I feel like I have been talking about Supafab for a hundred years. I feel like I have been working on it for even longer. And I feel like I have been thinking about it for at least three or four millennia. Now I finally get to officially share with you my latest project:

Supafab.

This summer, my friend Jeanne asked me to create some baby items for her new online baby boutique, Old Skool Baby. So I thought and thought. I tried for weeks to get a particular prototype clothing item to work. Failure! So I went back to the drawing board, refining the design of my kids’ chef apron, and finally nailed the pattern.

It fits Cormac, which means a size two, and it fits Owen, which means a size four, and even Owen’s best friend, which means a size six.

I shopped around for interesting textures and fabrics in a variety of clothes and home accessories — skirts, curtains — until I found a palette that I loved, and then set to work combining them with regular cotton yardage to make reversible aprons. After that, I started patching fabrics together to make long strips — one of which became a patchwork pillow, with a custom-made muslin cushion form, and others of which ended up as toddler belts.

I have more items in the works, including patchwork coasters (which I *love* to make), but since I’m home all day with the children, the going is slow. I’m still aiming at two or three shop updates a week, though. I’m having so much fun making these things, and I feel like a.) I’m filling a niche, with the gender-neutral aprons and belts for kids and b.) it’s good for the environment, to put old clothes and things to new use. It’s a creative challenge for me. I love it. I hope other people find it useful and fun as well.

I’ve also revived my first etsy shop, Supafine, to take it in a new direction: vintage. Since I can’t stop myself from cruising for vintage things, I can at least share them with other people who can appreciate it.

This is surprisingly hard for me to talk about — I’m really excited about the whole venture, but I’m so bad at pimping myself! So take pity on me. I guess I just need to keep practicing. I feel so shy!

Thanks for reading this far. Phew! Tomorrow we’re back to our regularly scheduled Supa.

Supafab.etsy.com

Supafine.etsy.com.

The last month I’ve been working on designing a few products for a friend of mine, who’s launching a new baby boutique soon. I gathered this assortment of wools and cottons and silks and made it up into a scarf and a pillow so you can see the color palette I’m working on. I just love that citrony-mustard color.

The line is going to be called Supafab, and will involve a lot of recycled/upcycled materials and organic fabric. I’m keeping the product line very narrow at first, aiming to make a few different items for the 2-5 age range. In addition to selling in my friend’s shop (which is called Old Skool Baby), I’ll also make them available on supafab.etsy.com and supafab.bigcartel.com. My old Etsy shop will still be around, too, for sharing vintage items as I come across them — at least the ones I can bear to part with. I have this killer size 4t gingham blazer that I can’t quite bring myself to list yet.

Well! So. I wanted to fill you in on that. It’s early stages still but things are coming together. I’m still publishing daily inspiration at my Tumblr blog, also called Supafab; I’d been posting daily here on Supafine, too, but that is unadulterated crazy, so I’m reigning it in a tad. My husband is annoyed that I’ve been posting all this “boring sewing stuff.” I am being nice and refraining from telling him to stuff it. I like what I like.

I’ve also been redoing my home page at supamb.com. If you take a look at it, will you tell me if it looks weird? I haven’t been able to test it except on this Nokia phone (more on that later, too) and the mobile version looks weird. As in like not a mobile version. Argh.

I have some other ideas that I may or may not develop. More on those as I figure out what to do with them.

Mostly, I am just reveling in the fact that, as one commenter pointed out to me about two years ago, IT DOES GET EASIER. Mackie is 2, owen is 4 and a half, my chronic illness is in remission, and I love where I live and I see my family at least once or even twice a month. Sure, I’m still potty training two kids (another story for another day) but compared to even one year ago, life is so much calmer that I actually have the headspace to work on long-term projects. (The fact that we are not selling a house or trying to buy a house or moving house is helpful, as is the last year of me being unemployed, which has also made a wonderful fire alight under my fanny.)

