Workshop goodies!

What a busy week I’ve had. I am house sitting for the neighbours, but mostly taking care of the kitties. One of them, right on cue, got sick the day before they were leaving, with his annual respiratory problem and guess who got the job of giving him his medication and extending lots of cuddles and baby talk… He’s so sweet I couldn’t say no.

So out with the towel, wrap tightly around kitty and syringe that icky sweet sticky medicine down his throat. Poor thing. He has a habit of going off his food when he’s really feeling crappy, but I didn’t give him a chance to do that this time. I swapped the syringe for one full of pasty kitty food. Repeat the towel technique and whoosh in goes the food. He now knows when that towel comes with me, it’s that time. I let him get down after his medicine tonight and headed for the food to do the syringe thing and he headed straight for his food dish. I think he got the message, don’t you…. ;o))) Mom and Dad are home on Saturday and he’ll be in good shape by then. At least he’s not letting loose, as much, with those snotty messy sneezes… That’s really icky.

In between taking care of kitty and his brother, I managed to finish off these. I decided to make and giveaway some goodies at the three workshops we’re having with Colleen, starting on the 20th of this month.

The first workshop will be the drafting doll clothes and I can’t wait for that one. The draw for that will be some magnetic wrist pincushions that I did the tutorial for. Follow the link above this post if you missed it.

The second workshop is the Finders Keepers doll. She is so sweet and I will have so much fun putting together little found objects for her to hold and hide. These are scissor fobs that I put together, they aren’t all for the draws, but I just kept making them because they are so quick to do. These are from a little tutorial that Judy Wellnitz wrote up. Follow this link if you want to get a copy for yourself. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find it. It’s not expensive, and once you see how easy it is, you’ll be making them for all your scissors.

The third class is Stitch in Time. I figured if Colleen was coming all this way from London to teach, we might as well have as much time with her as we could. The next things I did were for this class. I first had to haul out all kind of things to put them together. I can’t just take out a few things, I need to have a pile of stuff to work through, so this is where I began.

I used the newest tutorial from Barb over at Joggles, for making felt Easter eggs. (near the bottom of the page) I took them a step farther and popped them into mini terra cotta pots and they’ll be used as pincushions. I showed the first one to hubby to get his opinion and the first thing he said was, it looks like an egg plant (I thought he meant the colour because it’s purple), but he meant that it looked like an egg growing out of the pot. Brilliant… so that’s what these are, Egg Plants… ;o)))

The last thing I did was Henrietta Turtle, a big pincushion. There are four others besides me, who are braving it through five days of workshops, so I thought they deserved an extra something. So the theme of slow and steady wins the race came to mind and Henrietta will go to a new home. This is a pattern by Heather Bailey. I ordered it through Joggles.

Well if they are reading my blog, they will know what’s in store at the workshops, and if not, then good. I don’t think they’ve ever had draws at the workshops, so I hope they’ll enjoy this little extra bit of fun… Now I’m off to try and get some kind of doll done for the next meeting….. I’m not sure that’s going to happen, but I’ll try….

Spring is springing!

Don’t we all need some positive reinforcement when we’re exploring uncharted territory. Remember the days when you were first learning a skill and how you thought you were never going to “get it”, well hubby has… ;o)). He built some new planter boxes for me. I told you before about the bird houses, well he now feels even more confidant and put together these new boxes. These ones are going to last very well. He painted them with a coat of primer first, then the colours.

Step 1….. get the cedar cut, put it together and it’s ready for primer.

Step 2…… box is now primed and waiting for paint.

Step 3…… first box is done and painted with a soft blue. The other three boxes are done and one more is blue, the other two are dove grey.

There was one box that was still alright that someone made for me years ago. All it needed was a cleaning up. So a coat of primer later and I got hubby to cut the feet off and make the bottom flat like the others so it would sit better on the ledge of the gazebo and painted blue and it’s done.

This morning I got the first wave of  flowers planted. Later in the season, the pansies will come out and be replaced with petunias. They can take the heat that will come later, pansies seem much happier when it’s a bit cooler.

