we're getting ready for the holidays

At my office we've taken to listening to Christmas music, Bing Crosby and Sufjan Stevens being the favorites.  Some of us are even dressing Christmas-y.  I'm talking about you, Lissa.  (Lissa is my intern, in case you didn't know.)  Lissa made her own red plaid flannel Tova dress and wore it to work the other day with tights, lace up boots, and Heidi braids.  I was instantly jealous of her coziness.  She spent the time researching pine cones, and we all got quite an education that day.  She then drew our Dobbin Mews Holiday Shop banner.  Well, she drew many, and then we all voted.  Some of them had pine cones.  They were adorable.

holiday news

Yikes, I've been busy!  Could you tell?  The past six months have been the busiest months of my entire life, and it's been pretty extreme lately.  Unfortunately I haven't had time to blog, and I've had to say no to a lot of neat stuff until I can catch up.  I didn't even have time to go to the Steven Alan sample sale!  That's when you know it's serious.  : )

Christmas is quickly approaching, and I have something in the works that I'm quite excited about.  Sarkilahti, Shannon, Fay, Lissa, and I are teaming up to bring you an online holiday shop!  We'll have handmade socks, mittens, scarves, hats, Christmas ornaments, jewelry, shirts, and handbags!  And my favorite part is that the prices will be discounted so that you can find the perfect handmade presents without severely injuring your bank account.

Pictures and prices will be posted this Friday, December 3, and the shop will officially be open for business Monday, December 6 at 10AM Eastern time.  I'll be sending out an e-mail to my mailing list as well as blogging about this again on Friday.

more tova patterns

All of the Tova pattern orders have shipped this week, and I have a few left over.  I'm selling them here today and tomorrow (Nov. 4th and 5th) only because I'm going out of town next week.  They'll ship on Saturday.

When you make your top, don't forget to upload photos to the Wiksten Patterns Flickr group!

a long but satisfying workday

Yesterday was long.  Long but good I suppose.  On Friday everyone at the office was planning to dress up for Halloween, but we all forgot except for Lissa, my intern.  Poor girl.  She was an adorable sailor though.  She stuck it out all day in her costume, such a good sport.  I admire that.  To make it up to her I dressed up as a pirate yesterday and wore my costume even in public.  I would have had a lot more fun if I had had a sword, but hey, what are you gonna do when it's a last minute costume?  (I had the eye patch from a few years ago when Seymour tried to scratch my eye out and I had to go to the emergency room.  He didn't really do it on purpose.)

Other highlights from the day include:  

Leftovers of this veggie soup, recommended by Lena.

Tea time and cookies in the afternoon, as per our studio ritual.

Sarkilahti trying to make Lissa wear a scrunchy and settling for
me tying fabric in her hair.

Going home around 9:30 and lying down with a hot water bottle
under my tired back while watching the end of Gossip Girl.

knitting and cats

I've been experimenting with adding fair isle to my handmade socks--triangles in turquoise and red-orange on camel.  Also been spending more time with the cats lately.  Since I don't have a computer at work, I've been working on the sewing pattern instructions and shipping labels at home.  Can't wait to be done staring at a computer all day every day.  The cute kitties definitely make it more enjoyable though.  Seymour sure is a handsome devil, isn't he?  Too bad he knows it.

(Did I seriously just name a post "knitting and cats"?  At the age of 29 I am turning into a grandma more and more every day.)