps back home. Though we drizzle these thumbprints with icing, the editors didn't like the way the iced cookies were photographing, but unless your cookies are going to be in a magazine, I would highly suggest adding the frosty drizzle. Deliciousness! And so perfectly red and white.

In other red-and-white news, I have an embroidery project out right now in the current issue of Holiday Decorating Ideas by CraftStylish. This is a version of a traditional Hungarian folk-art design and I think it is so simple and sweet. Done entirely in three strands of dark red embroidery floss, this design can be completed with only two stitches — backstitch, and lazy daisy (both are explained in the article). If you are a beginning embroiderer, I highly recommend starting with a project like this! It is so, so much fun, and will give you lots of confidence to tackle more complicated color-and-stitch combinations. You can find the magazine at most craft and fabric stores, or just click on the link above. It will include the template and an illustrated tutorial for this project, along with many other wonderful wintry things to make.

Like the crocheted pillowcase edging here, which was created by my amazing friend Linda Permann! Look at some of these other recent sewing and crochet projects she has out there in magazines right now, too. That cupcake teapot cozy? Genius! And the darling gingerbread mobile is by the incredibly talented Kayte Terry, whose book, Complete Embellishing, will give you countless ideas and very thorough technique tutorials for embellishing all sorts of clothes and accessories — Kayte is a former visual manager for Anthropologie, and her aesthetic is so lovely and sophisticated in that perfectly rustic way I love. Isn't this cardigan from the book just gorgeous? I love the woolly ruffle. Yummy.

Isn't it a great time to be a crafter? There is so much out there for us to make. I LOVE IT.

Now. The auction! I am loving this auction stuff!!! Thank you so much to everyone who bid yesterday — you are awesome! But I want to update you on some stuff and answer some questions that came in yesterday.

Firstly, in order to go to the eBay auctions for each doll, just click on her name in yesterday's post. All of them together are here. :-)

Secondly, about international shipping for the auction: So, I wasn't going to do this, because I was worried about the time crunch before Christmas, and not being able to get to the P.O. to ship overseas, but I got a lot of email about it yesterday so I'm reversing this decision. Although I ship all of my domestic packages on-line (where you print out the labels from the computer and the postperson comes directly to the house to pick the package up), I never ship international on-line because, although it is much more convenient, it is more expensive than taking it directly to the P.O. I ship enough overseas packages every week that this just doesn't make sense for me, so I take them all in myself. BUT, if you are overseas, and you would like to bid on the dolls, and either pay a higher shipping fee to get it quickly or wait until our weather makes it safe to drive, that is totally cool with me! Please bid! Thank you!!!

And thirdly, I was talking to my friend Shelly on the phone last night and she said that she didn't realize, from looking at the photos of the dolls, that they all have braided hair twisted up on top of their heads. So I thought I would mention that the hair on all of them is the same, but you just can't really tell that from the photos of the brunettes, because their hair is so dark. But they all actually have the same twisty-braid hairdos as Ingrid and Devon. Don't you wish you could do your hair like that? You CAN??? You lucky!!!!!

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