people packages

We made a fantastic discovery at my sister's house last week: making Christmas cookies is much easier and actually fun when there are two adults involved! We managed to keep all three kids happy and busy while baking and decorating a large batch of sugar cookies in the process. Will absolutely be doing it again. And thank goodness my sister has a large kitchen; that was a lot of sprinkles being tossed around, and we covered every available surface with dough, pans, and frosting in every color.


I'd show you the cookies, but they're gone already.

As far as our other Christmas preparations go, we've handed out most of our gifts for Tsia's friends. Thanks to a tip from Amanda I placed an order for these and we assembled "make your own" little people kits for all the little people in our lives.


These are the little people that were created at our house. I can't decide whether they're cast members of a travelling circus or just a few local East Village residents, but Tsia certainly had a lot of fun making them.


Now if we could just come up with gifts for the adults!

We're visiting my sister for a couple of days, enjoying the beauty of a mini ice storm yesterday (nothing like that big storm in the midwest), playing at being butterflies with flashlights, and celebrating an early Christmas together. Have a great weekend!

So, so sad

I learned from a friend today that Blueprint has just stopped publishing on a regular basis. That's it.

What is the world coming to? First Martha Stewart Kids, now Blueprint? Ack.

Ok, on to some happy things:

*Hillary's free pig ornament pattern. Cute!

*Mitten ornaments made by a kindergarten class. I'm amazed.


*Thanksgiving decorations that I just can't seem to put away, despite an abundance of Christmas and winter decorations that are in the process of going up. Something about the Wisconsinite in me just loves winter wheat, especially in snow-covered fields. (note to self: must get home for a visit soon!)

*Spending a happy afternoon in the studio with Ms. Tsia helping to wrap and assemble Christmas gifts for the mail.

Ok, time to get one kiddo off to bed. I swear sometimes she gets less sleep than I and seems to do better for it as well.

Happy connections

Today we ran into, of all people, Marianne Fons, who I still can't believe recognized me and remembered my name fast enough to stop us as we passed her and her daughter on the street. Hurrah for good memories! I think I mentioned earlier that she has an apartment near ours. Cool, hmm?

Also, just wanted to share with you an article that ran in my hometown newspaper today about my dad. So proud, am I.

That's all for now, but I have actual crafting (with tutorials, even!) to share with you soon.

Testing. Testing.

UPDATE: Whoa, what a response! I think we're all set with testers, so thank you very much for your overwhelming response! I will try to reply to everyone with a confirmation or a nay, first come first served. Thank you, everyone! If this goes smoothly maybe we can make it a regular thing, and that way everyone will have an opportunity to test a pattern or two somewhere down the road.

Well, I wasn't planning to do this, but I think it's worth a try. It's truly a test:

I have fourteen draft copies of the Oliver + S patterns available for testing.

Here are the terms:

1. Test patterns are available in size 3-6 months and size 5 only. I'll try to accommodate specific requests within those parameters, but if you agree to test a pattern please accept whatever pattern and size is available.

2. Testers must live inside the U.S. (due to time constraints; sorry)

3. Garment must be finished and tester's questionnaire returned to me within two weeks of receipt. I'll send everything via Priority Mail just as quickly as I can, but please take the holidays into account if you're going to be busy or travelling! (Most patterns don't take that long to complete, but please allow yourself enough time to finish within the two week deadline.)

4. You don't need to send me the finished garment, but I would appreciate getting a few photos of it when you're finished, especially if you can find someone who actually wears that size so we can see how the size grading looks on a variety of little bodies.

5. In order to be a tester, you should be at least an Advanced Beginning seamstress (I hate that word, but "sewer" looks so, I don't know, sewage related...). I define Advanced Beginner as someone who as sewn from a pattern before or has taken a few classes and/or has completed several projects.

6. Testers must be detail oriented. You must be willing to take some time to finish the garment, complete the three-page testing questionnaire and, hopefully, track down someone to wear the finished garment and/or take some photos of that garment.


And since those are some pretty heavy requirements, here's what I offer in return:

1. You'll get to be among the first people to make an Oliver + S pattern! And I'll listen to everything you have to say, good or bad, about them. Consider yourself one of my closest advisers, if you like.

2. You get to keep the draft pattern and the finished garment.

3. You get to pick two printed patterns from the collection, which I'll send when they arrive in February.

4. And I'll even throw in a little fabric, just for fun. Who knows what it will be, but I'll try to make it something interesting.

Ready? Email me if you fit all of the requirements and are ready to go: liesl@oliverands.com. I'll post again when all the patterns are gone.

And thank you! It will be interesting to see how this little test works out for all of us.

Christmas, etc.

Our soft trees have come out again. Can the big Christmas tree be far behind? Tsia and I are hoping today will be the day. This year I think she'll really enjoy helping to decorate it. Of course that probably also means she won't be able to stop herself from playing with all the ornaments once they're on the tree, but that's ok.


I'm still really want to make an advent calendar. In fact, I still really want to make one using a bunch of my mitten ornaments, but now I've decided I want to hang them from a little tree like this one on the cover of the Garnet Hill catalog. Isn't it great? The little gifts they used are sweet, too, but I still need to do a whole bunch of mittens.



By the way, if you make a mitten ornament (or two), don't forget to add your creation to the Flickr group!
Mom sent me some photos of the mitten ornaments her embroidery group made to sell at their annual show (I gave them permission to use the pattern as a fund raiser) and if I can still locate the photos I'll add them to the group. It's always fun to see how someone else interprets a pattern, I think.