'Tis the Season to Be Felt-y

In all my busy-ness I had almost totally forgotten that I had some ornaments in another Lark book, this one called 'Tis the Season to Be Felt-y" by Kathy Sheldon and Amanda Carestio, those champions of fun felt projects.

I don't do a lot of felt sewing of this type any more but looking through the book made me want to rummage around in my supplies and set aside some quiet time to stitch.

There are lots of adorable and retro-inspired projects in this book but I was tasked with making something a little earthier and muted. Working with recycled garment wool that I dyed, I made little pears and a partridge to hang in the tree.

I'll be taking these little guys into the gift shop at work.

If you'd like a copy of the book, Amazon has it for a great price right now. (and if you choose The Crossing Arts Alliance as your charity for Amazon Smile, a wee fraction of a percent of your purchase price will go towards supporting the arts in my area. Thanks!)

Have a super day, all.

fit for a woodland princess

The holiday dress has been completed and I'm really happy with how it turned out.  You might remember that the dress started as this little gem I picked up at the thrift store:

Some tweaking later and this is what we have:

a dress that's perfect for my woodland princess.

I took off the lace, plastic pearls, and roses and added some wood buttons I made, a bit of embroidery, and the top...

...painted.

I stitched around the painted area and it looks like leather.  I doubt anyone would know it was painted unless I told them.  This was a situation of "use what you have".  I didn't trust my sewing skills to sew on a little bodice so I went with paint thinned with fabric medium.  Hey, it works.

I love it, and so does the girl.

Have a happy Saturday, everyone.

a mad cap :: Project Upcycle by Betz White

I hadn't heard of Craftsy, a site dedicated to crafty online classes and tutorials, until Betz White asked if I might like to participate in her Blog Tour.  You may already know that Betz is incredibly clever when it comes to creative re-use so how could I resist a chance to try my hand at one of her tutorials?  In her 'Project Upcycle' course, Betz covers the basics of the hunt and deconstruct, as it relates to finding good second-hand materials to work with, and walks us through the step by steps of five different projects.  I chose the "Mad Cap" project to work on, a versatile beret-type hat.  I wanted to make one for a dear friend of mine who loves berets, but I also couldn't resist making a smaller version for my youngest, Princess Poplar.

Even though I chose a wildly uncooperative acrylic weave to work with for my daughter's hat (that nearly gave me fits), I think it turned out pretty well.  She really likes it and I forsee many versions of this hat in her future. (with more cooperative fabric, of course)

I chose black wool coat fabric for my friend's hat and that was muuuuuch easier to work with.   I used a vintage pillowcase for the lining; cute, right?

What I loved about the Craftsy course was that I could watch the video at my own pace, ask questions of Betz (and read others' questions and Betz's responses), and add notes to myself at various points in the tutorial that I could refer to later.  The episode is really well-shot which I appreciated too.  You get a great view of the process, eliminating any of the "now what is she doing there?" questions.  What I loved about Betz was that she was completely down to earth and thorough in her teaching.  Even though I am sadly lacking in the machine-sewing skill department, I was able to make something cute.  That is no small feat, so thank you Betz, for making me a mad capper! 

If you'd like to take the course yourself, Betz is offering my readers $10 off!  Just click here. 

Check out the rest of the Project Upcycle Blog Tour:

Week of Oct 17th: The Long Thread
Week of Oct 24: Inspire Co.
Week of Nov 28: Daisy Janie 

Week of Dec 5th: Me!

Week of Dec 12th: While She Naps 

wordless Wednesday

Pillowcase Shopping Bags

A little something I made for myself recently...pillowcase shopping bags.  I found the wonderfully clear instructions on Spider Woman Knits, and being in need of some new bags, thought I'd give it a whirl.  I had a few vintage pillowcases in my fabric stash, so I dragged them out along with my long-neglected sewing machine and gave it a go.  I'm not an accomplished machine-sewist so my bags probably took me 30 minutes, instead of the 15 that it took Spider Woman.  Still, that's a pretty small investment. 

