Rabbit Is Wise

free-form sewn bird toys

What do you do when your kids come to you with a crazy idea that requires your sewing skills?

In this case, my two oldest children wanted to design some stuffed-animal birds... specifically they have a dear friend who owns a stuffed macaw.  They own a snowy owl.  Somehow, these two star-crossed lovers decided to marry and have baby birds, and I was asked to make this possible.

It started with design drawings by my eldest.  She wanted to make two birds: one colored like a macaw but with owl-like eyes, the other colored like an owl but with colored wings and regular macaw eyes.  And my middle child decided she wanted a African Bee-eater.

Here is a photo of the progeny with their parents.  What do you think?

Can I tell you how hard those small round heads were to make?!?! Yikes!

possibilities

 

Oooh, I just finished with a trip to the fabric store... and a load of laundry.  All pressed and wrinkle-free, this stack of fabric screams, "POSSIBILITIES" to me.  I can't wait to dive in and then share what I'm up to.

a pencil case giveaway!!!

 

How many of you out there work best under pressure?  I'm sure I see some hands raised.  There is a lot of crafting I want to do, but I've found that, unless I have the pressure of a deadline, I don't always get it done.

I thought it would be fun to participate in the Sew Mama, Sew! Giveaway Day (if you don't already know about this, be sure to follow that link and find many other crafty bloggers participating in this day - you might find some other things you'd like to try to win).  This was the perfect excuse for me to play around with an idea I've had in the back of my head for a while.

I'm quite fond on pencil cases.  Several months ago, I found an on-line pattern to make and shared that with you here already.  However, my favorite pencil cases have always been tube shaped.  I first encountered these type of pencil cases when I did a study abroad in Germany.  That was years ago, and I still have a few precious leather pencil cases from my trips to Germany - all well worn and loved.

While I'm not ready to play around with making one of these in leather (though I think I might try that soon with some leather scraps I've been saving through the years), I thought doing a quilted one might be fun.  I find that no one can have enough small bags.  In addition to pencils, it could easily hold knitting/sewing supplies or makeup.

I used my favorite leather case for dimensions, and then figured out how to construct it out of fabric.  I plan on making a tutorial about this and posting a pattern here.  If I get enough traffic for the giveaway, I may try to even do that soon after the giveaway, so people would have time to sew these up as holiday gifts!  They are really easy.  The hardest part I found was some of the detail work, and that is where I hope you might help me out...

THE GIVEAWAY:

To be entered in the giveaway, I'd like you to either tell me about a crafting project you plan on doing for the holidays (or wish you had time to do.  Feel free to post a link related to your project, but if the post is blatantly an advertisement, I'll mark it as spam - please understand) OR give me tips/tricks for machine sewing detailed work!! 

In the process of creating the pattern for this bag, my biggest challenge was machine sewing the circle ends of the bag.  Maybe it is my machine that is the problem, but it is quite likely me - the bulky fabric doesn't want to stay under the presser foot and my sewing lines get all wonky.  I had the same problem when I was sewing the other pencil case and found that the only way to have perfect control is to hand-stitch.  Just so you know, I did baste stitch the seams and bias tape before machine sewing it down - that helped a lot but I still had problems.

I will only be giving away ONE of the bags, and it will be the winner's choice.  I'd like to give the other two away as holiday gifts for friends.  So if you know which of the bags you like best, you can include that in your post.  Otherwise, I will ask once the winner is chosen.

I plan on using something like a random number generator to pick the winner (I've never done a giveaway before, so I'm learning).  I'm happy to ship this item internationally, so for any international readers, please feel free to enter!  There is an option when posting to include your email address (which isn't shared with the public).  Please use this so I have a way to contact you if you are the winner!

The giveaway is open until December 13 at 5pm PST, at which time I will close comments.  I will email the winner by December 15th and post the name of the winner within this post.

I hope I didn't miss anything.  Good luck to you all, happy holidays, and I look forward to hearing your stories!!!

 

Comments are closed.  I'll be picking and announcing a winner tomorrow!!!

 

The winner is:

Amy said...

I would like to make a few cowls for my sons' preschool teachers:) Thanks for the giveaway! Amy @ gasudimack(at)sbcglobal(dot)net

a german tradition ... Schultüten!

 

Those of you from Germany or who have lived or visited there around the time schools begin in the Fall will be familiar with this fun German tradition. 

And though we do not live in Germany, my connection with the country inspires me to incorporate various German traditions into my family.  And though we homeschool, we still start our school year at the same time public schools start.

This year is a special year because my middle child is starting first grade, the traditional year to receive a Schultüten.

"What's a Schultüten?" you ask?  It is a gigantic decorated paper cone filled with special treats for the first grader.  In Germany, you can buy these in your local stationery store.  In America, you either have to order one online or make your own.  I opted for the latter.

