Inspire Yourself to Buy Handmade

Ever since the birth of my second child, I've started making more handmade and buying more handmade too. I used to be a bargain hunter, shopping all the big box stores to find the cheapest prices. I'd buy things just because they were inexpensive. Over time, though, I realized that I was filling my home with lots of things I didn't need. More important, though, I started to wonder at what cost I had bought these things. What was the cost to workers somewhere in the world who had to produce these items so cheaply? What was the cost to our environment of transporting these goods across oceans and continents? What was the cost to our economy since very little is produced in the U.S. anymore?

Don't get me wrong. I still love a bargain. But I value the time and effort it takes to make something. I like making purchases that enable a person to do work they enjoy and that fulfills them. I like to make purchases that help support that person and her or his family.

These are some of the reasons I buy handmade. However, a big inspiration to me are the women in my family. To read more about why I make and buy handmade, read my entry here at www.inspirehandmade.org: Making Connections Between Generations. If you find it inspirational, click on the little star at the bottom of the entry. If you feel inspired, write your own entry too.

Don't forget to sign the pledge to buy handmade.

2 new customs

I've caught the knitting bug recently and have been back in the habit of knitting every day. I've been working on 2 customs recently and am really happy about how they came out.

The first is a pair of longies knit with "Lime Rainbow" on BFL by Midnight Spectrum. It's a size newborn/small for a baby arriving in December.



The second is a medium soaker knit in single ply purewool. I don't know the name of the colorway, but I think it's beautiful. It's perfect for fall: gold, green, blue, purple, and rose.



More custom spots will be available next week on Tuesday, August 5th!

I've really been enjoying the summer--lots of visits to the beach and playing outside--so it's sad that I'm already thinking about the fall. But I'm cleaning out my projects drawer so that I can begin to stock it with new knits for the fall and winter. I'm offering up everything in my projects drawer for huge discounts. I will no longer be offering in stock crocheted longies and soakers anymore, so all of my in stock crochet items are on clearance! The sale starts today at 2pm and continues until they're all gone. Visit my store here: Pumpkin Pie Baby.

Here's a peak at one of today's offerings:

Market bags for little farmer's market shoppers

A customer who ordered a wool play food set from me this week asked if I had any ideas about what to put the foods in. I had thought about this since starting to sell the play food. But this weekend I sat down and worked on a few ideas. I came up with a darling market bag for the fruits and veggies. It's crocheted, stretchy, and the perfect size for little shoppers.





My daughters now want a market bag too for our weekly trips to our farm share. This is our first year participating in a farm share and it's been an adventure for us. We've been introduced to all kinds of new veggies--from kohlrabi to chinese cabbage to beets--and I'm getting reacquainted with my love of cooking. I'm having to search out new recipes for all these veggies. Here are some of my favorites so far.

For kohlrabi, try it roasted with butternut squash: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/ROASTED-KOHLRABI-AND-BUTTERNUT-SQUASH-236414
For swiss chard, try this roasted, creamy dish: http://beyondsalmon.blogspot.com/2006/07/technique-of-week-how-to-cook-swiss.html This was so good, I'll forever be buying swiss chard!

Birthday cake

I recently made a bunch of play food for a swap and one of the items I made was a birthday cake for a 2 year old girl. Here it is:

I just love it, especially the 2 little lit candles. I've added birthday cakes to my list of play foods now and another custom set will be available at my next stocking on July 8th.

What a great birthday and our newsletter!

So Pumpkin Pie Baby celebrated our first birthday on June 10th and it was a huge success. I had a wonderful time collaborating with other women on Hyena Cart and I'm proud of the beautiful sets we made. In fact, three of our sets made it into the Most Spotted list on Hyena Cart! And, we had 902 invidivual visitors to our store on our birthday! If you missed it, you can see some of the sets on my Flickr gallery.

But I wanted to write about Pumpkin Pie Baby's new newsletter. Starting July 1st, I'll be sending out a monthly newsletter with store updates, previews, and information about our products. Most important, though, our newsletter will contain exclusive discounts for subscribers! To join our newsletter, simply visit our homepage, scroll to the bottom, and fill out the "Join the Mailing List" box. You'll then be receiving our newsletter soon.

Turtles

Tomorrow is the big anniversary stocking and this past weekend has been very exciting for me. On Friday, I had 441 people visit my site. And the Woodland Animals set, pictured in a blog post below, was one of the most spotted items on Hyena Cart this week.

I wanted to write about another set that will be stocking tomorrow. It is my favorite of all the sets being offered tomorrow. It's a 3 piece set for turtle lovers! The shorties were knit with Purewool's "Warm Ice" colorway. It worked up so nicely and is a beautiful blend of oranges and blues.



Samantha of My Beautiful Girl made this amazing fitted diaper from Kumquat's "Sea Life" knit fabric. The diaper inner is bamboo terry and the snap in doubler is topped with organic bamboo velour.



Carson of Fuzzy Britches appliqued a turtle T-shirt to match the turtles found on the diaper. She did an amazing job with this turtle--he even has stars on his back!