Each pillowcase is doubled so they're quite sturdy, and the straps are wide so they don't cut into your hand when you're carrying a heavy load.  I packed a few milk jugs into mine to see how they'd fare and they held the weight with ease. 

Garage sale season is upon us, and you should be able to pick up some pillowcases for a pittance.  I really liked that this tutorial uses all of the pillowcase...no scraps left over to add to the fabric stash.  Yay!  They'll wash up better than many of those store brand bags, too.  Double yay!  (besides who wants to advertise for some store when they're shopping, anyway?)

I think they'll be great for shopping, for hitting the farmer's market (does it bother anyone else that some of the farm stands hand out plastic bags?), for the beach, or even as a diaper bag.  I'd love it if you'd let me know if you make one.  Spider Woman even has a Flickr group set up for showing off your bags, here.  So give it a try!

Pinecones!

I spent the past week working around the house, taking a break, and fiddling with making pinecones out of wool.  I wanted to mimic the shape of the cones we find from our jack pines.  It took a bit of tweaking, but I finally got something that comes pretty close.  I added a spray of "needles" too, for color.  They're not exactly like pine needles of course, but I thought they brought to mind that piney look.

I used felted coat wool for these and the thickness was just right.  I have a few in the works in different colors and hope to have pics soon.

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start.  I feel a little bit rested (yay!) and look forward to sharing some new stuff with you this week.

Working on the weekend

I spent some time this morning organizing the studio area. It's been largely unusable since this spring's floodings. My work tables were piled high with materials of every imagineable type in an effort to save them from the water so I've been doing all of my working in the living area of the house (much to my hubby's chagrin). I got down there early today and started to make it a usable space again and I can't wait until it's finished.

As a reward for my hard work, I treated myself to some sewing time and some of hubby's fresh from the oven soft pretzels (with mustard, naturally). I'm working on some teeny owl brooches today out of felted wool sweater material. They're each about 2" tall and have little vintage mother of pearl buttons for eyes.

What are you working on today?

The challenge - completed

It's been a week since I challenged myself to make some quiet time for sewing. I'm pleased to announce that I consider my week a success. Not only did I make the 6 each day, but managed a few extra too. Granted, I didn't always get to sew in quiet but that's to be expected with three rowdy kids running around. It did feel really nice to accomplish a goal, however small. So here's a visual round-up of my efforts.

Whirlwind

Whew! It's been a while since I've checked in here on my little blog. Seems the past month has been a blur of activity. I've been busy preparing for my biggest craft show of the year, No Coast Craft-o-Rama in Minneapolis on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, as well as finishing up some custom orders, trying to keep my etsy shop decently stocked, chasing the kids...etc. Then wham! Sickness in the house and my efforts were thwarted. We're all healthy again and I'm sewing my little fingers off. Yay! I've been working on a large order of birds, but had also been asked to create some owl ornaments. I'm glad that request came up, because I think they turned out nicely. I have a few new ideas in my head that I'm looking forward to working on too once it quiets down a bit.

I'll check in here more often, I promise, so please check back.

Enjoy your day!

Clutter

Oh the disorganization. Oh! Since the move to the new house, it's been a struggle to find everything in the mounds of boxes, still to be unpacked. My studio is built, but filled with said boxes so I am forced to craft, paint, and serve dinner on the kitchen table. The aftermath is a scratched up, painted up, cluttered kitchen table. What's worse is that I've begun the "spread". Craft supplies are creeping into the computer room, to the foot of our bed, my dresser, the bathroom (no joke, I have paintbrushes in the bathroom). So, it forces me to wonder if this disorganization is widespread amongst the artsy types. I'm hoping for a good excuse.

On the upside, amid all the clutter I was able to find some time to make some odds and ends. I have a plethora of wooden egg cups for my candles so I decided to paint some up and turn them into pincushions. I had read that if you put a tiny layer of super fine steel wool in them, it will help keep your needles sharp, so I added that. I think they turned out to be pretty cute. If you want to check them out, visit my shop, Lil Fish Studios, on Etsy.