Oh the Cuteness!

Have you heard about the little rainbow sunshine plushie tutorial floating around the net? Holly over at Chez Beeper Bebe designed this cute little guy to sell and was told by the Taggies company that it infringed on their patent and she had to take it off etsy. Luckily for us, she made a tutorial for them instead and posted it on her blog. You have to go read her whole story on her post, it just infuriates me that Taggies thinks they can patent something like the ribbon loop. That is like me saying I am going to patent the french knot for embroidery and no one will ever be able to use it again. As you may know, I work in a toy store and I will not be encouraging anyone to buy Taggies, and what is more I am going to ask my boss to have us stop carrying them altogether. And I am going to make some and send them to everyone I know who has a baby and tell them about what jerks the Taggies people are. Seriously.

Okay, so today it feels like all I did was spend money, but it was so totally worth it. There is a fabric store in San Francisco called Britex Fabrics, and I had never heard of them until I started taking the bus to work and I saw their sign as we drove by every day. My friend Ivy from the stitch & bitch is a fabric sales rep and she told me that today and tomorrow they are having a 30% off sale for the entire store! My co-worker Lydia told me about how cool the place is, and knew I was going to go there today and drop some serious cash. I ended up going to a couple quilting stores and an antique store as well, and here's what I got: (And no, I will not say how much I spent. It was a lot, but the stuff I got was worth a lot more!) The millinery and trims are for my steampunk stuff, and I do not know what the fabric will be yet. I also found a cute vintage apron and a full set of milk glass espresso cups and saucers for Angela (not pictured as they need washing). All and all a ...

Well, pretty much. It is not the first quilt I ever started, but it is the first one I have finished. But there's a catch... It's a cheater's quilt. I (thankfully) did not have to piece together all those billions of tiny squares for the quilt top; it came pre-printed like that. I found the adorable fabric (Which I just realized is perfect for Valentine's Day!) for an absolute song years ago and have been meaning to make this quilt as a test run to see if I was even capable of finishing the easiest possible version of such a thing. And I was! I had the back fabric in my stash as well as the binding, and I had just enough of each to make it work, so it must have been meant to be! It's just a baby quilt, and since none of my friends ended up having girls (I think this is a girlie fabric but a lot of my friends think it is fine for a boy too, but whatever!), I will probably sell it on etsy, though I would secretly like to squirrel it away for the someday down the...

Guess what?? Oh, I am so rediculously excited to show this to everyone. Do you know what this is? Yes, it's a craft book about repurposing tea towels... Why haven't you seen it in stores yet? Because it doesn't come out until the 2nd of March... How did I get an advance copy of it? Because I wrote TWO patterns included in this book! BOOYA! That's my paintbrush roll in the center! YAAAY! Seriously, though, I am over the moon that I have patterns in a published book! It still doesn't feel real, like some kind of big joke, but here it is in my hands and soon people will be buying it and hopefully making beautiful things with it! I feel honored to be included amongst all the other amazing projects, most of which I have already picked out tea towels for. Here is a sneak peak at the patterns I wrote: One is a paintbrush roll and the other, which I am particularly proud of, is how to transform a single tea towel into eight (Yes, eight!) tissue cozies, which is great for cr...