Back and Better Than Ever

Well, at least that first part is true: I'm back! I put my mom on the airplane yesterday and she has safely landed, so everyone is back home.

And speaking of Mom, look what goodies she bought me in Paris: fabric and buttons from a cool store we stumbled across!

We bought these at IE Boutique in the 3rd arrondissement: 128 rue Vieille du Temple. Their website is still under construction, but here's a blurb about them: IE Boutique.

The fabric was 1/2 off because it has a few stains. They might come out in the wash; or I'll just cut around them. And the buttons are vintage, from India.

I'm thinking that the yellow fabric wants to be a skirt. It's thin though so I'll have to line it/layer it. But I like it with this Anna Maria Horner cotton voile, which I'm planning on making into a shirt:

Since this has turned into a goodies post, I'll show you the yarn I bought in the Pyrenees (from a local shop which mainly manufactures blankets and rugs):

Hiding underneath the yarn you can see the fabric I asked my mom to bring me from the States. Sew Mama Sew! was having a sale and I couldn't resist buying some cotton lawn!

The yarn is undyed and comes from the sheep that live in the Pyrenees. We stumbled across some on the road:

Lest you think that's it been all shopping, shopping, shopping and no crafting, here is evidence of my advancing knitting:

I have nearly finished the back and I started a sleeve. :)

And speaking of being back and better than ever, you probably noticed that I again changed the blog design. I can't help it! There are so many beautiful (free!) templates out there! I liked my last template overall, but I didn't like how it presented multiple pages...so I changed it. Hopefully this design is not too busy. My newspaper-designer sister said it was too hard to read so I changed the font back to a serif font (or whatever the appropriate description for that is). Feel free to comment if you think this layout is not user-friendly though.