ode to Lynne!

These are Lynne's feet, her cheerful yellow sandals and smart black leggings.  She is so effortlessly chic.  And her house is even more charming in real life.  We had a fabulous time visiting her in California.  And I must say, Lynne is probably the nicest person that I know.  She was recently called as the leader of the women's organization at her church--the relief society--and what a responsibility!  She probably spends about 15 hours per week helping underprivileged families and women in her area.  She recently waited for ten hours in the emergency room helping an elderly hispanic man.  And she does it all with a smile.  I wish you could all know her as I do. 

uh-oh...turning five!

We are preparing for the four-year old to become five. Only two and a half more weeks! And since I have been slowly brain-washed into a deep love of child-birthday-party-planning by Martha Stewart Kids magazine (and now Cookie magazine, too), I find myself really looking forward to the whole thing (even though I wish she could stay four forever).

Here's her invitation. It's a drawing she made that we plugged into photoshop and colored with the paintbrush tool (very fun). Under the little corner pop-up flap it says something like: "the four-year-old would love to invite you to celebrate her no. 5 along with her imaginary friends." We are planning a chicken cake and many kind of bizarre games having to do with her imaginary friends. It should be interesting and thank goodness small. More details to come, whether you are interested or not!

Have a great weekend! I don't know about you, but a movie night with some brownies sounds about right to me.

sugar city family fun

So in addition to opening our little shop we had a mini-family reunion here in California at my house, with Melissa and my brother and their three kids, and my sister Lauren and her three kids (which made nine children all seven and under running around). It was pretty much total insanity for three days culminating with the best ever talent show last night. The bottom picture is my brother doing the worm to "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night" in a reprisal of his junior high dancing days. It was very awesome. Especially when our dog tried to... join him. Thanks for a great visit, guys- we miss you already!

Thank you thank you!

Wow, that whole shop thing was an experience. Thank you so much for your support! Everything is now safely in the mail and we hope that those of you who ordered will adore your purchases. A million, trillion thanks!!

The store is taking a little break now, but will be re-opening soon with a few patterns. We weren't ready to sell them this opening, because we just don't want to put them up until they are as perfect as we can make them! We'll keep you posted.

SHOP OPEN

Bonjour - the shop is open!

in our shop: the tablecloth dress

She was a curious girl, visiting a log cabin in the woods.  As she sat at the small wooden table eating the bear's breakfast potage, she stared transfixed at the beautiful woven linen tablecloth. 

And voila the result of her inspiration: a little linen dress with alluring blue stripes.  If all goes well getting the shop running, we will have a few for sale today.    We only have 12 of them available--sizes small (2-3) ****NOW SOLD OUT *** and medium (4-5).  Made of nubby oatmealy european 100% linen.  Bound with 100% cotton of the finest men's shirting material.  All handmade in our little cottage industry in the USA.  Each dress took three hours to make!  All hems and bindings were sewn by hand with the greatest attention to detail.  (Bravo Jordan--my brilliant seamstress niece!)   

Hopefully you'll be able to get one for your girl.  We think this dress will make her look beautiful.  And maybe even help her to eat her oatmeal!

Grandmere and Little Red

Little Red's grandmere is a very chic old lady for living so long in a secluded cottage in the woods. She is very careful to get a good dye job each week so her roots don't show. We really hope that Little Red and that Woodcutter make short work of bad Wolfie before he does any damage to her precious wallpaper - grandmere is not as limber these days as she once was!

Oh, look, Little Red is changing behind the screen. Really, Little Red, you are so vain. What? The woodcutter has an apprentice? And all that chopping has made him extremely manly? Well, in that case he probably merits an extra squirt or two of your Chanel no. 5. But don't worry. What boy doesn't like a girl with a basket?
(grandmere by Melissa, bathroom by Lynne)
**You should really check out this adorable re-telling of Little Red, over on Rubyellen's blog, Cakies. I was laughing so hard at the pictures of her little wolfie!!
**And, thank you Bethany, for your kind bestowal of a brilliante blog award!! Can I give it back to you, and Rubyellen?

shop preview

Here's a ready-made servant dress for the fall, size 4. It's made out of the softest, nubbiest organic flannel, which would work equally well for a sleeping kind of a dress or a school dress. I'm guessing my four year old would wear this with her black leggings and ubiquitous black boots, topped with the hat from her chicken costume. You know, to class it up a bit.

The store will most likely open on Friday. We've had web-site troubles in the past week that have set us back, coupled with the serious kid-business of summer (it requires a lot of time to do things like clean a whole bottle of purple snow-cone syrup off white grout). But hopefully by Friday we'll be ready. Thanks for being patient with us. Soon we'll have more to talk about than just blah blah blah the store blah blah blah!

storytime button-over #2

Voila version #2 of the storytime button-over.  It's a fairly quick and simple pattern to sew and is perfect for hot July and August days.  This will be for sale in our shop (hopefully soon!)  

first hat, all done

The red nightcap is done, and declared perfectly comfortable and warm enough for all those frigid California nights. And, warning to all you loved ones, we've made another trip to the yarn store. It's time to start knitting for Christmas, he says ("mom, how am I EVER going to finish all these nightcaps in time?!"). Knifty Knitter, we adore you and your circular goodness.

summer

Melissa is taking a small blogging break and so more from my little household. This summer my son told me he wanted to learn one thing and one thing only: how to knit himself a hat. He loves to wear a nightcap to bed and he grew out of his old one. So, with trepidation in my non-knitting heart, we took a trip to the store - and found the "KNIFTY KNITTER" - a fabulous product that makes knitting a hat into a project that is achievable for seven-year olds and thirty-two-year olds alike! If you haven't tried it, you should - it's so great. I myself keep stealthily picking it up and doing a row. And for some reason it is hilarious to me to hear my son saying things like: "I'm not ready to go to bed yet; I'm still knitting" or, "mom, can you please hand me my knitting?"



While he knits I embroider. I've been trying to transfer some of the four-year-old's pictures onto fabric as suggested in soulemama's terrific book. Very satisfying (and if you look closely you can see my awesome new sketchbook that I found at the black apple).



And while I embroider, the four-year old gets bored so we do things like pull out the bin o' halloween costumes and she wears her chicken costume (SEVERAL sizes too small - I can only imagine how excruciatingly uncomfortable it must be to wear, but such is the price of beauty) around the house.