I’ve searched and I can’t find who wrote that comment, but please know that your words and your story stuck with me and gave me hope for the two years.

All right. I feel like I’m babbling here. I’ll leave you to finish your coffee and turn in your TPS reports (or fold the laundry, depending on where it is you’re reading from). Thanks for reading. I mean it. End sappy sincere transmission.

…

(What kind of library only gives you two weeks? I ask you.)

Ennnnyway. My tiny local library actually had a copy Flip! for Decorating: A Page-by-Page, Piece-by-Piece, Room-by-Room Guide to Transforming Your Home.

I picked it up because it was green. I flipped through it once, standing in the New Books section, and did one of those audible “tee-hee” things that I sometimes do when I’m really engaged with something in a public place and which makes the other patrons of whatever establishment I’m in turn around and raise an eyebrow at me because HELLO, please don’t acknowledge that something has delighted you, God that is so provincial.

But look! Flip the pages and it’s a flip book! Awww. Here, see the video.

The author/decorator, Elizabeth Mayhew, has a very Domino kind of eclectic style that I enjoy, and the book is full of these rookie How To tips that I find very, very useful. Other books would be all, Mix and match linens for a gorgeous effect! And this book is like, Look. This is how to make the bed so it looks like it goes in a magazine. I loved how literal it was.

From the book, copyright Elizabeth Mayhew:

Finishing touches: making a bed

1. Place a flat sheet, wrong side up, on top of a fitted sheet
2. Lay a blanket cover or matelessé on top of the sheet, about four inches down from the flat sheet
3. Fold the flat sheet over the edge of the blanket to revewal any pattern or decorative border
4. Tuck the bottom edge of the sheets and blanket under the mattress and make square corners by gathering excess from the sides and tucking under the mattress
5. Fold a quilt or comforter into thirds and lay at the foot of the bed
6. Arrange shams and standard pillows. Add neckroll or boudoir pillow if desired.

So I tried it on my own bed and look! See how useful? Good tips!

I’d recommend this book to people who are trying to develop their design eye; I’m thinking specifically of my sister, who’s about to move into a gorgeous townhouse of her own and doing the decorating from scratch. This would be a totally worthwhile purchase. The author would probably appreciate people buying the book, too, instead of borrowing it like I did, but what can I say, people. If the library doesn’t carry it, it might not get read by me at all. And then how could I pimp the things I like? THEN HOW?

Photo by Splityarn.

Splityarn is one of the flickr users whose account I stalked last winter when I was getting all knitty again. Then my knitting obsession faded (as all my obsessions do: they wax and wane and wax again) and I did a massive contact purge and I fell out of that loop. (Knitting pun? YOU TELL ME.)

But I have been building up my newsreader and flickr contacts again, and I noticed Splityarn had a new blog AND a new shop. When I clicked over to see who did the pretty site design, I saw they had a featurette describing the process of taking Splityarn to the next level. (And also read that Caro has a book on the way!)

Fascinating.

» Stalelife Showcase: Splityarn Logo, Site & Store | The Sweetspot.

Then I started another one. I don’t know why. Stop asking me questions. Let’s go look at pretty pictures.

(Do you tumble? Tell me your handle and I’ll follow you.)

image c. elisabeth dunker

Ach, isn’t that pretty?

Last week (was it last week? last month?) I rearranged my living room … AGAIN. I seem to do this about once every month or three. I am still looking for the right arrangement, the one that says Grownups Live Here.

Sadly, I can’t show you yet. I have been out of town, camping and now visiting with my friend, so that I haven’t had time to take a good, natural light photo of my living room (and the neato little thing we did with our fireplace).

I’ve got the next best thing: somebody ELSE’s (achingly beautiful) home. Wish I could pretend it was mine. Wish I had a wee fraction of the style and taste this elisabeth dunker has.

Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » sneak peek: elisabeth dunker.

Images via Our City Lights.

Redesigning the Harry Potter covers to look like Penguin Classic books.

Now I can imagine what it would have been like to read those as a kid.