fab

Can you spot my little bears? They're the second one from the top right corner! I'm a semi-finalist! Woot woot! This has been a fun challenge to work on. There were 968 final entries and those were narrowed down to 75 semi-finalists. Thanks for all your input, friends. I really love the spacey robot one, too, but I just didn't think it was quite ready. I want to keep playing with it a little. So I went with my gut and entered the bears against the blue/gray background. If you'd like to vote (please, please, pretty please!?!) go to the Spoonflower website contest tab and vote for any and all the ones you like. . . click on them and they turn green. The submit vote button is on the 5th page. You have till April 6 to vote, but why wait? Do it today!

I'm entering a fabric design contest on Spoonflower , Project Selvage , where the winner would get to design a line of baby boy fabric for Michael Miller Fabrics ! But I can only enter one design. Help! Which one should I enter?

For the most part, we're ready. The Christmas tree is up. Lucy helped with some of the ornaments. Little gingerbread village has survived the snackers. Stockings are hung by the fireplace with care. (This was a project three years in the making! I've had the fabric forever.) Christmas cards are in the mail. (Photography by Katherine Wallin , design from minted.com , love their skinny labels !) Neighbor gifts have been delivered. ( Recipe for peppermint bark from allrecipes.com ) Teacher gifts have been given. ( Marble magnets "how-to" on not martha .) The one thing left on my list is to finish Emmie's quilt. This is how it looked in October. This is how it looked in November. This is how it looked yesterday. It is not a hard quilt. It has just taken the back burner, but no longer! I intend to give it to my baby daughter on Christmas and it SHALL be finished. That will be my greatest accomplishment this month. Merry Christmas to all, especially to all you out there...

Confession: I have only made one thing for my little Emmie. But at least its a good one. . . a receiving blanket. We use it all the time. It's light, but warm. It's a swaddler and a carseat blanket. It soaks up spit up and washes well. And it looks good. This one I did for a friend. They're so fun to make and, um, extremely easy too. Materials: You just need 1 yard solid color flannel (I almost always just use white or off-white, flannel colors tend to be too saturated for my taste), 1 yard of a beautiful print (both of these happen to be Amy Butler designs , you can't go wrong with her stuff), and 1 1/4 yard contrasting or harmonizing fabric for bias binding. . . oh, and I like to add on a little fabric tag (the bears and hearts are both some that I've designed and printed at Spoonflower but you can cut a little piece out of whatever fabric you like, like I did here .) Instructions: Pre-wash all fabrics, and then iron them flat. Place flannel and print right-...

Spoonflower is hosting a Christmas Fabric of the Week contest . . . the winner's fabric is available for a limited time to purchase on Etsy. Fun, huh! Now I need to think of a design for the Halloween challenge. . .

Machine pieced and hand quilted, this one is for baby Quinn. The focal point of the quilt is the floral fabric with gorgeous corals and reds and the that amazing turquoise that's just the right shade. Sorry, everyone, I picked it up in Tokyo and didn't get enough to share! Machine pieced and hand quilted. A modern baby quilt for little Macey. The white is an Egyptian cotton which makes this blanket feel so luxurious. The fabric on back is by Joel Dewberry and of course you can see some Amy Butler in the front pieces. Finished size 36 x 36". In the close-up, you can see how the hand-quilting washes up. . . I love the way it puckers and bunches, it adds so much texture and interest to the fabric, and by the way its not nearly as tedious or time-consuming as it sounds. I can hand-quilt a baby quilt in about 3 or 4 hours, that's just a couple Law&Orders. I don't use frames, I just pin it well and then sit with it on my lap in while the hubs and I spend some quality...

We have a favorite bib from a popular (and expensive) kids' store that we use almost everyday. I decided to copy the pattern (sort of) and make a couple more for Lucy. I thought it was a good chance to use some of my fabric stash and try out the iron on vinyl stuff you can get at the material store that makes any fabric into an oilcoth, basically. Step 1: Iron on vinyl stuff, no problems. Just followed the directions and the fabric looked fantastic. Step 2: Cut it out. . . Now here is where things started to go awry. I thought to myself, I don't want to have to back this bib with another layer of fabric and do the whole "right sides together" and then turn it inside out thing, I'm just going to bind it. So I cut the exact shape of the bib I was copying rather than allow seam allowance. Step 3: I should have stopped there, they looked so cute! But no, I went ahead and did a binding, which I cut on the bias and prepared myself just like I do when I'm binding qui...

My first batch of Spoonflower fabric arrived this week (Spoonflower lets you print your own fabric!) and I had a little party when I opened the package. . . it's gorgeous. I'm thrilled with it! I wrote and illustrated this little soft book for my first project and have more in the works. This print-your-own fabric thing really has my motor running, possibilities are endless, seriously. I put the first book together as soon as hubby was at the gym and baby was asleep, I could hardly wait. . . posted today on etsy, but Lucy gets to keep this first edition. Eeek! Giddy like a kid about to eat a super sweet, sloppy totally awesome sandwich. . .

We spent a weekend in L.A. recently and enjoyed every minute of it. After the plane ride, Mike showed me his old neighborhood, where he lived till he was 9, in El Segundo. We strolled through Olvera Street and stopped for some excellent Mexican food, although Lucy wasn't crazy about the lime. Another day, we went to the Farmers' Market where Lucy was very serious about pony rides, and we sampled local Pain au Chocolat and Breakfast Quesadillas and saw some amazing fingerling potatoes (thought of you, Dad!). We then took fresh peaches and walked down to the beach and enjoyed the sun and the sand. Oh, and we shopped and shopped and shopped. . . first in the fashion district (blocks and blocks of fabric and textile stores!) and then at H&M. We got a little somethin' for daddy, mommy, and baby. We saw some beautiful architecture (pictured here are the Disney Concert Hall and the Union Station.) We didn't eat a single cupcake, however, even though I know there are ple...