It was simple enough.  I wanted something more stable than craft paper (which I had used when making the cone for my eldest several years ago - it was fragile to say the least), so I purchased several pieces of poster board.  I didn't want to leave out my eldest from the festivities (she's entering fourth grade), so she got a smaller cone.  But my first grader got a cone as big as she is.  That means, for the eldest, a single piece of poster board was enough, but for my middle child, I put together three pieces of poster board:

 

I placed two pieces connected by their longest side and the third piece with it's longest side connected to the top of those two pieces

 

I used packing tape to connect the poster boards together.  I then used a pencil and non-stretching string to draw a partial circle on the paper (as a guide for where I cut):

I simply tied one end of the string to the pencil and held the other end at a corner of the paper.  Using this as a type of homemade compass, I drew the quarter circle line all while holding the string at one corner of the paper.  Look at the photos to see which corner I chose.  This was to get the maximum size of quarter circle as possible out of the paper.  I determined the length of the string by finding the furthest point it would go without running off the paper.

I then rolled the quarter circle into a cone and used packing tape to tape down the inside seam of the cone.  Using a glue stick, I glued the outside seam shut and used rubber bands to hold the paper in place while it dried:

I then weighted the inside of the cone to ensure it would sit on the seam for added pressure to help it dry together:

Once both the cones were dry, I then had the task of decorating them.  I chose a "space" theme because the unit study we are starting the school year off with is "The Moon".  I have no pictures to show of this part of the project so you'll have to use your imagination.  Start by imagining the cones standing on their large ends drying after having been hand-painted with black acrylic paint.  Next, imagine a lot of scraps of felt being used to create a moon, stars, and a rocket ship.  There in the corner is my hot glue gun.  Imagine me using that to glue all the pieces of felt together (such as the details on the rocket ship) and then glue these felt items to the cone.  Now imagine me with a stack of tissue paper, deciding what color I would use for the tissue to go around the opening to the cone.  Glue stick in hand, I paint a line of glue along the inside rim of the cone and then quickly pat down the chosen tissue (length-wise).  I use two pieces of tissue to make it around each of the cones.

Now the fun part.  Stuffing the cones.  Imagine me again with that pile of tissue paper.  I knew if I just threw the goodies in the cones, they would look sad and empty, all the small items having fallen to the bottom of the cones... so I loosely wrapped each item separately with tissue paper and placed them carefully into the cone.  It did the trick and made the cones look very full.  I chose items I knew my kids would be excited about: small stuffed animals, pencils and stickers, gum and gummy bears (an homage to Germany!), wooden tops... stuff like that.

All that was left was to give the cones.  Both girls were excited to receive their cones:

And best of all - the large cone was so large, once it was empty, both girls took turns crawling into it like some type of hermit crab (sorry, no photos of this... you'll have to imagine!!!).

 

a blacklight art show

This past week, my middle child and I have been exploring all things neon in our basement.  My eldest is away at a daycamp and I wanted to do something special with the one who stayed home.  The culmination of our efforts will be an art show tomorrow night where we will be inviting some friends to come and enjoy.

We're most excited by the fact that the blacklight aspect of it will (should be) a surprise.  Our intention is to bring everyone to the basement for the show while all the standard lights are lit.  Once everyone has seen all the works and asked all their questions, we'll explain that there is another part of the show and ask them all to close their eyes.  We'll quickly turn off the main lights and turn on the blacklights.  I expect the reveal to be quite exciting.

I have to say that this is the most fun that I've had doing art with my kids.  I couldn't stop myself from exploring my own ideas for playing with blacklight and art materials.  Because of that, half of the works on the walls are mine.

If everyone is game, I plan on then getting the attendees to create their own art.

So let me get to the knitty-gritty details of the process.

• I started the whole process by visiting a local hardware store and buying some blacklight bulbs.  I learned my first lesson there.  Although the incandescent blacklight light bulbs are cheaper and labeled "blacklight", they do not cause items to fluoresce.  You need to spend the extra $2 to get the CFL blacklight bulbs.  When I discovered the first kind don't work, I did a bit of research, and found that florescent lights work best for blacklight, so CFL's fit the bill perfectly AND fit in standard lightbulb sockets!
• Next, I tried a bulb and looked around my craft supply to discover what items glowed. It was a lot of fun to discover what takes on a new look under blacklight.  I found out that various papers I already had glowed, as well as standard copy paper.  Some other supplies worked as well.
• This was a great excuse to visit an office supply store and get a few things.  Sharpie has come out with some new neon markers that state that they glow under blacklight.  With a bit of testing on various papers, we were able to find a paper that doesn't glow (white copy paper doesn't work like that) but doesn't absorb the ink so much that the ink doesn't glow (construction paper has this problem).
• A huge part of the fun of this project was testing things.  We got neon tempra paints and had to test them on various papers to see which papers made the paint glow best.

Here are some of the works to share with you, along with comments:

 

Special neon tempra paints

You can see which colored pencils glow!!!

I noticed during my blacklight sweep that some of the pom-pons glow, too!

The special neon glow Sharpies

Standard white copy paper takes on a ghostly glow

Here is a wide-angle view of the main part of the exhibit. Note the cursive alphabet made of neon yarn glued so a long strip of easel paper.

I discovered that some white thread glows under blacklight, hence my idea to make this "lace star" from pins, thread, and a yoghurt lid.

This is made of cut-out bright copy paper

Cut out shapes from the neon copy paper made for fun 3D creations

Even some colored feathers from the craft store glow under blacklight - an inspiration for this flamingo

 

I imagine that we'll have another showing which will include art from my eldest (who will likely want to play around with the effects of blacklight)!!!

sheep and wool festival

As my Mother's Day gift from my husband, I got the afternoon to myself at the New Hampshire Sheep & Wool Festival!

