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.

Let's go for a walk

Here's another felt creation by Max. It's a walking doll, another pattern from this book. He did most of the stitching, and he drew on the face. Then he played with the doll non-stop until we had to leave. Notice that he's playing on the treehouse, the toy I've been hoping he'd play with for several years now. I guess he just needed a doll he made before he'd use it, and so we'll have to make another one for him!

You can see here a bit better how this doll walks. The pants are open at the top, you stick your fingers in to be the legs and start walking. The pattern called for the dress to be sewed closed and the legs to be attached to the back. I usually follow the pattern the first time I make something, as we did this time. But next time I would do the dress/pants differently, because I think having the legs stuck on the back looks a bit weird. I might make the dress more like this baby kimono, but with the cross-over opening in the back. Then the pants could be inside, but you could still put your fingers in to make legs. And when you weren't walking it around, it would look more like a doll.

Pink bird aloft

This is a felt bird made by Max for a friend's birthday. I suggested he might make something himself for a present, and he was very enthusiastic about it! Yay! He chose the pattern (from Felt Craft) and did almost all of the stitching.

They've been sewing quite a bit in his kindergarten class. At first it was just running stitch into pre-made holes, then without the holes, now recently they've moved to blanket stitch.

Magical cookie forest

Two days from today, Max's school will have their yearly Winter Faire. We're so excited! I'm the chair of the Magical Cookie Forest, where trees magically sprout cookies for children to gather and bring home. We've got the trees ready to be delivered tomorrow, about 500 cookies (made by dedicated parents who I managed to cajole) scheduled to be delivered, and many eager children ready to descend on the school grounds.

We will transform a small room into the cookie forest, complete with real trees and delicious cookies. The room doesn't have a door, so I thought it would be nice to create a curtain to hang in the doorway, to maintain the magic of the event. Rather than hang a plain curtain, I made these little felt cookie trees. They'll be tied to the curtain, and after Winter Faire will make an appearance on our tree too!

These are so quick and easy to make, I thought I'd give an overview, as there's plenty of time before the holidays to make up some wonderful-smelling cookies trees of your own!

Supplies:
-----------

Cinnamon ornaments (cinnamon, applesauce, nutmeg, cloves, small cookie cutters)

Fabric paint (the kind in the squirt bottle)

Green wool felt

White wool felt or cotton batting

Thread

* * * * * * * * *

Step 1: Make the cinnamon ornaments. I used the recipe here, recipe #3 with cloves and nutmeg. Mmmm, the smell is wonderful! I baked them in a 200F oven for about 2 hours to dry them quickly. This led to some of them curling up a bit, but that's ok. Then I sanded the rough edges with a nail file.

Step 2: Decorate ornaments, if desired. I used white puffy fabric paint in a little squeeze bottle. Very simple. Max got into it too.

Step 3: Cut out felt, 2 green trees and 1 white. The white can be a partial tree, as it's supposed to be the snow on the tree. For the templates, I simplified one from the Dec. 2007 MS Living, here's the link to the template, I used the largest tree. I used two green layers to give the tree enough stiffness, you don't want floppy trees! I tried both white felt and cotton batting. I like the feel of the cotton batting better, but it does hold its cinnamon crumbs a bit too well!

Step 4: Stack trees together and sew! If you used pen to outline your templates for the cutting line, then flip that piece of felt over so the pen lines don't show. You can put your "snow" in front, or in the middle of the two green pieces, or leave it out entirely. Do a blanket stitch or running stitch around the edges.

Step 5: Sew on ornaments once they've completely dried. Thread a needle with thick floss and sew through the tops to make a hanger. You're done!

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...