Since I last showed you the birdhouses, we went to the waterfront and gathered up some small pieces of driftwood to decorate them more. Now, at last count, 4 out of 6 of them have tenants, so that’s so much fun. I’ve been putting out bits of wool roving and string. I lay it across the bushes and watch the birds go around scooping up all the goodies.

When fall comes, I am always impressed with how they have utilized all those things into the building of their nests. The funniest though is when they bring the twigs that they found, to wide to go in the house and bounce off the doorway trying, but eventually those smart little birds figure out that if they ever so carefully turn the twigs sideways, they’ll fit….

The last piece of this isn’t done yet. I mentioned a few posts ago, that my neighbour had passed away on New Years Eve. Along with the buttons her daughter brought me, was a bag of fabric. In that bag of fabric was this really bold print. I was designed in Finland according to the writing on the border. 

I didn’t notice right away was the print was, but then the penny dropped. The boxes are painted to match the fabric. Shirley loved her blue and white garden every year and I’m sure she had a tablecloth in mind for this, so that’s what it will be. Isn’t it just perfect for our little table in the gazebo. Can’t put it out until the day before Colleen arrives, but I think Shirley would approve..

New Tutorials

Magnetic Wrist Pincushion

A while ago I showed you what I did with a fat quarter and some coordinating fabric. One of those projects was the magnetic wrist pincushion. I decided to write my own tutorial for the way I made the pincushion. It comes together quickly and is very comfortable to wear. I didn’t include mention of embellishing it, but certainly you could add some kind of trims or beadwork to it to personalize it further.

Diva Cord Maker Tips and Tricks

The other tutorial is more of a tips and techniques kind of tutorial. I gave a demo using the Diva Cord Maker, at our doll club meeting last fall. Some of them brought their cord makers and others just watched, but I had made up a handout. I took pictures last night and built them into the handout and thought perhaps you might get some help from it if you have one of these tucked away in your workroom. They are so addictive once you get started. I now have the largest template they’ve made for the Diva Cord Maker but haven’t used it yet. When I do, I’ll show you pictures.

In the meantime, please click on the “Tutorials” link above to see these and the others I’ve done. I hope something interests you in any of them…

Maru–the most famous cat in Japan

This is just so funny to watch. My favourite part is the attack of the box, any box. I wish I was so flexible…. The tears flowed he was so funny….. If you’re a cat lover, you will certainly love this…

This cat knows how to live life large…..

Button button, Who’s Got the Button!

Did you ever stop to think about buttons. Buttons are a necessity of life. Buttons also have a very long history and over time have taken on so many different looks, I would guess they have evolved and changed more than anything else I can think of. A little button history tells part of the story. BUTTONS

Buttons are collector items and there is even a field guide to recognizing what’s what in the button world. Who would have thought that.

 

And they have become a favourite of mixed media artists to. I have this book and although it speaks to using cabochons, there is no reason the same techniques can't be used for buttons.

My hairdresser has a big mirror on the wall whose frame, about 4” wide, is decorated with all manner of buttons. Shiny, flat, bumpy, small and large and endless colours and made from all kinds of materials, like metal, plastic and clay…you get the picture….

I’m leading up to my stash of buttons. On New Years Eve, our very nice neighbour passed away and just a couple of weeks ago her daughter asked if I would like to have any of her mother’s sewing things. So I said yes and what I don’t use, I will donate. She came by later with her mom’s button box. Wow…..Nice… I know it’s hard to see, but there were some really gems in that mix of things. I found some pretties to use in the workshops with Colleen next month.

I was okay with this until I realized that I have been putting off sorting my own stash of buttons, a job that leads to hours of sorting and colour coding and a job that is best left for rainy days. And right on cue, yes, it started to rain, so okay I give up, I will do this.… After I got over that shock, I pulled my box of buttons out of the cupboard…

In my own defense, I do have bags and bags of other things in the box to, like beads that came from thrift store jewellery that had great promise at one time, but alas…not to be.

Not to feel overwhelmed and defeated, I set to the task at hand. Smart one here keeps all those little eeny weeny little plastic zippy bags that come from all manner of places. I spent most of one night and half the next day getting things all sorted. They are now so thinned out, they fit into one little basket, are all colour matched, sorted into little bags and some pretty tins according to colour or type. One small tin is full of my silver metal buttons.