With a bit of cash from my local ATM and a charged battery in my camera, I went off to the festival.

I tried my hardest, before leaving, to look through my Ravelry favorites to find one or two projects I want to work on but need yarn for.  And I ended up getting yarn without any specific pattern in mind.  So we'll have to see what comes of it.

I wasn't able to get any good photos of the sheep - the natural lighting was too low and they were moving, so all my photos turned out fuzzy.  But there was a sweet alpaca with long lashes that I got some nice shots of. 

And am I mistaken in thinking that neon is making a comeback in yarn?!?

I can't wait to get some of the yarn on my needles so I can share a project with you.

a perfect day for pottery

 

Today, we visited a friend and former teacher of my husband's for a private pottery session with my kids!  What a wonderful time we had!  Spring was definitely in the air, the sun was shining, and the pottery studio had such wonderful light streaming through the windows.  My youngest and I spent most of our time walking the property, looking at the stream and the dog while my two oldest learned how to work with clay to make decorated flower pots.

I have a soft spot in my heart for pottery.  I've always been drawn to it.  I wish I had taken a class in high school (with my English teacher).  On the first trip my husband and I took together, while dating, we visited all the pottery shops we could find in Cape Cod.  What fond memories.

And now the girls will learn a bit of patience, as they wait for the time to come for their pieces to be fired.  That'll be in a few weeks.

 

I won't be posting tomorrow, but will be here on Friday for my {this moment}...

the fantastical zoo

Before my third child arrived, one of the projects I had my girls work on were books for the new baby.  It was a way to get them excited about their future sibling, and get a bit of writing/spelling/drawing in as well.

Ever since I stumbled across this blog post at Angry Chicken (one of my favorite bloggers - I love the ideas she shares about homeschooling her girls), I've made these blank books SOOOO often.  And now, with all the different colors and patterns of Duck Tape, you can really make them cool looking!  These are the "go to" books not only for sketching in our house, but also when the girls want to write out a storybook.

Each girl got to pick their own theme for the baby's book.  My eldest went with a more pedestrian ABCs and 123s book.  My middle child, however, decided she wanted to draw pictures for a zoo book.  But not any zoo book.  Her book's title is "Monkeys at the Zoo", but it would be more aptly titled "The Most Fantastical Zoo"... and I'll share with you why...

First, an explanation - this book was only half completed prior to the birth of my third daughter.  That daughter just recently discovered it in our bookshelf and has been bringing it to us to read to her.  This  inspired my middle child to finish the book, filling in the blank pages she had previous left at the end of the book.

You can see if starts very normal.  If I recall correctly, in Phase I of the book, she wanted nothing to do with spelling the names of the animals, and wanted me to draw many of the pictures, which she then colored in herself.  Can you tell which of the two above I drew?

You can also see that, in Phase I, she had the patience to include color in her drawings...

In case you can't tell what these two animals are, that is a flamingo on the left and a penguin on the right.  The names are hidden under the baby's arm!

All animals you would see at a normal zoo, right?  Well, wait and see what is around the next corner!

Oh, here is Phase II.  Still normal zoo animals, and a bit of color - oh, and she's fine with spelling her own animal names now- but wait...

Here is your first hint that this is no normal zoo.  Yes, we've trapped Tinkerbell here at this zoo, for your viewing pleasure!  But there is more!

Yes, we have ZOMBIES!  And centaurs!  Don't worry, they're in their cages.  You'll be safe.  We just fed the zombies, that's why you see the blood dripping off of the vampire-looking fangs!

We have dragons, too!!!

And Excalibur!  Never mind that Excalibur isn't actually an animal.  It's cool!

We have Bigfoot, too.  And a pregnant Pegasus (the arrow is there to draw attention to the fetal Pegasus in the belly).  I think the Bigfoot was included because my daughter knows how much my husband loves Bigfoot. 

And what zoo would be complete without a mermaid, right?

I wonder what my youngest will think when we take her to an actual zoo.  Once she has learned to talk, I can just imagine her asking where to mermaids are... and we have this wonderful book to thank for that!

easter diorama

While looking for a spring-themed craft project for my girls, I stumbled across this activity on Rhythm of the Home.  I've done paper mache with my girls before, and it was always a huge mess.  Did I really want to start a project like this without the ability to go outside and do it (I can't see anyone being happy doing paper mache in the snow!)?

I somehow screwed up the courage to give it a try, and I'm so glad that I did.  It's even given me an idea for another project that I may try (maybe more on that later, if that project is successful!).

My three year old package of colored tissue paper I wanted to use for the project was M.I.A. from the move (and all the good colors used up anyway), so I splurged and got another package, along with some 12" balloons.

I couldn't believe how excited the girls were at the prospect of this project.  I feared that they wouldn't have the patience for a multi-day project... but their enthusiasm carried through to the very end of the project.  And here are pictures from the project:

The finished projects... so hard to take a great pictures of diorama's and see the insides well!

Each of my girls got to pick out their own selection of tissue colors...

We cut them quickly into various sized squares using a matt and rotary cutter.

