craftastica

Putting the Heart in Cranberry Cookies

2010-02-13T21:21:00.001-08:00

(click through if you see a photo error -- lesson learned, don't replace the flickr photo *after* having blogged it, confuses rss readers... :)

I saw these on CRAFT and couldn't resist trying them for Valentine's Day (mmm, cranberry orange...)

Cranberry Cookies

I have to say, the Instructable is spot-on -- I almost never leave a recipe alone, but I followed this one as written, and it was perfect. I liked the suggestion of making the cookies heart-shaped, and being the geek that I am, had to try two different methods for that to see what worked best.

Once the cookies are rolled up in wax paper, I made the top dent in the heart by placing a chopstick (or two, overlapping the narrow ends) along the center of the roll, and left it in place. (I also considered a wooden spatula handle.) Then:

For Batch 1: I rolled the whole thing (chopsticks, wax paper, and all) in some heavy duty aluminum foil, which was strong enough to hold the shape of the smooshy cookie roll (technical term :). Then, with the chopsticks on the bottom, I pinched to form the pointy part of the heart.

For Batch 2: I pinched a bit to form the heart point, then dropped the point into the corner of an empty cling wrap box. Wiggled a bit to be sure the point was where it should be, then placed the box in the freezer at a 45 degree angle.

After slicing, you can adjust the shape a little bit as needed.

Batch 1 (photo left) is taller and pointier. Batch 2 (photo right) is shorter and more rounded. Take your pick!

To turn these into Valentine's for our friends today, I decided they needed a bit of support. I cut cardboard squares (from a pizza box lid -- hey it was still clean!) and wrapped them in a bit of aluminum foil. I secured the cookie with some cling wrap (hey where's the box with the cutter strip? ah yes, it was recently in the freezer...) and a bit of tape to hold it all in place.

I think these cookies are great, but not sure I'd make them for a non-occasion since they require a bit more work than I usually put into a cookie. I was thinking you could do simple balls, make a dent with your thumb, and drop in a dollop of filling... not nearly so cute, but I want to eat them again, so compromises might need to be made!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Gingerbread House

2010-02-04T10:07:00.000-08:00

This year the girls and I decided to make gingerbread houses. Well, the holidays can sort of sneak up on a person, so we didn't make them until after Christmas. That got me thinking, why is gingerbread mostly for Christmas? I left off the green, went crazy with red and white, and viola, a cute little house we can leave up until February.

To get the shape, I free-handed the curvy end piece (the narrow wall of the house) on paper, then used that as a stencil (flipping it over for the second piece). I measured the length of the curve for each side (they're different) and used that to determine the height of the wider side pieces. (The roof was the same process, but simple, because there are no curves.)

I baked the gingerbread, then while those side pieces were still warm, propped them up with crumpled aluminum foil (and all manner of things, really... spice jars and whatever was handy). There's no way to get it perfect, but I just held up the paper stencil so that I could match the curve, and adjusted as needed. During assembly, all is forgiven, because I put the narrow walls to the *outside* of the curved side pieces, and any discrepancies were masked by icing and later, candy decorations.

Candy ideas: white smarties, red spree, red hots (these bleed a lot into the royal icing though), candy canes, peppermint candies (whole or halved), pep-o-mint life savers (whole or crushed), licorice ropes, sliced red/white gumdrops.

The best find of all was this weird stuff called licorice "rips" in strawberry. It comes in sheets of 1 mm wide ropes stuck together, so you can tear it to the size you need. Individual ropes worked well for my little curlicues above the windows and doors, and even for the heart outline within the crushed life saver mosaic.

I almost forgot! The windows -- hard to see (because I forgot to place the lights inside before assembling the walls, oops) but there are candy windows in place. Cut the windows before baking the panels, then before removing from the foil, fill the openings with crushed butterscotch hard candies and return to the oven until melted. Allow to cool, the peel away from foil.

I've always found great tips, tricks, recipes, patterns, etc at ultimategingerbread.com, so give that a try if you're looking for help or inspiration.

St. Patrick's Day green gingerbread house? Pastel spring/Easter house? Why not...

I'm back ... (?)

2010-02-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hmm... I sort of disappeared for, oh, a year there. Oops. Life gets in the way (some good things, some not so good, but all requiring time and energy). I've hesitated to post for the past few months because I was waiting until I was sure I could post more than sporadically. Well, sporadic it might be, but it's time to just jump back in.

