Thank You!

Claire over at Is this heaven? No, this is Iowa! Awarded me with this lovely Lemonade Stand blog award for "gratitude and/or a great attitude." How awesome is that? Pretty awesome. Claire and her blog have often made my day with something that makes me laugh, inspires me or with a supportive comment on my blog. Now she's done it again with this award. I am grateful for the community I am just beginning to connect with here in the blogosphere and the great attitude so many have shown me. Thank you so much.

Back to the Drawing Board

Or sewing room...There is no doubt that my girl needs some new clothes. She's grown 2 inches in six months and all her pants have hit the high water mark. With all the holiday making and such, I haven't been keeping up with my usual sewing. Luckily, I just received some patterns that I ordered from banberryplace.com. Mostly Farbenmix and mostly in German; I don't know any German. If they were in French, I'd have a better chance at a more well rounded understanding. In Chinese, easy, I'd scan them and send them to my friend in China for translation. Fortunately, even in German, I get by most of the time. These are good patterns and pretty straight forward so, my rudimentary knowledge of sewing gets me through.

I have decided exactly what to do with the new Owl fabric. A dress on the horizon. Necessity requires immediate attention to pants production however. So, I'll go through my stash of corduroy and see what I can come up with.

In other news, I was reading blogs and came across a few posts about homemade bread, inspiration. Ah just the thing for a wet winter day. So, I turned out a batch of whole wheat hamburger buns. Delish.



I have almost caught up from our holiday away and I am looking forward to getting full recovery of our normal routine. If only there was a little more time in each day. Oh, look - the sun is coming out, hurray!

I've got a hitch in my get-along

Lola Nova was just a little twinkle in my eye about 3 years ago. I've been making, planning, designing and working towards starting my own small home business in that time. I was really hoping to get an ETSY shop up by March. I was getting excited for 2009 to be the beginning of a new chapter in my creative life. I was busy with organization and feeling bolder than ever, heading out on a new journey. Now suddenly, I'm at full stop and taken aback.
It's this whole CPSIA business. I touched on it in a previous post, a good summary can be found at http://www.change.org/ideas/view/save_handmade_toys_from_the_cpsia and if you are so inclined, you can wade through the actual bill and other info here.
So, it's a complex and confusing situation, I have read what I can from many sources and I'm still baffled. As far as I can gather small businesses that make any children's products are basically up a creek. Yes, this Act includes children's clothing, which was to be the focus of Lola Nova. I mean, that's how this whole thing began for me, designing and sewing clothes for my girl. I absolutely can not afford unit testing on my products so, I can not make these products and sell them to anyone legally. So, now what?

Well, time and activism will tell if this Act will be appropriately amended, I just cannot imagine that handmade children's products will be eradicated completely from the marketplace or made contraband. What a terrible message to send to future generations and what a blow to our already fragile economy. Of course I will continue to sew clothes for my own family and friends but, as far as making for putting up for sale...I don't see the prudence in investing the time and care at this point. I will have to wait and see, ooh I hate that!

In the meantime, although I am a little heart sick and deflated, I am not crawling under any rocks yet. I do make items for grown up folks and I will just have to keep on keepin' on with that. It may take me a little longer to launch a shop, to come up with enough good ideas and to reshape Lola Nova but, I am willing to give it a shot.

What a Vision

We found out a few weeks ago that my girl needed glasses. We finally picked them up today and I have to say she's pretty cute.



She is however; less than thrilled with this new development. I think keeping them on her head is going to be a challenge. Ah well, stickers are wonderful motivators these days, especially if they are sparkly.

Fabric Fantastic

While I was in Kansas I stopped in at what has to be one of my favorite fabric stores, Charlotte's Sew Natural. I allowed myself only two pieces of fabric, man was that a hard choice!
The first is a Hoffman "California", for the love of owls and will make a dress for my girl.
The other is a wild retro print by Urban Chiks for Moda. I may save this one for myself, a skirt perhaps. I don't particularly like sewing for myself for some reason but, this fabric is yummy.

Charlotte's Sew Natural is an amazing store, and Charlotte herself is an amazing woman. She remembers me everytime I come in even though I only visit every other year or so. This time she even remembered the pattern and fabric that I picked up last time. They have great kits for those of the quilting passion and a well thought out selection of fabrics. I haven't shopped the online store yet, no doubt it's just a matter of time. If you are in the market for fabric and great service you should check them out.

New Year Journals

So, these felt journals are my new favorite project. A variation on my letter case. I have another journal/scrapbook project for kids that I hope to show you soon. I am also working on providing some templates and patterns for earlier projects on this blog. We have obtained a new scanner and as soon as time allows, I hope to get some freebies up for those inclined. So much to do...

Putting It On

Here is the apron I made for my mother in-law. It's very Christmasy and I had a great time making it. It is from the Flirty Skirty pattern by Jan Lutz. I love this pattern. She also makes a "Little Flirty Skirty" Apron pattern as well which I made up a while ago, you can see it here.Pocket Detailand it's reversable...

I love aprons. I have a lovely little collection of vintage aprons from my grandmother, maybe I will show them off here some time. For an apron fix you should pop over to Tie One On "for all things aprony".

To The New

with a nod to the old.
Just back from our big Kansas adventure and I am feeling out of sorts. I was disconnected from the computer for over 8 days (not a bad thing) and I feel like I have much to catch up on. So, I have decided to claim tomorrow's Monday morning as my official New Year kick off and take it from there.

We had a lovely visit with family, good times with friends, exploration and a little horsing around.
I can now show you some of the other makings for the Holiday; now that the gifts have been given there is no danger of spoiling a surprise.Here is to the coming year, anything is possible.