Zhinka dinka doo

WIP: needle felting and Gertie update

Crafts are good for distracting oneself...

These little needle-felted wool felt motifs are destined to be decoration patches on felt needle books, end-of-year presents for Max's kindergarten teachers. After Max finishes the needle felting (he's been doing all of it), I'll trim them down a bit and attach them to the books.

Except for the danger of 5 super-sharp barbed needles going through a little finger—and that's a pretty big "except"—this is an fun activity for kids. I got the Clover needle felting tool and mat for Christmas, and after a 3-day frantic search through the house for it, it took us all of 30 seconds to get going. The Clover tool has a little safety cover that theoretically prevents one from puncturing one's body. In reality, we found many ways around this safety feature. Not because we were looking, but just because they came up. Ocassionally the cover would stay retracted and not come back down to cover the needles; disassembling and cleaning the unit seems to have helped. There's a "lock" position, but it very easily wiggles out of lock and into the open position. So we've stressed keeping fingers away and never testing whether it's locked or open on your hand.

The only problem we're having is that the felting tool leaves pretty big holes in the felt. Can you see them in the photo below? They're most obvious in the door and in the light felt to the lower right of the house.



I'm wondering if perhaps we poked more lightly (don't push the needles all the way in), maybe it would make smaller holes.  The felter says it has fine weight needles, so I wouldn't image that needle size is the problem. On the yellow flower I was able to sort of brush the top of the flower and make the holes less obvious.

Does anyone have experience with needle felting and can give me any tips on this?

Gertie update: I just talked with the vet, he said her blood tests show that she has hepatic lipidosis.  The infectious diseases panel showed no FLV, FIV, FIP, so that's good although it means they don't know what led to this problem.  She's on IV fluids and antibiotics, and he suggested either a feeding tube or home care with appetite stimulants, anti-nausea meds, and special foods.  I'd much rather try the less invasive technique, but not if she's so far along that any failure with this method would be Really Bad.  Unfortunately, the vet was unable to say if this was the case, I guess the blood test results are not that specific.  He could only say that her values were elevated, but not the worst he's seen.

So we're going to try home care first, to see if we can get her to eat with the extra pharmaceutical support.  I hope it's the right decision.

Flowers and chocolate

After buying a Michael Miller fat quarter bundle, in colors that are atypical for me, I wanted to try to use them. A bolt of milk chocolate colored linen jumped into my arms at the fabric store. The bolt claimed the color was "potting soil" and I can see that, but I like "milk chocolate" better. I combined them with some of the pinks from my fat quarter, and am really happy with how it turned out. I also squared the bottom on this bag, I think I like it better this way.

More pics on flickr.

Bags, bags, and more bags

I finally got back to sewing this week, out of necessity. I had promised Max's school's PTA that I would make a pair of tote bags to go along with a set of other stuff I was putting together for a silent auction. While I know that had I failed to finish these, that no one would have come after me, demanding a tote bag, I still felt it necessary to make good on my promise. So on Tuesday evening, just after dinner, I set to work sewingsewingsewing and finally finished the bags and bundling up the rest of the auction package at 2am.

The two on the left, the purple stars on white (it looks just white in the picture above) and stars on beige, are the ones I finished Tuesday and are for the auction. The one on the right (I call it "electric raindrops") was my test bag, finished a week ago. I liked the tote bags I had made before, but I wanted some sort of closure for the bag. I worked up this design, where the front pocket extends up and over the top of the bag and loops over a button on the back. The extra flap can be tucked inside the pocket if you don't want to close it. I like this design, I think it's more useful than an always-open tote bag.

Here's the reverse side of one of them:

They're lined in mattress ticking as usual, but I think I'll switch to coordinating fabrics instead, next time I make one.

I stuffed the bags with goodies from our local observatory (that's why the bags are star-themed). I really hope someone bids on these packages. I think that when I go to the event tomorrow night, I'll just avoid the table that these are on, it would be too hard for me to see them if they were being ignored.

The sewing bug is whispering in my ear

I really really want to get back to sewing. But for some reason, I really really can't. Because I can't sew, I did what any normal person would do and...bought fabric. Here's a fat quarter pack of Michael Miller's Ginger Blossom. I got it in part because the colors are not my usual colors and I'm trying to branch out.

And here's another fat quarter pack, this one is Hoffman's Kasuri Japanese Country, yukata-like fabrics. I've planned pen sleeves for some of these.

And these bright beauties. I got these during my "mental health" trip to the local quilt store. I didn't have any particular projects in mind, so I got colors I don't normally get. Except for the green, I always get green.

These 3 have an actual plan! I'm making more tote bags, 2 for a charity auction and one for a friend's birthday.

Figuring I needed to do something to jump-start my sewing, I decided to join in to Finny and Donk's Sew Along Challenge. They're using Simple Gifts to Stitch for project ideas. First up is a pintucked table runner, I like the sound of that. I'm thinking I don't need to buy more fabric for that, I should have stuff in the stash, but you never know (wink). My book came on Monday, so I can get going any second now. Yup, I could.