Just starting with painting the tissues onto the balloons...

More painting... it worked so much better than dipping the tissue paper.

Layer one complete and drying

Quite a lot of paste on this one!!!

The best way we discovered to dry the balloons - hanging them!

Once the eggs were dry and the holes cut, we put down a base of moss for grass.

My youngest wanted a cloud in her diorama... I think this one turned out really nice

We made trees out of felt sewn into a tube, stuffed, then with toothpicks on the bottom to act as anchors.

That girl is lying in the grass looking up at the cloud in the sky

 

 

Lessons Learned:

• Definitely use the petroleum/non-petroleum jelly on your balloon.  It really does help it to not stick to the tissue once you pop the balloon.  When we popped our first balloon, a tiny bit of it stuck and it sucked in the balloon.  After much horror on the part of my eldest, I was able to calm her down, cut the hole in the egg, and push the side back into place.
• Do NOT follow the instructions for dipping the tissue in the paste and placing on the balloon.  I can't believe that even worked for the author.  As soon as we dipped the tissue, it disintegrated.  It was a mess... I had to quickly think of another option.  What I found was that placing the tissue on the balloon (which is sticky from the jelly), then painting over it with a brush and the paste works like a charm.  Once you get to the second layer, if you're placing tissue on a part of the balloon without any wetness, use your brush to swipe a quick bit of paste, then stick your tissue and paint over it.
• Our balloons were naturally "egg shaped", so we left the hole at the top where the balloon knot was, carefully pasting tissue right up to the edge of the knot.  This allowed us to hang the balloons to dry.
• Definitely hang your balloons to dry.  We found on our initial layer that the tissue stuck to the bowl we had the balloons sitting on and caused rips.  The hanging solution we came up with solved the problem.
• One of our balloons burst through the tissue.  We're not exactly sure what happened.  I think that the temperature must have increase, causing the balloon to expand and burst through the tissue.  If this happens, just whip up a bit more paste and put on a few more layers of tissue.
• The instructions call for two layers, but I think three may be even sturdier.  Don't forget that this is tissue.  It is definitely a lot more fragile than paper mache created with newsprint!

Dollmaking ... with Children

It might be more appropriate to call this "down-n-dirty" dollmaking.

A collection of most of the handmade dolls/toys from our house (all of the toys/dolls made by me unless otherwise noted).  From left to right: a doll made using the general pattern for the Topsy Turvy doll from Hillary Lang's Wee Wonderfuls book (taking off the extra head and free-handing the lower body and legs), a Waldorf-inspired doll, another Hillary Lang creation from Wee Wonderfuls: Evelyn Inchworm, a doll-in-a-box creation my daughter made (insisting on creating her own dress rather than using the fabric/dress that came with the doll), a gorgeous brown-haired beauty from Bamboletta (definitely not made by me), a doll entirely designed and sewn by my eldest (in the lavendar), a "dot" doll (again designed and sewn entirely by my eldest - basically made by taking old underwear, drawing a face on it with fabric markers and sewing in a circle), another topsy turvy doll (this time made under the direction of my middle daugther), another Waldorf-inspired doll (this time with red hair), and a llama (with pattern from Sew Kawaii!).

Except for the inchworm and the llama, even the dolls sewn/created by me were strongly influenced by preferences from my daughters.  There were many decisions made that I would not have chosen if the entire creative process had been up to me.

Both my oldest girls love dolls and stuffed animals - in particular, my eldest.  Anything that is small and cuddly.  Most especially if it has large eyes.

I don't recall in my childhood being quite as much a fanatic as they are about stuffed toys.  Though I do have funny memories of sharing a bed with my sister and not having room for myself since she had to bring ALL of her stuffed animals and dolls to bed with her.  I even fell out of the bed once because the toys pushed me out.

It is with an uncanny similarity to my sister that my eldest loves to design and make her own dolls and toys.

And the cool thing is, both she and her younger sister ALWAYS have very specific ideas about what they want.  At times, that can stress me out and frustrate me.  It often runs counter to the vision I have for the toy.  Or I believe some of their "requirements" to be impossible to implement.  It is at those times when I remind myself to "let go" and allow as much freedom as I can to my girls and their visions.  I use these times as opportunities to discuss why I think their idea may not be possible, but talk through alternatives that would work just as well.

For example, the left most doll above, with the black hair:  my eldest decided how she wanted the hair to look.  She wanted it long, with bangs, and thick.  I had made the hair by looping it around a book, then cutting off one end.  This left me with loops on the other.  I thought that would be a cool look for the bangs.  But my daughter wanted them cut.  I knew they would stick up (a look I would not have wanted, had it been my doll).  I explained what I thought would happen.  But she insisted.  So cut them we did, and she loves the sticking-up bangs.

She also drew a picture for me of how she wanted the eyes to look.  I would have done far less detailed eyes, more in keeping with the vibe of the Wee Wonderfuls book.  But once I had finished embroidering the eyes, I was impressed with how nice they looked.  Chalk another one up for my daughter's vision.  The shape of the nose and the mouth were also entirely her design.

I'm constantly surprised at how many of their ideas I'm able to successfully translate into reality (sometimes with their help, sometimes just with their guidance as I do sewing tasks a bit too complicated for young hands) - a reality they always seem to be happy with.

