And the winners are.....

Thanks everyone who entered the drawing - I loved reading your comments and checking out your blogs!

The process: I entered everyone into a WORD document (one person emailed to be added so I added her comment at the time she wrote), assigned a number to everyone and then used the random number picker to select the winners of the drawing (I was going to cut out everyone's entries and have Sydney pick them, but that seemed a bit labor intensive and not too environmentally friendly - besides, I think that you all wanted to find out before the end of the year who won!)

The 3 winners of the Apron Pattern are:
1) Kate (#1)
2) Shannon (#2)
3) Michelle P (#3)

The 2 winners of the Japanese fabric fat quarters are:
1) Krista Walker (#44)
2) Melody (jefalody) (#15)

and the winner of the SIMPLE GIFTS TO STITCH BOOK is...

Kath (#38)

Please email your mailing addresses to kristen@monkeyfootdesigns.com and I'll get your goodies out to you this week :)


I'm starting to think that life is starting to return to normal (whatever that is...). Ben is sleeping well and Sydney has taken to being a big sister like a champ. Some days are rougher than others, but we're getting by pretty well and have some kind of vague schedule that we follow day-to-day. I'm really fine as long as I get to do some "stuff" during nap time- get orders together and in the mail, sew, email, etc. Hate to say it, but I often don't even pick up the phone during nap...

Anyways, this past weekend we got into the swing of things and had a belated Turkey Day feast with hubby's sis (we had to cancel our plans due to a nasty cold that Syd and I got the night before we were supposed to leave) and cut down our Christmas tree. It was a balmy 10 degrees here (probably less than 0 with the wind chill), so we basically chopped down the first respectable looking tree we saw.



Trimming the tree this year took no time at all b/c (1) it is a pretty small tree - it looked much bigger in the field... and (2) I had to keep the lower third void of any breakables b/c of our little elf who likes to hug and dance with the tree every morning when she gets up...

I don' t know about you all, but one of my favorite parts of Christmas is pulling out all of the old decorations and goodies that have been collected over the years. Ornaments are the most special to me - here are a couple of gems that need to be shared :)

I grew up in a blue bi-level home that was built in the 70's and one year a grade school art project was to make a pressed tin (?) ornament of your home. I probably colored it with Sharpies (I doubt those fruity smelly ones would have such staying power) and I love it. Not sure why, but I do. Probably b/c I was lucky in that this was the only house I ever lived in until I went to college... and my parents sill live there! The color has since changed, but it's still home.


This next one just cracks me up. It's supposed to be a self-portrait stuffy (I think I actually sewed it by hand?)... Scary... The sad thing is that I can't draw much better than this now!

My third favorites are yearly ornaments that mom makes - there is a cranberry and pink one in the first ornament pic and a green and yellow one in the pic above. For some reason I have 2 "1997" ones. Don't tell her...!

I just realized that I haven't shared any pictures of the "new" back room! The long and the short of it is that the room was poorly built, so we had it gutted and rebuilt it from the studs out. Also added a room underneath it, so we have storage next to the garage (yipppee!!). We LOVE this room and it's finished at just the right time (we got 2 feet of snow today!). We still need to hang some pictures, and I'd like to make some quick x-mas pillow covers, but so far we're happy with it. The guys are still working on the new back deck - pics to come!

Here's the view from standing in the kitchen, looking out to the left:

And to the right...:

And from sitting on the sofas in the last picture:

On the craft front, I've been trying to get some wholesale orders finished up so I can get to the fun stuff - Christmas gifts! I have started working on a scarf for Frank's Aunt, and I can't say enough fantastic things about the BABY ALPACA GRANDE yarn from Plymouth that I'm using. I scored this yummy yarn on EBAY about a month ago and am in love with it... Luckily Christmas is a few weeks away b/c it's taking me a while to get this one done. I've tried knitting while nursing Ben and it wasn't pretty. I can do a lot while nursing, but knitting is tough...

If you've been wondering about Amy Butler's new SWEET LIFE BAGS, I'll tell you from first hand experience that they are wonderful! The one shown above is the ASHBURY in Pewter and it's a fantastic knitting bag. Tons of pockets inside and tons of room - check it out!


Speaking of Amy Butler, I just added the fantastic LOTUS TUNIC and CAMI pattern to my EBAY store!!!



and restocked the new Sophia Bag Pattern (oh how I just want to have a day to myself to make this!):

I've got to scoot - it's almost midnight... Have a great night everyone! :) Kris