I'll now show you what I have been working on. Did you notice how this doesn't seem to be sewing-related? I decided I must have new hand-knit socks, so I'm working on these Jaywalkers, except I'm doing them toe-up. Getting to this point has been a huge challenge, although it doesn't seem like it should be. First, I learned how to do a short row toe. Then I perfected my short-row toe by re-knitting it about 5 times with different needle sizes and numbers of stitches. Although I usually am religious about gauge swatches, for some reason I decided it wasn't necessary. Several toes later, ones that fit only the cats, and I decided to swatch. Finally, something that fits my foot!

Oh, and since I'm photo-heavy on this post anyway, I'm going to throw one more in. My new dolphin case! It's a Clover case, they say to use it for accessories. I found it on clearance at JoAnn's. I'm using it to store my size 0 dpns and the yarn for my socks. Those toothpicks break so easily, I'm hoping this will keep them safe.

Firefighter

Wednesday, 1:10pm: Finally done! It looks pretty nice, I'm hoping it will get more use than just today.

Treasures of the forest elves

Update: Anamaria is offering to post a tutorial for her fabulous elf/Peter Pan hats!

"Last night, someone saw a bunch of elves in the woods around here. They heard them say that they knew there was a birthday party here today, and they were going to hide some presents in the woods for everyone to find. And they left us some clues, here's the first one..."

The birthday party yesterday was a lot of fun! (I can say that now after a good night's sleep.) We went on a treasure hunt as a group. Thanks to your suggestions, I had thought about various ways to keep the group together, such as cutting the picture clues up into pieces and having the kids put them together to figure out the clues, but after a last-minute surge in planned attendance, it seemed like there were just too many kids to do that with. Cutting an 8x10 picture into 26 pieces? Well, it could be done, but the image of 26 kids trying to put together a puzzle at the same time, that seemed like a bad idea. So instead, I just instructed the group that we were going to stay together, and that I was going to read out all the clues. This mostly worked, toward the end it got a little chaotic, but at least no one jumped ahead to the next clues. It was a bit frustrating for some of the kids because the two older kids kept on finding the treasures, so finally I had to ask them to hang back and let the other kids find the treasures.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to get a group photo of all the little elves. But here are a few photos of my little elf. First, the elf hat, idea and directions courtesy of the wonderful Anamaria.

I made them in heathered blue and forest green. In a variety of sizes, including a mama elf size. I added a ribbon loop to the top and pockets on the side flip-ups. And now, the post-treasure-hunt version. (My elf is playing with grandma right now, so I had to settle for just a flat-hat picture.)

To the hats we added long flowing ribbons, little bells on ribbon loops, bird pins, a feather, safety pins with beaded names, skeleton keys, and a necklace with a little dragonfly charm and a small bell.

This was followed by carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, made by Dad and frosted by Max and Grandma.

Today is Max's actual birthday, we'll celebrate again, much more quietly and much smaller scale. And tomorrow is his birthday party at school, so today we'll be making dairy-free, refined-sugar-free cupcakes. I hope they turn out ok, I've never made these kinds before, but these restrictions were requested by his teacher. I think I'm going to try this vegan chocolate cake recipe, but I might add an egg. Although it seems that it worked well for people without the egg, so maybe I'll just leave it out...

Weekend's work and play

Two more birthday parties this past weekend = more tote/book bag sewing! And I've finally managed to get a bit ahead of the birthdays, so there are two extra book bags for sale in the shop: the apples & pears one, and one of the chicken ones. If you mention that you came from my blog, I'll include free personalization, either by chunky letter beads on a ribbon tied around the handle, or by stamping onto twill tape and sewed onto the back of the bag!

One of the birthday parties this weekend had Vera the balloon lady (a local celebrity). What fun! She made balloon hats for almost everyone, children and adults. It was a game, you couldn't watch as she made the hat but could ask yes/no questions. And then you couldn't look at what was on your head until you guessed correctly. Some were pretty easy, she did those for the kids. For the adults, some were quite difficult. Like the martini (way to go, Eve!), the alien, and the devil/angel cross. Below is Max modeling his snake (he asked for something scary), dad's martian with ray gun, and my giraffe.

Slippers and Japanese translation help

Finally, the finished slippers on their intended victim beloved child:

(I don't know what's up with the hula hoop. It was spontaneous on his part. I like it.)

They are based loosely on these slippers from "For your little one, baby goods making". (See here for ISBN.)

Here's the book cover:

And speaking of Japanese craft books... I have a Japanese friend who is looking to do some translation work, and would be happy to help with translation of Japanese craft book articles. A lot of them are such that we can figure them out just by looking at the pictures, but occasionally I come across one that is beyond my ability to look at the pictures and understand what I'm supposed to do.

If you want any help with Japanese translation, contact my friend Chizuko at cy4cy4 AT hotmail DOT com. You can arrange something like scanning in the pattern you want translated and then emailing it to her. Or if it happens to be in one of my Japanese craft books, then you can skip the scanning part and I'll just give her my book to translate for you.

Birdie birthday bag

Do you remember this bag? The pajama bag? Although several people wrote and said they remembered pajama bags, or that they would use a pajama bag, I kept thinking it would work better as a purse or tote bag. So I added a strap and lining, and ta-da!

Finished in the nick of time (as usual), the intended recipient's birthday party is later this afternoon. I think it's probably a bit big for little kids, as it wraps halfway around Max's waist. We'll see how it goes over. You never know what kids will like. (At least *I* never know.) It'll come packed with a flower press too. Because I'm unable to give just a handmade item as a present.