I must say though, I am really glad to have taken on this challenge. I have a nice collection of buttons, factory and hand made and all kinds of types of buttons, but not the overwhelming lot I had. Someone else will be walking into a thrift store soon and think they have found the mother lode of buttons and they would be right…

One thing I discovered in the process in how much I really love brown buttons. I never really thought about them but being so involved over the course of a couple of days, I came to really appreciate the beauty of the simple but so very necessary button. Imagine how we would struggle to keep our clothes closed and from falling down if not for buttons… Food for thought huh!!!

Pink Green and Chocolate!

A while ago Colleen Babcock sent me a fat quarter of fabric that is used in one of many of the Tilda books. I love those books. If you haven’t seen them yet, you will love them. Very simple but unique and quaint dolls and many home decor ideas. Things that could fit in anywhere, just use the fabrics that coordinate with your surroundings.

  This is my most recent book in her collection, but there are many more.

This is probably my favourite.

I wanted to use the fat quarter for a doll, but the coordinating fabrics are hard to find now. I decided to make good use of it so I could see it all the time and remember who it was that sent it. It’s not available here, so it is special. I went in search of fabrics to coordinate with it and decided to make a collection of pincushions with it. This is what I came up with. The original fabric is the chocolate colour with roses.

I decided to use this pattern created by one of our Canadian designers, Margot from “The Pattern Basket” for part of the project.

After that I decided I would make some new thread catchers. I didn’t use a pattern, just looked at some pictures and made them from that. One is made as you can see using the green polka dots outside and reversed using the pink on the other.

 

I didn’t want to waste any of the fabric, so I also made a wrist pincushion, the type with magnets in it to hold the pins. I found this simple pattern online, just type in wrist pincushions in Google and I’m sure you’ll find something similar. Check the length of the fabric carefully before cutting. I had to fold over the sides a bit when I put it together. The underside is the green polka dot. I also added an inside of warm and natural to make it more comfortable on the wrist, just a bit softer.

Finally I had just a couple of small pieces left, so not to just dismiss those out of hand, I also put them to work and made these beaded scissor fobs.

The thing that started this whole redo of pincushions, was because I had originally made my others using kitty litter for the pincushion part. If you’ve ever used that to sop up an oil spill you know how well it works for that. However, you never want to get water on kitty litter, no no no…..Oh dear what a pasty mess it turns into… YUCK. I went online to find a source for emery sand because I know that works well for needles, it keeps them clean and sharp when using in pincushions.

Along the way I found out about crushed walnut shells. On a couple of forums I found, they were praising this product and the more I searched the more I found that people who use it, like it the best of all the products for pincushions. I started making phone calls to pet stores as this is used for reptile bedding. We have one Pet Smart here, but apparently they don’t carry that, it’s available in the US stores though.

I finally found a store here that carries it and promptly got my DH to pick up a bag on his way home one day…Victory. I must say it really is a nice product and thought you might like to search it out and take a look yourselves. The picture below makes the granules look bigger than they are. They are quite small but not as small as sand. I hope you can check this out and see what you think. It would work well to weight dolls down, like stump dolls and things like chairs that you would make for dolls. I think many uses could be found. And the best part, if you get water on it, it won’t turn to a yucky pasty mess.

A Round Robin

Our doll club is having a round robin exchange starting at this months meeting. We were given a pattern at the last meeting and all we have to do is make the basic doll and we can do our own dolls face if we wish. The pattern is a Camille Pratt design from Doll Crafter, sorry can’t remember the name, but I think it was in the June or July 2008 issue.

I got mine finished last night and made up a bag to put her in. Each month for 5 months, until the big reveal in August, someone else will work on her and I will work on 5 different dolls during that time as well. We also enclose a little notebook so that everyone that works on her, can add to the adventure she’s on and say what it is that they added to her.

This is Fern Flamingo. Whether any of them actually ever look at my blog is unknown, but if they do, they’ll know whose dolly she is and hopefully I’ve always been nice to those people… ;o~  I made a drawstring bag for her and she has now slipped into her bag along with her book and we’ll see how she looks in August. The last one we did was amazing, so I expect this will be just as special..