amigurumi santas and snowmen

from mochimochi land, the pattern for these are free with purchase until jan 2!

tiny knit turkey from spud and chloë

and here's a little knitting project for november! the pattern for this cute little turkey is available for free over on the spud and chloë blog.

pack a lunch

have you noticed all the wonderful reusable lunch bag projects popping up on crafty blogs recently? this one (above) is the adorable embroidered lunch bag from the purl bee, with great step by step instructions as always.

today on whip-up, there's also a round up of other lunch bag tutorials.

i am curious to try this oilcloth version, from skip to my lou.

and along similar lines, this tyvek one from sternlab, via craft.

i'm feeling the urge to sew more, and looking forward to being back in japan in a few weeks, thinking about sewing projects i want to to try...

free kokeshi stuffie pattern

the nice ladies at melly & me are giving away this pattern as a free download! via whip up.

elephants are back!

look at these adorable baby shoes by mette from erleperle (where there's also a link to the pattern if you want to try to make them yourself).

the fabric she used is the wonderful and wildly popular elephant linen/cotton print that is available in a number of different colors. and i just restocked it in my etsy shop in almost all of them!

let me tell you, it was quite wonderful to visit the fabric shop again after being out of commission for a month with a broken foot. i'm still using crutches, but at least i can walk around using two shoes. i came dangerously close to buying more fabric than i could carry home, which i still have to photograph for an update later this week.

ribbit from from spud and chlöe

free pattern for this cute froggy, 'ribbit' is available from the spud and chlöe blog, where they are also having a giveaway right now!

via craft gossip

nani iro fabric and sewing book

nani iro is a line of fabric created by the designer naomi ito for the japanese fabric company kokka. for the last few years, she has designed a new textile collection every year. you can see all the nani iro collections here. this fabric is from the 2009 nani iro textile collection. i love it.

i also finally got my hands on the nani iro book, which is full of lovely sewing projects using the nani iro fabrics. i am feeling very inspired to start sewing again...

there are also free patterns available for download from the nani iro site! it's in japanese, but if you go to this link you can click on any of the photo icons for patterns that were released with those collections. if you get lost on the site, just go back to the 'sewing' tab at the top of the page.
enjoy!

oh, this book and fabric are both available over in my etsy shop.