Knitting Christmas Gifts

Last year for Christmas we tried to do only hand-made gifts. As happens every year, we don't stick to our rules. This year we are going for just stocking-stuffers. We'll see how that turns out! I still owe embroidered dish towels and knitted socks to my mother-in-law and embroidered dish towels to my parents from last Christmas. Though I am slowly working on those open ended gifts, I thought ahead this year and got sock yarn for my parents' socks. I need more yarn like I need a hole in my head but I once again couldn't resist Shibui Staccato Sock Yarn and this time I found in at Fiber, Nooks, and Crannys in Corvallis! Yes, I still have about seven skeins of 50s Kitchen sitting around. But I had to get something special for the holidays, right? The silk is what gets me. And not to mention the great color schemes. To simplify my crafting and to keep a yearly track of what I made, I decided to make the same sock pattern for everyone who's getting socks. I should be able to knit them in my sleep by the time I'm on the third pair!

While sitting in a hotel room in Seattle, I started knitting up my dad's socks, two at a time. I'm pretty sure I'm not doing the whole two pairs of socks on one needle thing right but it's working, sort of. No, I can't put a picture of the socks up until after the holidays. Don't want to ruin the surprise!

Happy Knitting,

Cerise : )

Eyes, Legs, and Feet, Oh My!

Okay, I'm finally going to share my super treasures I got a couple weekends ago from the fabulous Daisy Drygoods . Last year I started getting interested in old dolls. Honestly, they kind of creep me out, especially the really old ones. But I bought a few dolls and might even do a few mail-order/online doll making classes. And then I found the mecca of doll parts. Glass eyes are my favorite treasure I found. There were lots of legs, ceramic and composite materials, and some arms and torsos too. There was even an awesome little kewpie doll but his sweet little arm was busted off so he didn't get to come home with me.

Here is a picture of some of my awesome goodies I got. Not sure what I'm going to do with them yet. I wish I had gotten more glass eyes for Halloween.

Need some doll parts? If you can't get by Daisy Drygoods in Arcata, California, check out the following Etsy sites. But watch out, I've drooled all over listings eying all the wonderful doll parts!

Altered Paradise

Happy Steiler

Creative ARTifacts

Happy Doll Hunting!

Cerise : )

Visiting Fort Bragg

The next stop for our journey last week was to Fort Bragg for a family reunion. We had to stop at a store and pick up some pie. On the way into the store the word fabric caught my eye on a store sign near the market. I ditched the pie buying group and ran over to the little corner craft store. Fabric Indulgence carries fabrics by the bolt (some really nice ones too!), fat quarters, silk ribbons (they are so beautiful), paints, beads, patterns, and sumi-e supplies. Lucky me, Iwent in during their 20% off fabric sale. It did get me to buy two yards of wonderful fabric I was trying to stay away from. Some pretty little fat quarters made it home with me too!

There was a cute little yarn store on the other side of the market. The dog and I peeked into the window, but I still wasn't in a yarn mood. They will definitely be a stop next time I pass through.

There wasn't much down time at the family reunion with playing music, catching up with family, and throwing the dog off the paddle boat into the salty river. I did sneak out my fabric and thread and work on some little pumpkins toward the evening. My niece even wanted to sew with me. It was her first time sewing and she made half a pumpkin, sewed on a leaf, and put a silly patch on the side of her creation. It ended up going to a cousin who was very excited. The hotel was a better sewing environment that evening. It can't get much better than staying by the ocean with family and a stinky, salty dog and sewing pumpkins while watching the original Planet of the Apes!

Happy Crafty Travels,

Cerise : )

Favorite Arcata Crafty Stores

A late arrival back to Corvallis on Sunday left me way to beat to post yesterday, but I did play with some of my new treasures that were found during my journey. Now that I am somewhat rested, here are some of my favorite stores in Arcata for getting crafty supplies, though this doesn't include all of them!

First stop after coffee and doughnuts on Friday was Daisy Drygoods on the H Street side of the Arcata Plaza, my all-time favorite store. I could have spent many hours and many dollars in this antique and vintage supply store. It's like a typical dry goods store from a long-ago era that was unearthed after being forgotten for a while. Not only do they have some fun antique and

vintage nick-knacks and clothing, they have all sorts of fabric, yarn, doll parts, buttons, ribbon, sewing machine parts, hat making supplies, and so much more. I was excited to learn that they have an Etsy page that will be up and running soon. Hooray!! My favorite find was a painted fabric doll leg. The weirdest find I took home were glass doll eyes. Oh why oh why didn't I get more!