Just looking at those dolls they have designed and created reminds me to trust in the instincts my girls have and to try to have as much patience with the process as I can.  The end results are always better that way.

Library Leprechaun

I started a tradition (last year, in fact) of making and gifting a leprechaun to my local library - right around St. Patrick's Day.

I did this in New York where I used to live, and wanted to do this again for my local library here in New Hampshire.  Here is the leprechaun I made last year:

As you can see, I wanted to make a girl leprechaun this year.  And I'm quite happy with how she turned out.  I'm particularly fond of the curly red hair!  And if you look very closely, you might just see a few freckles.

I learned how to make these leprechauns/fairies from Felt Wee Folk by Salley Mavor.  And I was introduced to her through this post on Progressive Pioneer from a few years back.

Of course, the girls helped with the process... their favorite task being the taking-apart of the silk flowers.  Our table got quite messy with all the petals, and pipe cleaners, and embroidery floss, and yarns, and wool.  And the girls each made their own leprechauns/fairies... with my help to paint the faces and glue the hair on.

Another fairy we made long ago that enjoys sitting on windowsills!

The fairies are so much fun to make.  Such a favorite with my girls... I really need to make these more often!

Clothes for Barbie

I have a dislike-hate relationship with Barbie.  I had sworn to myself that my girls would get Barbies.  However, I neglected to have the grandparents swear that same oath... And soon, after Christmas and birthdays, Barbies filled our house - all in various states of undress (because who wants to keep Barbies looking neat and tidy?  It is best to take out their nice hairdos, lose their shoes and take off all their clothes).

Because of my dislike of them, I never made a big deal over how poorly they were treated.  You want to practice cutting hair on your Barbie?  Sure, go ahead!

Without really realizing it, the Barbie phase passed.  It has really been over a year since I've seen my girls play with their Barbies.  They are still here - at the bottom of toychests and drawers.

And it was just the other day that one of those undressed Barbies made an appearance... quite by luck, for her.

I was working on a set of cloth hankies with some nice flannel fabric when my middle child asked if she could have a scrap - to make a dress for her American Girl doll.  After two attempts at drawing the dress pattern on her scrap of fabric, and two reminders from me that fabric isn't quite like paper and we should be a bit more careful when using it, she drew a dress on a scrap of fabric that she wanted to direct me to sew.

Now, from the drawing on the fabric, I KNEW it would not fit her American Girl doll.  But I kept my mouth shut.  I wanted to see if and when she would recognize that fact.  She asked me to cut it out, and told me exactly how to sew it shut (seams on the outside, stitch up the side and around the puff sleeves, leaving openings for the arms and head - though I did have to ask how the arms would get out the sleeves before she remembered about the arm holes!).

As it was, the realization of the size discrepancy didn't happen until I had unsuccessfully tried to pull the dress up over one of the doll's legs (it wouldn't even fit over a leg!).  I had to cut a slit down the back of the dress to try to make it fit... then enlarge the slit to try it make it fit again.  When my daughter still didn't grasp that it won't fit her American Girl doll, I showed her how it was too tiny to fit and suggested she find one of her Barbies - because I thought it would fit a Barbie better.

After some prolonged digging and searching, a Barbie was found.  We discovered that we had to cut the slit even further to fit over those large hips of hers - and even then, it wouldn't close over her bottom!  A bit of ribbon around the waist to keep it in place, and it actually wasn't too bad of a dress (for being designed by a 5-year-old).

Looking back at the experience, I'm glad I held my tongue as I did.  It gave her the freedom to experiment and learn from the process herself rather than having me direct the project towards my own goals of perfection.  And I ended up being surprised by how well it turned out and because she was in charge of it, she stuck with the project until it was completed.

My Wonderful Consignment Store Find

Quite a while back, I checked out Playful Learning: Develop Your Child's Sense of Joy and Wonder from the library.  I have to admit that the main thing that stuck with me from the book was the cover photograph of a wonderfully organized art basket.

My kids were never able to keep their pens and pencils quite so organized.  If only I had a basket like that to organize their art supplies.

So I kept that in the back of my mind... always looking wherever I went from a substitute.  I wasn't able to find what I was looking for - even online.

And a short while ago, I stumbled across what I thought was a perfect substitute basket at a local consignment store.  Think of my astonishment when I came home and looked at the cover to the book - only to discover it was the exact same basket as in the picture!

My girls have been using this basket for a few weeks now and I have to say, this is the most organized my girls have kept their art supplies.  They always know where they are.  It is very easy to keep picked up and to tote around the house to find that perfect spot for drawing or coloring.  Rather than putting paper/stickers and such in the large section, I took three plastic containers I had from some store-bought pesto.  They fit perfectly into the large section, and allow us to divide our colored pencil collection into warm colors, cool colors, and white/black/brown colors. 

 

Now that I've seen it up close, I know this is a utensil caddy, normally used for silverware and napkins... and have since found various alternatives online.  What a difference the correct keywords make when you're doing online searches!

VERY Last Minute Valentines ... for my girls

 

 

Who knew that my girls would be heartbroken that their Mama didn't make them any valentines?

