A Bright and Bold Thank You...

I have been working on a pincushion for a dear friend. Last summer I had emergency surgery and this wonderful friend watched D#2 for my husband to come to the hospital and visit me. D#1 is plenty old enough to watch D#2, but don't you remember how "not fun" it was to watch your siblings, so this dear friend gave D#1 a nice break and watched the little one. During this 4 day hospital stay D#1 was wonderful, she took over a lot of the household duties.
Anyway, here's the fun pincushion that I made for her.

Above: She has such a wonderful and bright personality, I thought these fabrics just went with her personality.

Above: The pincushion is stuffed with fiber fill and fine sand. I love the thread catcher bag. It comes in so handy. I did not add the interior pocket. I used my interior pocket for my little snip scissors and one day I guess when I emptied the bag into the trash I mistakenly threw them away. Ever since then, I don't add the pocket, I wouldn't want that to happen to anybody else.

Above: close up of pincushion. I made the two woolen pins. One has a button glued to it.

Above: Here's the pattern incase you are interested.

Above: I have discovered these wonderful books illustrated by Salley Mavor. Just look at all the detail. She is an awesome fiber artist.

Above: The little boy is made from a wooden bead and pipe cleaners. She thread wraps all of the wire that you see. These books are such a visual treat.

Gotta go and finish the neighborhood newsletter....

Have a great day and do something fun today!!

Holly

Hoping to Blog Soon!

I might not have enough time to blog in the next few days. Sorry about the last couple of days. It is my turn again this month to write the neighborhood newsletter and that takes up a lot of my spare time. So, please don't give up on me, I will try my best to get something blogged today!
Hoping to blog soon,
Holly

Sticky Fingers....Part 2

Here he is all finished. I think that I need to add some kind of accessory for him. Maybe a basket full of mushrooms or a mushroom lantern? I must say, needle felting is very challenging. It is not really an instant craft, I believe that I am going to have to practice, a lot.

Above: Mouse and felt mushroom pincushion.

Above: Hedgehog (what little gnome is complete without a pet hedgehog?) and mushroom house sewing pins.

Above: close up. See the little wispies on his chin. I jabbed and jabbed and couldn't get those stray fibers to disappear.

I am enjoying this new craft. I actually have had the supplies to needle felt for a few years now, but just never had the desire to do it. It is not an expensive hobby. You only need the needles (use 50% off coupon at Hobby L), foam (I had some decor foam that had been in the closet for ages) and wool roving (50%off coupon at Hobby L).

Have a great day,

Holly

Sticky Fingers....Or Maybe Stuck Fingers?

Wanted to share with you today something that I am trying. Needle felting. It has been around for a long time, but has just recently taken off in the last few years. It is still a little hard to find the supplies locally, so if you are interested your best bet may be the internet. I have found most of the supplies at Hobby L-needles & wool roving -I am just using some decor foam for the foam base. The hardest thing to find is the core wool. You want to use core wool for the inside because the dyed wool is a little more expensive. Needle felting is just what it sounds like-punching the needle into the wool hundreds of times to get the desired shape that you want. I am so new to this that I only started needle felting yesterday for the first time. After many band aids and thousands of punches later I still feel like a newbie. It might be years before I get the hang of this, but I am not going to give up! The finished product is so cute that I am not going to give up (deja vu-think I said this about crocheting too-I can crochet "ok" now at least I can understand the instructions).

It is funny, in all the felting tutorials or helpful hints I have read they always say "Whatever you do, don't stick your finger. It hurts!!". Well, duh....you can't help but to get your finger stuck. Just like when you are pinning a pattern to fabric or sewing, you know you are eventually going to get stuck. But this needle hurts!! It has barbs on it to lock the fibers together. And you have to jab the wool to shape it. You turn yourself into a  slower version of a sewing machine. The motion of your hand and needle is up and down, just like a sewing machine. The more you jab the faster you get and then ouch, before you know it you have jabbed your finger ten times! Now you look around and all of your pretty white wool has droplets of red on it, oh well, maybe you can make a zombie teddy bear or some kind of other scary thing that is suppose to look like carnage. At least I bought the extra large bag of wool :)

Above: Here's the weapon of choice. You may not be able to see the microscopic barbs but trust me they are there.

Above: Here's the reason for my self mutilation. Aren't they just adorable. My hubby asked me "Why would you want to make sad looking mice?" Hmmm..not sure how to answer that one. I think they are just

coo-tee   pa-toot-ees. I did try and make my mouse more happy looking.

Above: Here's the body wrapped in wool and that cocoon looking thing is he head.

Above: Here he is all dressed in the little gnome outfit. He is rather small, see the thimble.

Above: See he is smiling. He has one of those smiles that makes your eyes disappear.

Above: His head is a little long to me. Maybe it will look better once his hat and eyes are in place. That is the correct size for his head. 1 1/2". Remember the mushroom pincushion, I made him to go with it. The only problem that I have with the little mouse is the fuzziness of his head. I am not sure if I jabbed him enough or maybe it is the nature of the wool that I am using. Anyway I will post a pic of him when he is all finished.

Bye for now and keep those hands busy,

Holly

Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad....Pincushion?

Still can't find the connecting cord to the camera. So today my pictures will be a little dark and a little out of focus.

