Placemats For my Sister

My sister has a collection of holly-shaped dishes that she brings out for Christmas. She really loves these dishes, so I decided to make her a set of quilted holly leaf placemats and two bunches of holly leaves; one for the center of the table and one for the sideboard. I picked out one holly-patterned fabric, two shades of green that were in the printed fabric, and red that also matched the red in the holly fabric (all are cotton broadcloth).  I then drew two slightly different holly leaf patterns out of big sheets of paper. After tracing the pattern onto the backs of the fabric and onto fusible fleece, I fused the fleece to the back sides of the top fabric.

I then sewed the fabrics together, turned, and quilted them to resemble the veins in leaves. After they were sewn I added yo-yo red "berries" near the stem of each leaf and the center of the two bunches of leaves.

My big score was finding the double-bowl (pictured above) in my sister's holly pattern in a thrift store a week or so before Christmas.

More in-law Gifts

I only made one of the gifts for my other sister-in-law, another set of coasters. These I liked so much that I was tempted to keep them for myself, but I thought that they would go perfectly in their home. Besides, I can always make another set to keep!

 Like the blue set, these are made by needle and wet felting wool. I started with the needle to get the rough shape, then wet-felting made them denser and smaller, then back to the needle to get their final shape. These wools are from both local and Scottish sheep, and the stems are made with local baby alpaca fleece (oh so soft!).

For my brother-in-law I followed the same theme that I started last year. In 2010 I made a poster featuring the face of their wonderful dog, Ted:

This year I decided to make a pseudo political poster that showcased two of their cats, Tom and Ollie. Tom and Ollie were both strays that adopted my sister's family at different times. Tom's the buff tiger, Ollie is the black and white cat. Both are affectionate and magnificent, but Ollie the newcomer is determined to drive Tom and their other cat, Rosie, out of the house. Which inspired me to make this year's poster:

 Needless to say, they would NEVER pose together like this, but thanks to the magic of Photoshop we can see what it would look like!

Christmas presents

I know that it's been a while since I've posted anything; most of my time and energy lately has gone into making Christmas presents for my friends and family. Of course I didn't want to post pictures of these until after they were received by their intended recipients!

I'll start with two of the presents that I made for one of my sister-in-laws. The first is a set of wool coasters, complete with an extra-large coaster for a pitcher of cold drinks or a teapot. These were made using a combination of wet-felting and needle-felting to get the right shape and density.




  

















Next is a tea cozy made primarily of mohair. This I knitted flat into a rectangle, then I used the same mohair yarn to sew up the sides, leaving spaces for the spout and handle of the teapot.  After that I wet-felted the cozy to shrink it a bit.

I then made flowers using several shades purple and green ribbon- both satin and grosgrain- and sewed a different type of white button into the center of each flower.

I'll post more presents soon!

Hall Table II

I finally had a chance to work on the table some more! The top is pretty much finished now (I say pretty much because I might have a flash of inspiration and want to add to it). I've added several more colors and fleshed out the pine tree quite a bit.

Sorry, the colors don't show up exactly right on here, but it gives a general idea anyway.
Next I want to add a bit of a surprise inside the drawer- you'll see....

Hall Table

Several years agot I picked up this little hall table at a garage sale for $3-. The legs were loose and it was slightly the worse for wear, but I knew that it had potential.
Here's what it looked like when I brought it home:

I painted it with a couple of coats of cement grey, then started on the background for the painting on the top:

Once I finished the background I started on the next layer.











After that I added more values of the same hue:

Next I'll start adding more colors!

(Finally) FINISHED!

So the dolly is finished! Now that she's done I'm naming her Hester.  I've added a lovely wool hat that's both wet and needle-felted and held on with a glass-topped hat pin.
















There's a beaded brooch on her lapel made of teeny glass beads, and she now has a necklace made of real dyed pearls.

Almost finished!

Dolly's almost done! She now has shoes made of leather and wool felt and a fully lined wool coat with real buttons! She also is sporting a fox pelt stole that is made of wool and lined underneath in hand-dyed silk.