So, we're back. I'm not sure if anyone is still out there, but off we go... For those of you who have hung on, thanks! Let's see what I've been up to.

kid craft: egg cartons into eggs

2009-04-10T21:28:00.000-07:00

recently, our city switched over to a single stream recycling system with lovely rolling blue bins. it's great, you can recycle... well, pretty much everything. paperboard. (ooh!) every number of plastic. (ahh!) combine that with our backyard composter (which is where our flushable diapers end up, along with the usual kitchen scraps and such), and we now have to take the trash out because it starts to get gross rather than because the trash can is full. weird.

the exception to this is egg cartons (the cardboardy kind). i find them consternating -- can't recycle them (hmm, or can i? keep meaning to check on that, their website leaves it open to interpretation), don't want to throw them away. i've taken several to my daughter's preschool for art projects, and we've used them for a few things at home, but somehow we always have at least three floating around the house. until the baby chews on them, generally.

we have an annual egg hunt with friends in the park -- everyone contributes eggs then we hurry to "hide" them while barely holding the kids at bay, then they run around like crazy scooping them all up. who knew something so simple could be so fun? last year, i made fabric eggs. this year i was stumped.

until i spied those egg cartons in the corner.

i don't really know what to call these things. they make me think of wee tiny pinatas, but they also work a bit like cascarones if you fill them with confetti. they're papier-mache. they're fortune eggs. how about "recycled egg carton fortune egg hunt eggs"?

who cares what they're called. here's how we made them (the quick version, because there's not much to mess up, and also because i'm sleepy).

materials:
cardboard egg carton(s) -- each carton yeilds 6 eggs
newspaper or a paper bag
flour
paper confetti (optional but fun)
tissue paper (optional)
paints, stamps, crayons, etc (optional)

1. cut & trim egg cartons
remove the lid and flap from the egg carton, leaving just the egg holding part. cut apart each of the 12 egg cups. trim off the extra bits to yeild a nice round egg half that doesn't have anything sticking out to the side. (the parts that stick straight up are fine to leave if you just round them off a bit -- that can help the egg halves to lock together.) the trimming is not absolutely necessary but yeilds a smoother more egg-shaped egg in the end.

2. fill the eggs with a surprise
my 3-year-old assistant decided to fill the eggs with "jokes", which eventually morphed into suggestions for fun activities ("hug a friend that you love", "run up the hill and sing a song", "jump up and down on one foot", you get the idea). you could make up fortune-cookie type fortunes, coupons for favors/activities (particularly within the family), scavenger hunt clues, or trinkets of some sort. or candy. there's always candy. don't forget the confetti if you like that sort of thing (the biodegradable paper kind, please).

3. seal them up
we papier-mached (hey is that a legit verb?) them closed. we used a paste made of slightly more water than flour applied to strips of paper bag (because the newspapers had just been part of the recycling pick-up the day before). just dip your strip of paper in the paste, wipe off the excess (you know the drill), then wind it around the seam between the two egg halves and smooth it down a little. you can let them dry at this point, or continue immediately to the next step. if it needs more structure, you can add a second strip of paper, but i found that they held together just fine.

4. decorate
to cover with tissue paper, dab a bit of paste onto the egg (because you can't dip the tissue into the paste directly, it disintegrates). wind the tissue -- assorted colors or not -- around the egg until you're happy. one layer or many, it doesn't matter for structure, it's purely decorative. once they dry, you can further decorate with paint, crayons, etc. we used some dot ink stampers.

that's it! assuming you don't add too many layers of tissue, these dry pretty quickly so you don't need too much advance planning (says the woman posting this the day before easter). they're ready for all your fake egg needs, easter or otherwise. you probably shouldn't whack anyone on the head with them (as they're harder than you might think -- the eggs, not the heads), but they're perfectly suited for some gleeful stomping. enjoy!

cinnamon ornaments

2009-02-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

sometimes people ask me how i come up with ideas. i suppose sometimes clever little thoughts just pop into my head out of nowhere, but generally it works more like this:

eva and i made valentine ornaments for her friends out of cinnamon dough. why? because i finally got around to cleaning out my spice cabinet last week, and came across three old containers of cinnamon (that doesn't count the three different kinds of good penzey's cinnamon i also had in there). i will fess up that one cinnamon was stop & shop brand, which only exists on the east coast (i think?), which means i bought it in college. and i've already been to my 10 year reunion. (how that was still in there, i'm not sure...) so, what to do with all that cinnamon? wait, i seem to remember the existence of some sort of cinnamon dough... off to research, and this is what i found: a dough made of cinnamon and applesauce. lucky, because i had a partial jar of applesauce in the fridge that was soon to be a bit questionably old (how long does applesauce keep, anyway? seems like forever...)

true to form, i of course had to modify things a bit. i found a recipe on kaboose (there are many, this is the one i randomly chose), but it called for elmer's glue. now, i'm sure school glue is technically edible, but i wanted to make these entirely out of food just in case (and a good thing -- the very first recipient took a very cute bite out of one of the hearts before i had a chance to advise otherwise -- oops!). but what is school glue anyway but a kind of paste? and paste is just flour and water... so i replaced the glue with a flour/water mixture that was approximately the same consistency. why not?