They are ever so unique. Weirdest find I did not take home: the three-faced doll in a fuzzy hooded jumper whose head spins to reveal different faces. Super creepy but really neat! (You can see it in the picture of doll parts.) There were also ceramic legs and arms of all sorts, mostly large pairs. Down in the bottom of the leg bin was a baggy with three little appendages that just had to come home with me. I wasn't really in a fabric mood and I was feeling a bit rushed, but now I'm regretting not spending more time in Daisy Drygood's fabrics.

They have wonderful old fabrics and flour sacks that would be splendid for so many projects. I still have some fabric bits I got there forever ago that I love. Though I wish I could have spent longer perusing, I'm very excited about my doll part finds.

My next stop was Fabric Temptations on the other side of the Plaza. (Find them on Facebook here.) I went in to check out their fat quarters but I was still not feeling very fabric-excited so I didn't stay long. They have a great selection of fabrics, yarn, buttons (I have a really awesome Apatosaurus button from there), ribbon, trims, and books so be sure to check them out if you are ever passing through Arcata. Hopefully I will be craving fabric or yarn next time I go through!

Happy Supply Hunting,

Cerise : )

P.S.

A great big THANK YOU! to Rose at Daisy Drygoods for setting up a pick-up for the doll leg since I was overwhelmed and insane and brought up an unintended arm. I'm very happy for my leg!!

On the Road Again

Dale and I took off for Mendocino County late yesterday afternoon. We'll be going to a BIG family reunion of his dad's side of the family as well as visiting other family and friends while there. We were going to camp near Grant's Pass last night but didn't find anything close to a town to grab some food and later found all sites full along the coast we full. We stopped for pizza in Crescent City (I know, I'm not supposed to eat it, but there was NOTHING else open). We ended up our our good family friends' house in Arcata at 1am. To our surprise, they had a tent already set up in the yard and snacks out on the table (they were expecting someone else but were happy to see us too!). We got a nice camping night in looking at stars and listening to bats. This morning was wonderfully cool and overcast with chippers of humming birds kindly waking us. We enjoyed some wonderful fruit, coffee, and conversation before heading out to make a ruckus about Arcata's town square.

Our first stop is our old haunting study grounds, Mosgo's Coffee and Tea. Fabulous hot chocolate, great jazz music, and in depth discussion of the beauty of Hogwarts and it's grounds and the imperfections of the use of wizardry, all making for the perfect atmosphere we remember. And they have almond milk!! Later we will grab a doughnut from Don's (BEST ever. Yes, waaaay better than Voodoo in Portland). I've been saving up for this for two weeks! Of course the pizza kind of blew that. I also have a few people to visit and a couple of my favorite stores I have to hit up before we head further south. Don't worry, I will post pictures of my treasures and the store fronts. Check back for what goodies I find!!

Happy Travels!

Cerise : )

Seersucker

Is is getting hot yet? A most wonderful invention, seersucker fabric, is a great choice to keep you cool in the summer. I remember a great little summer red and white seersucker suit I had in the 70's. It was stylin' (and of course if I kept it I would have a great little vintage outfit)!

Seersucker came into English from from the Persian words "shir o shekar," meaning "milk and sugar" supposedly from the resemblance of its smooth and rough stripes to the smooth surface of milk and bumpy texture of sugar. Seersucker is woven so that some of the threads bunch together, giving the fabric a wrinkled appearance. This feature causes the fabric to be mostly held away from the skin when made into garments, improving air circulation. Also, pressing is not necessary.