When we were making my Last Minute Valentines the other day, I made only one myself, for my husband.  I told the girls then that I wouldn't be making them any valentines.  They seemed OK with that at the time.  But today, all I saw were sad faces.

Because we homeschool, they didn't have a classroom of kids they were going to receive valentines from, and they felt that the day wasn't being celebrated enough.

So, I had to get my "craft" on.  I had to come up with something quick and dirty that would be loved by them... and my solution?

Stuffed hearts with embroidered words on them.  I know my girls.  They both love anything that is soft and stuffed.  And I was happy to see that they were both extremely excited to receive these valentines.  If I had had more than 10 minutes planning to make these, I might have tried to stuff them with a bit of lavendar so they smelled nice.  Let's not even talk about the horrific embroidery I did on these (totally freehanded, so not evenly spaced or anything - very homemade!).

But the speed at which I whipped these up didn't seem to diminish the amount of love my girls have for these.  And I had all the supplies on hand (fuzzy red knit fabric, red felt, white embroidery floss, stuffing).

Who knew?

Last Minute Valentines

I just realized that Valentine's Day is in just a couple of days.

Because I homeschool, I don't have the stress and pressure of sending my girls to school with valentines for their whole class.  Nor do I have to worry about the candy/no candy decision.

But I do like to use it as an opportunity to make some homemade, hand-crafted valentines for family and close friends.

We started by each making a list of those people important enough to get a valentine from us.  Then, I took a collection of white and pink paper, folded in half, and cut out various sizes of hearts.  While the hearts were folded, I took a paper punch (or for my eldest, she did this herself) and punched holes all around the outside of the heart.

The girls then got to choose between red, pink or white yarn to lace through the holes.  Tie a pretty bow at the top, add maybe some glitter glue, possibly another smaller heart glued to the center - then it is just a personalized message and you have a wonderful valentine card!

The girls had so much fun making these.  The hardest part is waiting for that darn glitter glue to dry!  Easy-peasy!

 

Lessons Learned:

• When the heart is folded and you are punching the holes, make sure to punch an odd number of holes.  That will ensure that the next step will make your strings come out at the front of the Valentine for tying the bow.
• Start threading at the bottom of the heart, ensuring that the string passes to the back of the Valentine between the two bottom most holes.  Then lace up each side to the top holes and you'll find the string comes out on front where you can tie a bow.

A Birthday Gift for My Youngest

Less than a year ago, when my youngest was only three months old, Amanda over at SouleMama posted about this wonderful birthday book she made her youngest in celebration of her first birthday.  I promptly saved this idea away in the back of my mind with a promise to myself that I would make such a book for my daughter's first birthday.

I just LOVE the idea of making a personalized baby book ... one where the child gets to see her pet cat when learning the word cat or her daddy when learning the word daddy.  And I love even more that it is a fabric book that can be sucked on and chewed (this one is a veteran book-chewer!).

Here is my selection of fabrics:

As is normally the case, I waited until the VERY last minute to make this.  Less than a week away, I finalized my fabric choices.  The photographing, photo selection, printing, and sewing was all left to stolen moments during the final days before the celebration.  The snowpacolypse gave me an excuse to ignore my other responsibilities and get this finished on time, though admittedly, I was putting the finishing touches on it the morning of her birthday!

I had so much fun working on this project, and it came together quite easily.  I used a baby board book we already have (and like the size of) for general dimensions.  I decided to only use batting on the cover as I felt it would have made the entire project too thick to close properly, and I'm happy I did that.

 

Lessons learned from this project:

• It would be so much easier to cut everything out evenly if I had a cutting mat and rotary cutter.  I've never used one of these before, but lifting the fabric with the scissors (especially if it isn't pinned down to the pattern or whatever else I'm cutting) doesn't leave a straight edge.
• When working with Stitch Witchery:
  1. Don't use your ironing board as a cutting board
  2. If you do, make sure to clean up any tiny scraps of witchery before you iron anything, and
  3. Make sure your large piece of stitch witchery isn't anywhere close to the iron
• The print-on fabric was really nice, but frayed at the edges.  The iron-on transferred (ironed on to white fabric) where perfect for the wording.  I can't decide which I like for the photos, but do not, under any circumstances, iron over the iron-on pictures unless you have them covered first with parchment paper!!!
• A jeans needles in your machine works great for stitching all the pages of the book together.
• Look closely at the notions aisle AFTER you have found your fabrics.  I would have used more rickrack and ribbon around some of the interior photos if I had more on hand that matched my fabrics!

My Baby's Birthday Crown

My fingers have been busy as of late, crafting for an upcoming birthday - my baby's first birthday. 

I made my middle child a felt birthday crown a few years ago and wanted to do the same for my youngest.  At that time, I asked my eldest if she also wanted a birthday crown, but she seems to have outgrown that stage, meaning she will never get a crown of her own. 

While that makes me sad, I was able to celebrate her last birthday in a homemade way by creating a family birthday banner - to be brought out at each of our birthdays in celebration of the day. A visit to my local fabric store to grab a handful of fat quarters and double-fold bias tape gave me the ingredients I needed for creating it and I'm SO happy with how it turned out. If anyone is interested in how I did any part of it, I'd be happy to answer any questions!