rather than let them dry for a few days, we put them in a 200 degree oven for a couple hours, turning every 30 minutes or so (or, once the edges began to curl). we found that the optimum thickness is in fact between 1/8" and 1/4" -- a bit thicker worked (just took longer to dry) but the thinner ones split a bit. that said, it's not so fussy that you can't just let your preschooler roll them out and cut them herself. (she did fine with the hearts and stars, but needed some help with the seahorses.)

we jointly came up with the idea to use our mini-sandwich cutters to make small shapes and connect some of them into mobiles. she also wanted to decorate them, and so we tried using luster dust from my cake decorating supplies. we mixed it with orange extract (which i never use, also discovered in my spice cabinet clean-out), and added food coloring to half of it to get silver and pink. she really had fun decorating, but unfortunately unlike when applied to a softer medium like fondant, in this case the luster dust just sort of flaked off when it dried. so, it's fine as long as you don't handle them too much, and worst case, you have silvery fingers.

these would make great christmas tree ornaments or gifts for another occasion beyond valentine's day. the cinnamon smell is really lovely, and i presume they keep indefinitely.

happy valentine's day! a bit late in posting, though the treats were delivered on time -- except for a few, which haven't made it into the mail yet. oops.

felt veggies

2009-02-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

i made an assortment of felt vegetables for my niece for christmas. i'd never sewn any stuffed things from felt before, but that's how i craft (apparently) -- do something new, get the hang of it, then promptly become bored of it. :)

(i should say, i'm catching up on posts from before the holidays -- because i didn't want to spoil the surprise for the various gifts i made, and also because i've been swamped since then.)

i originally planned to design all the felt food myself, but i was short on time in december, and am finally starting to learn from past experience. so, i searched for and found some really cute patterns on etsy from seller umecrafts. and then i splurged and bought the set of every kind of vegetable she offers. i was really happy with the patterns -- for the most part, the instructions were clear (every so often, a step was less than obvious, probably because i'm new to this), and she used really interesting techniques to create the various shapes. so, by (for once) not trying to recreate the wheel, i ended up learning a lot, and as a bonus, got my project done in less time with less frustration. (though, i did have to get over the sense that i was somehow cheating...)

i wanted to use wool felt, and after some research, i ordered from prairiepointjunction.com because they had a really big selection. after ordering, i discovered from their FAQ that the felt isn't terribly colorfast, and i was concerned, since i was making this for a baby, and babies chew on everything. i contacted prairie point junction, and they were very helpful, putting me in touch with the manufacturer. in the end, the answer was that the dyes are the same as what is used for clothing -- so, probably not the best thing for a baby to eat, but not really dangerous either (note: i'm paraphrasing here; if you're concerned, don't take my word for it...). the colorfastness of the felt varied tremendously from color to color, and in surprising ways. (one purple shade bled like crazy, the other not at all. same with the greens. odd...) oh, i was also pleased that prairie point junction offered embroidery floss for purchase that was preselected to match each color of felt they offered. that saved me having to make a trip to the local craft store after my order arrived (key during a the busy month of december).

so, all that was about locating the patterns and supplies, but nothing so far about the process. i guess that's because after i had everything (including the freezer paper for transferring the patterns -- who knew, they don't just sell that in every grocery store anymore?), they really just fell into place. easy, pretty fun to make, and turned out really cute... the hardest part was choosing which veggies to make, knowing i wouldn't have time to make them all. i still plan to make more for my little one... but now that i've already figured it out, i'm in less of a hurry to do more. they're worth the time, though, so this will reach the top of my queue sometime soon...

do you have other sources for felt or patterns for felt crafts? i'd love to hear about it in the comments.

snowflake cake

2009-01-11T22:16:00.000-08:00

while up north for the holidays, my mom had a milestone birthday (she's not the type, i'm sure, to care if i mentioned which one, but you know...) i'm rarely around for her birthday, so i wanted to take the opportunity to make her a cake. i had a big idea for a far more complicated very personalized cake, but every single person i told paused, then said: "oh. hmm." turns out that translates as "i'm pretty sure you could do that complicated cake, but that in the process, you will become a stressed out crazy person who is insufferable to be around." turns out they (husband, sisters) were all likely correct. so, plan B.

we were experiencing record snowfall during our visit. as in, 33 (or more) inches of snow in one month, the most ever on record. that in combination with temperatures such as 15 below zero (yes, farenheit!) kept us from leaving the house more than once a week or so. i grew up in this northern extreme climate, but this was just ridiculous. so rather than fight it -- my sister decreed that no one was allowed to complain about the weather unless they were actually outside in it -- i thought we'd embrace it as inspiration for the cake.

