last minute christmas

we decided around 8pm, Christmas eve, to celebrate christmas with fair and whitman. michael and i both have reservations about the holiday, but the idea of seeing fair's disappointment of santa's absence was too much. so santa made a last minute stop...


rob and amy's amazing gift to the family

the crochet madness in amy's blood

fair's letter to santa. she fell asleep in the middle of writing it...

and whitman took advantage of the situation.

christmas with the family -- elfish whitman

fair'o'claus

santa's gift to whitman...

and fair's complimentary house on the lake. (thanks to the late night work of michael and christian...)

one of the two "rigor mortis" dolls that the kids got from rob and amy.

santa also gave fair princess makeup and daddy made her all up. he has a few years of experience under his belt... glam rock days and all

so christmas was good this year. we played Balderdash and i, being a great bull sh*&#er, of course won. the food was tasty and the company was warm. the monster, whitman, slept through the second half and gave us a chance to sit down and enjoy ourselves without the fear of something breaking. i hope everyone else is enjoying the holidays and have a great new year!

angela

my studio

i recently moved my sewing studio from our mudroom to fair's room (her bed is now in the corner of our room). the garage is too cold for michael to paint in now that winter is upon the midwest and i offered up my studio to him. this meant moving into an area half the size and kid accessible. so i had to consider how to make it kid-friendly and not be a pain in the ass to function. i think that i did a good job and this has forced me to turn the scary basement room into a cutting and storage area. the basement is not that bad, it's just that no one has really done anything with it for the last ten years and i'm going through the last four tenants crap they left behind. I did find some treasures though... an antique sewing machine, a "fake" book for a million old country songs, and other unique and random goodies.

the studio...slightly organized

my henry miller poster, an amazing ink-wash of flowers i found and some messiness

my weapon of choice

michael's ink drawing of fair playing her piano

i'm planning a trip with my best friend, na-do, to go up to chicago for a weekend. this will be the first time i've been away from the family for more than a day in forever. but a lady has gots to get her girl time in and have some adventures. so anyone who wants a bag, ask me now... trips cost money. i plan on bringing bags with me to hock a few here and there. we'll see...

New Design

small coffee sack messenger
9x10x2

After many requests, I have designed a new, smaller version of the coffee sack messenger bag. I really like the shape, kind of militaryesque. I made three for a friend to choose two from and of course she chose my favorite one, but i have enough fabric left over to make one for myself...but we know how that ends up... over someone elses shoulder. I will be posting these ones on my etsy shop soon. i think that I will have an officially update day after the first of the year.

i am waiting for my england order to arrive, so that I can post pictures of it. it was one of the most involved and time-consuming free motion stitching design on a messenger bag flap that i've done so far. alexandra... you're family so i went the extra mile and i hope that you love it.

i've been busy trying to keep up with my orders. this week i shipped to alaska, england, colorado, louisiana, oregon and hawaii. it feels good to know that my creations are floating around out there.

well, i have to get to work before the kids wake up.

mas bolsas

i've been waiting to snag my mom's camera to show the bags orders that i've finished in the last month. so here they are...

blue bird stitchin'

more blue bird

small pleated bag for amy's momma

amy's teacherin' bag

i love the interior fabric

and i have so many more to go and about 20 hours of drawing to do by tuesday night!

My Etsy Shop and The City

I have finally set up my etsy shop and will be adding bags over the next few weeks. It is so nice to have an easy way for far away folks to buy my stuff. And on to the city... Michael and I are looking into moving into St. Louis, "the city." We have been really homesick for Portland, in the last month, and we were plotting our return until a strange string of events pointed us to stay in the area. The first was a possible apartment rental in South City from a fellow artisan at the Home -Eco open-house. Then a visit to our favorite coffeehouse, when the kiddos are in tote, where we ran into a lost friend and a possible job oppurtunity. Then the next day, Fair just happened to say,"There's a future in the city," while we were chilling in our living room. My three year old soothsayer... Then the final straw was when we stopped into a bookstore, after a poetry reading and they were actually hiring. michael's dream job, aside from being a full-time artist. So needless to say, we are going to do whatever we can to make the move. I think we are going to shoot for mid-jan or feb. It will be so nice to walk to everything, or at least take the bus, the metro and not be tied to a car. The only downfall is me having to commute back to St. Charles for school twice a week. Well we will see how things fall into place... AHHH!! I have so many bag orders to work on and finals are due next week! breathe, just breathe...