But that isn't what I'm here to talk about.  I'm here to talk about the birthday crown I've made for my youngest. There is so much inspiration for felt birthday crowns out on the internet. I'll admit that I originally got the idea here from my favorite blogger, SouleMama.

I love working with felt. It is so easy to sew and so forgiving. I was inspired by my own Christmas stocking creations to applique my daughter's name on the crown. I free-hand pencil the letters on the felt and then cut them out with small scissors. My artist husband always compliments me on my felt letters, which makes me smile inside.

I had my middle-child's crown to use as a template but decided to construct this one a bit differently.  I used three main pieces of felt: a full-sized outside "background" piece, a full-sized inside piece, and a smaller middle piece that's the same color as the lining.  I started by appliquing the name on the smaller piece. I then stitched the flowers to the larger front piece. I created a fabric tube to cover the elastic and then stitched around the outer edge of the crown, joining front to back and catching the elastic and casing between the two, while at the same time sewing down the ribbon trim around the edge.

The one thing I didn't like about my middle child's crown was that when I made it, it was too big (even with the elastic) for her head, but it doesn't fit my eldest, even with the elastic - so it wasn't adjustable enough, even with the elastic.  This time, I came up with a solution: I used some buttonhole elastic that I have for a batch of cloth diapers I'll be making soon.  I put a buttonhole in the back layer of the crown felt (to hide the tail of the buttonhole elastic) and stitched a button to the outside of the hole (for buttoning the elastic to).  I did this before stitching the back felt to the front felt (so all my stitches didn't come through to the front of the crown).  I added a buttonhole to the fabric elastic sleeve so the buttonhole elastic can exit the band.

I love how the crown turned out and it should fit my little girl until she's outgrown wanting to wear it. As with all things you do by hand, there are always some lessons learned, and those are in particular what I want to share with you (maybe if you're reading this and decide you want to make your own crowns, you'll be able to avoid some of the problems I ran across because I shared them with you):

• I would have sewn the front to back excluding the little pom pon trim, and then gone back and hand stitched the trim in place.  As it was, I thought I could stitch it on with a zipper foot, but even that wasn't thin enough to avoid having the foot catch the pom pons and have me sew too close to the edge of the felt.  I had to go back and hand-sew the front-back together in some places because of this and it doesn't look at "finished" as I would have liked it because of that.  Also, if I had hand-stitched the trim, I could have had more control over how well the trim turned the corners at the crown points.
  
  
  
• The ribbon that I sewed to the bottom of the crown - I forgot that I should have left a bit extra and folded it under to create a nice edge alone the sides (rather than what I did was to clip it off at the edge, exposing the rough edge of the ribbon)
  
  
  

A 70's Quilt ... Unfinished

Quilts seem to be the theme of my life right now.  On the same day that a quilt came for me in the mail from my Grandma, my father-in-law stopped by to give me an unfinished quilt that my mother-in-law had started making at one point.

My mother-in-law passed away over three years ago... so I can't ask her about it.  In asking my husband if he recognized any fabric in the quilt, he pointed out some flannel that he remembers as being a pair of pajamas he used to wear.

The other stuff, as you can see, is quite 70s!  While this isn't really "my style", the fact that it was made by my mother-in-law makes it special to me.  I plan on finishing it and using it as a picnic blanket.  Though I'm not quite sure what I should use as the backing?  Plain muslin?  Some other basic color, and if so, which?  Any suggestions?

I've never finished a full-sized quilt, so I'm not quite sure how to do it, but hopefully, with a bit of help from Google, will be able to figure it out.

Baby Grab Ball ... a Christmas Gift

So, I had gone to a craft fair held at a local Waldorf school and I saw someone selling a toy I remember from my own childhood - a fabric baby grab ball.  I thought to myself, "I can do that!" - and promised myself to make one of these for my youngest as a Christmas gift.

A bit of searching on the internet led me to this pattern.  As you can see from my photo, I chose not to use felt for this project, so when sewing it, I did standard stitching with a tight 1/4" seam allowance and then turned it inside out and stuffed.  I also opted to make it into a puzzle ball - so that my older children would find it interesting (and I seem to recall the ball from my childhood being a puzzle ball).

I particularly enjoy that I chose a quilt-weight cotton for the outside pieces of the ball and corduroy for the inside pieces.  The different textures of fabric give it just a nice feel on the hands.

It isn't easy for me to sew without everyone in the house knowing what I'm working on.  Given that this gift was for my littlest, I didn't figure it would matter.  It turned out that prior to getting the ball as a gift for Christmas, my littlest gave it a dry-run and absolutely loved it.  I loved that it was a hit.  And if I'm looking for a reasonably easy homemade gift to give at a 1st birthday, I think I'll pull this pattern out and use it again.

A Part of My History ... in Fabric

My dearest Grandma just sent me something most precious in the mail... a quilt.  And not just any quilt.  This was a quilt created by many women as a wedding shower gift for a great-grand aunt of mine.  The quilt has blocks created by my Grandma, her two sisters, and her mother.  And it even comes with a book that the women made to tell the story of the quilt-making and includes some precious well-wishes for the new bride-to-be.

I can't believe what a treasure I have been given.

