Ravenhill

Merry Christmas!

I hope that those of you who celebrate have had a wonderful holiday! Our house has been abuzz with the excitement and anticipation of Santa's arrival. My little one was disappointed when she woke on Christmas morning and found that Santa had come and gone and she hadn't been able to give him the hug and kiss she had intended.

My littlest one also grouped the ornaments together on the tree in an uncommon way.

Many gifts have been exchanged lately. Here are some fabric appliqués I sent off to Kelly...

and some of the fabrics that I sent accompanying the matryoshka softie.

Kelly treated me (and ultimately Lilly) to the sweetest package!

This hand knit leaf is now hanging gaily on our tree.

And this magical hand-sewn sweetie has certainly captured our hearts!

Her face is so simple but so expressive and dear.

The tiny details are so charming. Here she is outside of her sleeping pouch. Look at all of the lovely hand stitches and the play of the various whimsical fabrics.

Finally, the ultimate in tiny cuteness is this amazing pillow accompanying what Kelly refers to as a winged grub. Thank you so very much Kelly for making us these incredibly special gifts. I hope to have time to blog more soon and show some of the secret things I was making before Christmas and that have now been given. Happy weekend!

From Secret Santa...

Mitsy from my European Street Team arranged a Secret Santa swap for us. I do hope you will drop by Mitsy as she makes such inspiring ceramic peices, each one based on a different feeling. I sent my gift off to Antigoni where they will enjoy the warmer climate of Greece. It was a secret but since she let me know she has received it I am now at liberty to tell you. Here are her photos of my gifts.

My gifts came from Silvie in sunny Portugal and there were treats for the whole family! My husband loved the chocolates and my son was equally enchanted with the santa clothespin!

The things she makes are so in demand that her shop has been nearly emptied before the holidays!

She made the strawberries look so real with her tiny hand stitched seeds!

Oh, wow, the cake opens! Lilly started cooking right away, making cookies and cakes with these in her play area.

And look at what we found inside! The tastiest little hand sewn felt cookies and tea bags for little cups of tea!

Silvie, thank you so much for the lovely treats for my children and lastly, the one just for me! What pretty Christmas charms fabric squares! Here are just three of the stack of all different prints from her!

As I mentioned earlier, there is some secret sewing going on here! Making presents for people makes Christmas so much more special for me. Here are some yoyos I made the other day for practice.

I hope you are all getting your projects finished up and having a lovely holiday season too for those who celebrate!

More of the Christmas market

The weeks before Christmas seem to fly by faster than they do the rest of the year, certainly twice as fast as they do in January. I have been sewing lately but most things are secret.

I have to show you these cotton pants I made even though they really are summer pants! I am so happy with how they turned out and Lilly likes them too.

There are so many little secrets this time of year and they are so hard to hide from inquisitive eyes!

Yes, those are the two sets of inquisitive eyes I meant! The snow drifting down this morning helped motivate us to get outside for an early morning Sunday walk.

Lilly wanted to carry her favorite "baby" (a little pig stuffed animal) in her shawl. I made her the mittens last fall and had forgotten about them. I had put them aside thinking they were not ever going to fit properly, but now they are perfect. Lilly's homemade socks were sliding down in her boots this morning though and here you see daddy fixed everything just right.

Finally, some wonderful stands from last week's Christmas market!
Lykke og Liten was new this year and the two designers were so much fun to talk with! They love going to flea markets too, live in Oslo and make wonderful clothes completly from thrifted materials.

Another great stand was ZN Design with such hip and fun children's clothes!

They combine fabrics to make such vibrant and joyous mixes.

Here below are the partners of ZN Design. Lilly and I know Merethe, on the right, well as she works in Lilly's open day care that we attend weekly.

Another amazing textile stand that caught my eye was the work of Marianne Skarpnes.

She hand prints the fabrics and then has workers do the hand stitching.

I hope you enjoyed the Christmas market!

I just wanted to thank everyone for voting for my doll in the toy contest on Etsy! I made third place thanks to your help! I also wanted to share the happy news that this past week I had my treasuries hit the Front Page of Etsy for the third and fourth time. Here is the third FP!

I hope your weekend was nice. We are counting down the days until Christmas and my mother's visit!

Something nice, an outing with me, and something quite unpleasant

Something nice happend today! I got mail today from Etsy administration that one of my dolls is featured in Etsy's Holiday 2008: Choose Your Favorite Toy contest! You can see my green and aqua Scandinavian Matroyska doll among the beautiful selection of hand made toys. If you would like to cast your vote just click here!

Things have been busy for me again. My husband was on a two day Christmas party boat cruise to Denmark last Thursday to Saturday and that meant not much time for blogging. He of course came back exhausted, but it was lovely to have him and we fairly smothered him with our love. He rarely goes out or gets away from the dialy grind of his work and all that he does for the family so it was good for him to miss us for a couple of days.

Since he was back I got to have some well-desserved time off on my own and went to the Designer's Christmas Market at DogA, Norsk Design og Arkitektsener.

It is housed in lovely old buildings.

Before I even entered I was ready for inspiration and took a few shots of the wonderful architecture while waiting in line.

Just a glimpse of the Akerseva (Akers river) from my place waiting in line.

I really loved the graphics done by Siri Tollefsen of Bergen.

These fabulously clever little potholders by Marianne Moe are upcycled thrifted blankets with newpaper texts printed on them. When you can read Norwegian they are even more fun.

And here the artist working the stand kindly let me photograph her in on of the cool skirts she sells.

Wall decor has come to Norway, as I saw it at a couple of stands. Here are some made by Happylines.

These mittens by Maria Udd really caught my eye with the bright colors and pretty design.

The details that she uses around the wrists are so subtile and lovely.

But what really got me was the baby mittens, which were as sweet as can be!

I will have to show you more from the market another day as it is now way past when I should be asleep as I have gotten sidetracked from this post into reading and talking with my husband and father about the new Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 or CPSIA.  The bottom line for me is that I don't think I will be able to sell items in the US anymore. I am upset about this new law as it is going to make it impossible to buy one-of-a-kind, special hand made items for children in the US. This site explains what the law means for small-time toy makers. It makes me wonder if small shops like mine have become seen as a threat to big manufacturers? Has the handmade movement really become that big?

Snow and an upcoming visit

I should be in bed asleep now. I have a cough and sore throat but I just had to write a little post. First of all, thank you to everyone for your comments on my sweater in progress. I tried it on and it is snug in one place where the tension was a wee bit tighter than the others. I don't think I will tear it out. I will stretch it! Secondly, we were all thrilled to wake this morning to a dusting of snow! Lilly and I had an appointment so she got her umbrella ready so she would be prepared for the snow.

This first shot pretty much shows how dark it is during the middle of the day this time of year on an overcast day. The snow is such a welcome sight as it helps to brighten up our days!

She did all sorts of things with her umbrella in the snow, made patterns, dots, and so on. (I cheated and brightened this photo for you. I really can't stand the drab photos like the first one.)

 

I really wanted to post these photos for my mom, to get her even more excited for her trip to visit us in less than a month! I am having a hard time containing my enthusiasm because it is going to be so wonderful to have her here with us for two whole weeks! Even my husband is thrilled! I don't think I know anyone who enjoys their parent's in law as much as my husband does. Sebastian even suggested we wait to open our Christmas presents until her arrival a few days after Chrismas so she could be here for it. Yes, we sure are all excited and counting down the days until her arrival. Anticipation is so sweet!