In the late 1990s, Mississippi Senator Trent Lott revived a long-forgotten Senate tradition. He selected a hot day in summer to be designated Seersucker Thursday. His goal was to show that “the Senate isn’t just a bunch of dour folks wearing dark suits and—in the case of men—red or blue ties.” Today, senators voluntarily make this annual fashion statement to remind their colleagues of what earlier Senates considered mandatory summer attire. Stay cool!
Theresa, Ommama

Fruits of Labor

Once again it's been FOREVER since I've posted. I've been overwhelmed with work and hadn't really been crafting much. Last week I decided it was finally time I get the craft hut up and running again. I cleaned out all the chicken dust, threw open the curtains (should have done that before dusting), and pulled out some glitter and glue. More on those projects later though. My neighbor friend Nicole just got back from her honeymoon in Hawaii and we were excited to have an afternoon to craft with each other after a long hiatus with all her wedding planning and crafting. Nicole brought over her fabric scraps and a cute fruit pincushion pattern. This was the first time we actually finished a project in one sitting! Well, almost. A little bit of embroidery on the leaves and I'll be content with it. We hand-sewed our pears and used some wonderful wool felt for the leaves and stems. They came out so cute we decided we are going to make a whole basket full of fruits.

Happy Sewing!

Cerise : )

P.S.: I PROMISE to post more!

Summer Shirt Dress

On a last minute whim, Theresa and I decided we just HAD to use our grand opening coupons at the bigger and (slightly) better JoAnn's in town. Of course, that's always hard to do when almost everything is on sale! We spent way more time browsing than intended, mostly due to a few people with TONS of bolts needing cut, and of course we are easily distracted. A lovely cotton shirt fabric jumped off the shelf at me and I headed overto patterns to find the perfect design for a lovely cotton floral print. I had in mind a wrap dress but a Simplicity Lisette shirt dress pattern seemed absolutely perfect for my newly found fabric friend. When I got to the cut table the bolt was short a half yard for the dress pattern but I decided it would work to shorten it into a shirt or do the other not-as-cute-or-flattering shirt dress pattern in the set. Saturday was my day to relax and not worry about cleaning the house or weedingthe garden so I decided to start on my dress. It's been quite a while since I've sewn. The craft hut is still a chicken-rearing disaster so I brought my machine and tools into the kitchen, threw the leaves into my grandpa's table, and started ironing and cutting away. My goal was to get the dress done for a dinner date and good-bye party but, asusual, that was another silly Cerise dream. After my dinner date (sadly, I missed the good-bye party since dinner took a while), I stayed up late sewing and ran out of thread. Sunday morning I switched from a bright reddish-pink to a bright red spool of thread and kept on sewing while Theresa made a zafu and linen napkins. With the sleeves painlessly sewn on, the button holer was attached and sewing away with not all the button holes being centered down the front plaquette by the end of it all. I added a random mix of white buttons from my collection of odds and ends gathered from thrift stores and old clothing along the other front plaquette and viola! A done summer shirt dress. Unfortunately, it was a rainy day so I'll have to put it away for the summer sun, if it ever comes! It's a little snug in my hips but fits my upper body really great.The buttons were put on too close together so theleft side of the dress is about an inch shorter than the right side, but at this point, I don't really care and I don't think anyone else but my fiancé will notice.

Happy Sewing and Hoping for Sun!!!

Cerise : )

Lovely Linen Napkins

Our sad little excuse for a fabric chain store was closing it's doors to open a larger store in the Big Box section of town and there were some great closeout deals. A wonderful green linen peeked out from between gaudy costume fabric and a bolt of disturbing colored velveteen. When I saved it from the pile it pleaded to be made into a set of napkins. Sewing on sunny weekend days is always hard to do but unfortunately Corvallis got a not-so-rare rainy day in mid-summer. Cerise invited me over to sew while she finished up a cotton shirt dress so I measured out my fabric and cut it up into squares, ironed and folded, and sewed away. A half hour later a set of six wonderful napkins were neatly folded and waiting to be used for my next dinner party. A great project for a rainy day!

Theresa, Ommama

Grand Opening!

This weekend marks the grand opening of our local Jo-Ann's here in Corvallis. I took a sneak peak recently. What a change! From a dreary little crowded shop with horrible rust carpeting to a huge, well-lit grocery store size store. Oddly, though they had it well-stocked and full of new things, the place is very "harsh" and "severe". What a contrast to yarn stores, that tend to be well-lit and yet soft and cozy. Perhaps it is the difference between corporate, big box, to independent or perhaps it is the medium: bolts of fabric interspersed with notions and imported craft supplies versus fluffy angora, alpaca and wool. I always want to linger in a yarn store. I will go to the grand opening of Jo-Ann anyway. After all, I have a chance to win a gift card!

Theresa, Ommama