In speaking with my Grandma about the quilt, she says that she remembers scraps of dresses that she wore when she was a child that were used in the quilt.  I can't think of anything more precious than to have this for my family.

Do women even do this anymore for each other?  What a time it must have been when the community would come together to make such a beautiful gift of friendship for one of their own.

Homemade Gift ... Turtleneck Cowl

So, I have a dear friend that I wanted to make a gift for.  Something thoughtful, but that wasn't too expensive or that wouldn't take too much time. 

I recently knit this cowl for myself and was thinking of ideas for what would make the perfect cowl.

My idea was to create something that was reminiscent of a bulky turtleneck sweater, only without the sweater part.

This is what I came up with (as modeled by one of my kids).

Oh my, I can't tell you how much I love it.  Thick and warm ... it looks great peeking out of a winter coat.  I packed this one up to send to my friend with a promise to myself to cast on immediately for one for me!

Homemade Gifts from the Children

Traditionally, my kids make gifts for those family and friends that they want to give something to.  And there was quite a bit of making this year!  I however missed capturing most of it on film.

Here, however, is one of the items.  My kids love to take fabric markers and draw dolls on white fabric.  We then cut out around the image, pick a piece of random fabric for the back, stitch it together and stuff it.  It's a very quick, simple and satisfying way to make dolls.  This "robot doll" was for a best friend.

My eldest had fun sculpting a cat from Sculpey - giving it unpainted as a project/gift for her best friend to paint.

We then made bookmarks (becoming a family tradition).  I have a simple Scotch laminator and was able to use this to take their art, laminate it, punch a hole in it and take two strings of yarn, twisting them together to make a nice string/tassel.  You can write on the back of the drawing/creation and put the year/date/etc and it shows through the back lamination.

We also took inspiration from these and these to make some Santa and Snowman Christmas ornaments (becoming another family gift tradition).

More Holiday Gifts ... Topsy Turvy Doll

I just LOVE Hillary Lang's book Wee Wonderfuls.  I forget how I found out about it, but luckily my local library had a copy.  So many cute dolls/toys to make.  The big question was, where to start!

I heard from my sister-in-law that my niece has just gotten old enough to be interested in playing with dolls, so I figured the Margot Topsy Turvy doll would be just perfect for her.

It took me quite a while to get this one started, and I ended up cutting it close (I spent 3 hours finishing the doll on Christmas Eve!), but it was definitely worth it.

I have fond memories of having a doll like this from my childhood.  The one I had was Little Red Riding Hood on one side and the Wolf dressed as Grandmother on the other.

I thought having a holiday theme for this doll would be nice, so I picked all fabrics that were festive.

The hardest part by far was sewing on the hair.  My fingers were sore afterward.  I luckily did a bit of surfing the web to see what others may have said about making this doll and found first that there were errata to the book pattern that I needed to download.  I then also found a comment that, when sewing on the hair, to be sure to have the yarn exit the head at the seam and enter the head in the middle (either at the part or where the bangs hit the forehead - I can no longer find the original comment).  I tried one strip of yarn the other way and it does indeed distort the shape of the head more.  I found in doing it the "correct" way, that any strangeness with the shape of the head can be nicely corrected.

I found myself using a ladder stitch to sew a lot together rather than using a whipstitch.  And I decided to sew on the collar of the dressed-up doll to leave it floppy (and I tacked it down in two places to prevent it from flapping up, but this way it looks like a real collar).

 You may also notice that, instead of sewing the sleeves to the body of the doll, I decided to hand topstitch them so they looked like real sleeves.  I'm happy with that decision.

If I had it to do again, I think I would do the hair a bit differently. When doing the back of the head, I would bring the yarn up on the other side of the seam so the seam is hidden underneath.  I think then, when you do the bangs, you wouldn't have to do as many (or any, for that matter) filling stitches.  If anyone tries that, please let me know how it works out.

Holiday Gifts... Christmas Stockings.

So this holiday season, while there were certainly a lot of gifts that were purchased and given, I had a few that I wanted to make.  The first was for some extended family that have a new child.

It is tradition in my family to have Christmas stockings.  And not just any stockings.  These must be handmade of red felt.  They must have big white letters on the front with the name of the stocking's owner.  They must have white felt fringe along the top of the stocking.  And they must have holiday images made of felt on the stocking.  Otherwise, the imagination is the limit for what images to place on the stocking.

My great-grandmother and her sister started this tradition.  I still remember my mother's stocking as a child. My grandmother was the one to make the stockings for me and my sister.  The first stocking I made was my sophomore year in college.  As a holiday craft activity, I got my roommates to sit down with me to make stockings to hang in front of the fireplace of our apartment.  I didn't make my next stocking until I was married and my husband and I bought our first house.  I made stockings for everyone who celebrated that Christmas with us that year.

It was years later when I was visiting a distant relative (the granddaughter of my great-grandmother's sister) that I saw that she had stockings exactly the same as my family's!

For this project, I had fun this time looking at Pinterest for some inspiration.  I searched for "felt Christmas decorations" to find items that would look good on the stockings.  I found some of my inspiration here, here and here.

I like to think that maybe someday I'll have grandkids that I can make these stockings for, and that future generations of mine will have these family stockings hanging by their firesides.