I am making a Three Little Pigs pincushion, complete with house and three little pigs. The process of designing it was so much fun. I have a couple of more ideas that I would like to do in the future: Red Riding Hood, Humpty Dumpty, Goldilocks and the Three Bears just to name a few. The house was fun to make. I didn't really start out with a pattern. I first did a rough draft of what I wanted the front of the house to look like and went from there. Of course the house pincushion had to be the house that the smart little pig built. You know, the brick one. The straw house would have been cute too, but remember in the more PETA friendly version the two little pigs run to brothers house when the big bad wolf blows their houses down? So, I thought that the only fitting house would be the brick house. I haven't finished it yet, still working on it. Don't you think that a chimney with the wolf's head sticking out would be cute? Or I might just make a polymer clay sewing pin with the wolf's head on top.

Above: Here are some rough drawings of some pincushions that I would like to do. Sorry, you will have to turn your computer sideways to view. I could not get it to correct itself.

Above: One of the little pigs waving. This is usually how I start the process, mainly I do it this way because I love drawing :)

Above: Here's the smart little pig. D#2 called him "Collin".

Above: Another shot of him with flash on. Sorry pics look so horrible. The little point n shoot is great for outdoor shots. See how small he is, he fits into that little thimble. To the left of the door is his mailbox. Looks like a letter from Mom fell out.

Above: This little pig is missing his left arm and torso down-result of teasing the wolf  :(  JK- He is going in the window like on the drawing. His name is Wilbur-thanks to D#2. I haven't made pig #3 yet. But his name is Jasper and yes she named him also.

Above: Mushroom pincushion. A wee little gnome with live in this wee little house. I am going to put it on  wooden pedestal. Still a work in progress....

Above: This wee little hedgehog will go with the wee mushroom pincushion. I haven't decided what other pin to make. I like to include two pins with each pincushion. Why two? Well, one seems like not enough and three seems like too many. So two it is.

Above: velvet mouse on top of an Amish puzzle ball, or at least half of it. The box is  paper mache that I painted brown and then distressed with sandpaper. I then stained and sealed it. He still needs a tail, eyes and some vintage looking sewing pins for him to hold.

That's all that I have for today. Hopefully I will get the studio cleaned up and find that missing cord. 

i am going to try and get something posted for Prims n Pins ( http://www.primsnpins.blogspot.com/) tonight, so check back tomorrow and see if I did.

Take time tonight to read the Three Little Pigs (PETA's version) and take that sa-weet trip down memory lane,

Holly

Double Bummer.....Lost Camera Cord

So sorry that I have been really slacking on the blogging. I have lost my camera cord. It hooks the camera to the computer so that I can transfer pictures. Bummer. I have been working on some new stuff. Can't wait to show you.

Must get going, gotta find that missing cord! Come back tomorrow and if I haven't found it, I will use my old camera to upload some pictures of what I am working on,
Holly

March of the Snowmen...

Well...I'm back. Sorry for the little vacation from blogland. This past week I had to work on our neighborhood's newsletter. It was my month. You don't think it would take so long to write/edit, but it took me about 4 days solid to come up with it. I use Publisher and it is wonderful, but still takes me forever.
Since I was so busy this past week, I haven't really done anything crafty. I am going to show you a WIP (work in progress) that I love working on. It is a free applique quilt pattern from Bunny Hill Designs http://www.bunnyhilldesigns.com/ . It was free last year on her website, but it has since been take off (it is on the website for sale-very reasonable price). She offers one free applique quilt pattern a year and last month it was snowmen. The year before, I believe that it was baskets. /This year it is Henrietta the Squirrel in each block (it is under the free patterns tab). So cute and you can work at your own pace. There is one pattern a month and by the end of the year you have 12 (depending on her design) squares finished. I think that I am on #9 with three more to go. I had never, never done real applique before. Sure, I have done machine applique where you iron on fusible web, cut out the design, then iron it onto the background fabric and then go over it with the machine button hole stitch. It looks very pretty, but I wanted more of a challange and this was it! There are several methods of applique: needle turn, freezer paper, hand turn (you turn edges down with your fingers) and dryer sheet (must do more research on this one). I found the freezer paper to be the best fit for me. I throughly enjoyed this. I thought that it would be real difficult, but it wasn't at all.
Here's some picutures of my not so finished blocks:

Above: This was the first block that I attempted. I am not very happy with the wheels. They did not come out as round as I had wanted. Still have fnishing touches to put on him.

Above: I just love the little bird. He is holding a rope that I will be attaching buttons to.

Above: all embroidery stitches are back stitched.

Above: french knot eyes and satin stitch nose. If you look closely you can see the tiny applique stitches.  I tried to make each stitch only 2-3 fabric threads long. Super tiny, but easy to do.

Above Sweet little snowman. Almost all of the fabric I am using are from the French General line. The white is a Moda print.

Above: A snowman on a cupcake, can't get any better than that!

Above: The thread looks orange, but it is red.

Above: The silver thread used on the heart wand was difficult to use.

Above: His ear muffs are pieces of wool felt.

Above: Always wondered if snowmen skied.

Above: Even though these snowmen are just adorable, they kind of remind me of the mutant snowmen from Calvin and Hobbes.

I just love the quilt and can't wait until it is finished. I also love being able to work on it little by little. Maybe I will start on the Henrietta Squirrel soon. She would be so cute made out of wool and the rest of the square made from cotton fabric.

Must say goodnight and be sure to keep those little fingers busy and keep those creative juices flowing,

Holly