It's almost time!

Aw, you liked the bunny and his bowl! I was thinking that, since I missed the opportunity to donate something for the Kim family benefit auction, I might sell a bowl and bunny combo on ebay and donate the proceeds to the family's fund. Will get to work on it now and post the details shortly after the holidays.

In the meantime, here are a few items to encourage a bit of holiday spirit:


1. Photos of some favorite neighborhood storefront holiday decorations.


2. Streaming the Messiah on NPR. (Todd connected the computer to our stereo - very cool.)


3. The Kiddo as Christmas elf. Yes, you too can elf someone you love. We even subjected the cat to a bit of fun.

What would you do?

Oh my gosh, it's working! I'm holding my breath here, so let's make this a short post, shall we?


Let’s just imagine that you have some very dear friends who love bunnies and have a small collection of cute little rabbit dolls. And let’s say you come across this cute little bunny bowl while browsing at Pearl River Mart one day. And let’s say you buy that bowl with the idea that you’ll build a Christmas gift based on it. What would you do to complete the gift?


You’d make this bunny, right? She’s made of natural-colored cotton flannel with a really subtle pink print from Purl’s collection for the belly and ears. She sits right inside the bowl for a little gift basket-style gift. We all liked the result enough that I’m making another for the Kiddo.

I'll take blogging for $200, Pat

I spoke too soon about liking the new Blogger. Since my last post I've been unable to access my blog or my comments. And my helpdesk is overseas for a couple of weeks, so he can't fix it either. But he can log in as me, so he's posting this message for me. I'll be back as soon as I can solve the problem.

Dreaming of a white (er, maybe multi-colored) Christmas...

I had grand schemes this year for all-white or all-neutral (creme, ivory, pales grey, bone) Christmas decorations, something along the lines of these photos from Marie Claire Idees. But somehow color seems to be winning:




That's okay with me; I'm just happy to get a few decorations up at all.

By the way, loving the Blogger upgrade! Just the possibility of creating categories for posts has me all excited. So please forgive me if Bloglines starts notifying you of old posts during the next few days; I may actually spend time creating categories for the archives! Because I don't have anything else to do with my time, you know...

At last, the mitten ornament pattern!

***Please note that a new version of this pattern is now available here. ***


Thank goodness Todd answers requests for online support. It's not exactly what I had envisioned, but I've finally managed to post the instructions and pattern for the mitten ornaments: page 1 and page 2. If you right click on the images and select "save picture as," you can print the files in a reasonable quality. Sorry that printing the pattern is more complicated than I had hoped.

I've also created a Flickr set with photos and instructions showing each of the steps in case my written instructions aren't clear.

If you make an ornament and would like to share it, I've set up a mitten ornament group on Flickr. I'd love to see what you've made. Cheers!

Waiting

Here at disdressed we rely heavily on our tech support department for all computer- and blog-related issues. Unfortunately, that department is spending the week in Cincinnati with his real job. And as a result, the mitten pattern has been delayed a bit. Sorry. I'm trying to attach Illustrator files to my post, which requires a tad more computer savvy than I possess.


In the meantime, I had a sudden flashback yesterday while thinking about holiday decorating. I remembered some pilgrim and angel candles we had when I was growing up and suspected that if I typed "pilgrim candles" into ebay I would find them. Sure enough, and here are the photos to prove it. Isn't it amazing that something so arcane can be found with such ease? And it's even more amazing that people are obviously collecting them. Some of the candles still have the thirty-five-cent price tag on the paper base.




On a much more serious note, I have been throroughly distracted over the past several days while hoping and praying for the safe return of James Kim. Such sad news. It's almost unbearable.

Brrrrr! (sort of)

At last, a cold front! Time for a sweater, maybe some mittens, and the inevitable struggles to keep a hat on the Kiddo. The temperature outside isn't below freezing yet, but at least we're moving in that direction. I actually enjoy the short days and the ritual of wrapping up in coats, scarves, mittens, hats. Isn't that weird? You can take the girl out of Wisconsin but, well, you know.


On the other hand, winter brings that dreaded month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can't be the only person who wants to hide someplace for all of December, can I? Making lists, assembling packages for the mail, digging the Christmas decorations out of storage, finding time to purchase and carry home a tree, etc. It's all very festive and comes with so many implied expectations and the resulting stresses of those expectations.



We don't do big holiday celebrations at our house, and our families generally keep Christmas gift-giving fairly simple. But with selecting gifts for my four sisters and their spouses/boyfriends and children, Todd's sister, our parents and my Grandma, even simple gift giving starts to feel a bit overwhelming. Last year I wanted to make gifts for everyone and, with the last-minute assistance of my Mom, managed to finish most of my plans and lob it all into the postal system before it was too late. But it really was stressful, and I swore I would keep it much simpler this year.


So these mitten ornaments are the sum total of my hand-made Christmas gift-giving plans for 2006. I've been obsessedly cutting, stitching, and embellishing for the past week, and it's actually been fun instead of stressful!


Tomorrow I'll (hopefully) post the instructions and a pattern so you can make your own little mitten ornaments. They are quite simple and fun to make, and you could invent a million ways to decorate and embellish them. I stuck with undyed wool felt, but just imagine where you could go if you started using brightly colored felt, or maybe even old striped felted sweaters! And you could embellish with beads, lace, or the embroidery stitches on a sewing machine. Endless possibilities!


Whoa. Must stop myself from getting carried away over here. We don't want repeats of last year's crafting frenzy, believe me!

More photos here.

Update: the pattern is available here.