And she has a friend; Anise the carrion crow.

All she needs is a couple of finishing touches and she'll be completed!

More Doll Clothes

I've finished the third layer of Dolly's clothes. She now has a cotton velvet dress trimmed in dark brown braiding, and a full pleated skirt made of wonderfully soft and thick cotton flannel trimmed in velvet ribbon.

Doll Underclothes

This morning I finished Dolly's undershirt, which go with her socks and panties ( I made those last night). For the fabric I used a used kid's t-shirt that I found at a Goodwill store. It was the perfect color, which I wanted to look kind of like old mummy wrappings. I'm especially pleased with the way the socks turned out, they will have no problem staying on, but are big enough to look stretched out and slouchy.

Doll Clothes

Some of the doll's clothes are finished. Yesterday I made a crinoline for her, and today I made her shirt.

Peaty cat was nice enough to pose with the doll for the first picture.












And Here is a close-up of the shirt, I used glass beads for the buttons and wonderful linen fabric for the shirt itself.

A doll for Zillah, "who drank too much gin."

It's strange how inspiration strikes us sometimes. I this case I was looking through an Edward Gorey book, trying to come up with an idea for a totally different project (painting an old suitcase and turning it into a pet bed), when the idea for this doll came to me and I HAD to start making it right away. First I felted the head using two colors of wool to get the "aged bone" color just right, then adding the eyes and nose in last. After the head was finished I sewed the arms, legs and body using very soft cotton fabric (an old sheet, actually). I jointed the arms at the shoulders and the legs at the thighs and knees with button joints. Here she is so far, I'll start making the clothes for her soon and post them as they're made.

Catnip

I've started a new line of catnip toys for my Etsy store! So far I've made Chipmunks,

and bluebirds,

 

 mice (I love the way these turned out!),                                                                                                                                                                            

 

juncos,

black widow spiders (this is the underside),

crows,

and bats these are my favorite!).

All of them are hand sewn, with 100% wool felt bodies. For safety, their eyes and other details are stitched cotton embroidery, and they spider legs are wool yarn. Inside they're stuffed with a little bit of wool roving and a great big wad of catnip blend: wild catnip and super-potent catmint from my garden.

Birdhouse Transformation phase 3

It took a lot longer than I expected to get the supplies I needed to finish the birdhouses, but they're finally finished! All it took was a little something extra.

Birdhouse Transformation phase 2

Ok, so I lied, I wasn't finished with the painting! I think I am now though... I added Perches to the houses, which had to be painted, then I thought that they needed a little more something, so I just kept going with the paint.

Sorry if the detail shots are a tad fuzzy, I'm still working on my skills as a photographer!
I have some ideas for more embellishments, but they require a trip to Crafts 2000 in Monroe, so I'm not sure when I'll be able to pick that stuff up.

Birdhouse Transformation phase 1

Ok, so I know that I should have taken "before" pictures, but believe me when I say that these bird houses were ugly before I started. They were painted an especially awful yellow (like the color of the plastic bottles that yellow mustard comes in) with the roofs, "doors", and trim painted either bright red, dark brown, or light brown. I have three vintage metal yard chairs that I've cleaned up and painted (well, the main color is done, I still have to do the cream trim on them); one is pale salmon pink, one mint green, and one light blue, which I used as inspiration for the bird houses.

After I slap on some poly, I'll add some embellishments to give each house its own personality. More pictures to follow...

I made a new apron!

I had some extra oilcloth in my fabric bin just begging to be made into something! Some of the scraps that were left over from another project are destined to become lunch bags (I'll post pictures of those as soon as they're finished), but luckily I had a big piece that was the perfect size for an apron! I picked out some pieces of contrasting fabric for a front pocket and a bit of ruffle on the sides, and added some polka-dot grosgrain ribbon for the neck strap and ties.
Now I have the perfect apron for working with clay (I just happened to sign up for a tile-making class today- it starts Thursday!), painting, gardening, or making messy sauce!