the hardest part of this cake was making the royal icing snowflakes, and honestly they weren't that hard other than that they were very prone to breaking. predicting this (wow, i'm a genius!), i made about three times what i thought i'd need. turns out i only broke about half. um... success!

sadly, you can't see it in the photos, but larry wired up some LEDs to go under the glass cake plate. they were six independently-controlled strings he set up in a wave effect that looked like the light in blustery, blowing snow. it was really impressive and went perfectly with the snowy theme. always fun when our interests can combine into one project. :)

i think perhaps the snow cake didn't appease the gods of winter. as it turns out, we may have angered them: the day of the party, yet more bad weather moved in, and half the guests couldn't make it. and in fact, *we* couldn't really it the 10 miles to my aunt's house, so we changed the location at the last minute. (as a kid, half my winter birthday parties we canceled, so i think a half-cancellation is probably considered a success with those odds?)

my mom seemed a bit "who, me?" regarding the cake (insisting i not go to any trouble, surprised i was bothering to cover it with fondant). well mom, for you i'd happily make a cake as big as a real snowdrift. okay, not that twelve foot high monstrosity on your patio this year, but you know what i mean...

egg lathe

2008-12-27T11:35:00.001-08:00

egg lathe, originally uploaded by kelanew.

merry christmas to me! my thoughtful and resourceful husband made this egg lathe as a gift for me. now (when i find the time again) i can make super-straight divisions on my pysanky. i can hardly wait to give it a try on a real egg (this was just a test, as we're away from my egg supplies right now). check out those closely-spaced parallel lines! and the coolest part is that unlike many egg lathes, it works for vertical divisions as well as horizontal ones. neat.

true to form, he made it from random objects found around the house, but yet you can hardly tell it's repurposed unless you really inspect it. this uses a synthetic wine cork, plastic rings from target pharmacy bottles, and a little acrylic make-up pot as well as wood and hardware. (it needs a few finishing touches yet, because he was waiting to get some input from me.)

thanks, larry! now i'm feeling a bit sad that you are nearly the only exception in my "all handmade christmas" plan. (though you seem to be enjoying your kindle just fine. that, and the added gift of a slightly less-crazed wife who was not trying madly to finish yet one more gift in time for christmas. :)

more on handmade christmas as i find the time to post -- i've been making a ton of gifts the past few months but couldn't post many of them lest i spoil the surprise. so now i'll catch up.

delayed holiday traveler boarding pass paper chain

2008-12-20T15:28:00.000-08:00

not much of a craft, but i thought i'd share...

our flight was canceled in minneapolis on thursday (the best part being that the flight just disappeared from the screen without explanation, and no one even came to talk to us for 20 minutes. stay classy, northwest airlines.) (okay, the other best part was that i was sick, larry had zero sleep since we had to get up at 4 a.m., and we had two kids along for the ride.)

throughout the day, as we waited standby on various flights for 8 hours before finally making it on board, we were handed more and more sets of boarding passes. my ticket envelope ultimately held quite a thick stack of papers -- so i decided to turn a holiday inconvenience into holiday cheer! it's now a lovely paper chain adorning our doorway.

and to VPI student amanda who was attempting to make her way to glendive, MT... i hope you found your way eventually. i felt so sad for you as my family boarded off the standby list, leaving you and 27 others to yet another round of waiting.

kid craft: felt ornaments

2008-12-20T13:40:00.001-08:00

felt ornaments, originally uploaded by kelanew.

eva made these ornaments for her cousins and such this year. i traced cookie cutters (mostly in a holiday theme, if you count the Holiday Cat, right?) and cut them out for her. well, she cut out the gingerbread man herself, which is how we discovered that kid scissors don't really work on wool felt, and i was fearing for the safety of that useful bit of skin between one's thumb and hand when helping her with the kitchen scissors.

she then decorated with glitter glue and sequins, sewed around the outside, and stuffed them. together, we added a hanging loop and a few jingle bells. [i will caution that once stuffed, the glued-on sequins tend to pop off easily, so beware if your ornament will be going to a household with a little one -- or use stronger glue, or stitch down the sequins?]

the nice thing is that you can customize this project to suit the needs of your kid -- or even make it work for several kids of different ages. an older kid can trace, cut, decorate, sew and stuff themselves, and a younger sibling might just do the decorating part.

my other discovery with this project: i came across some very inexpensive craft felt from the kunin group that is made of ecofi (or ecospun), which is made from 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. hurray! that assuages my slight guilt of not letting eva have at my brand-new wool felt stash and giving her synthetic instead. :)

[warning: rant ahead..]
oh, and i found this felt at joann's -- why oh why, i ask myself, was i at joann's yet again, despite my oft-sworn (and occasionally shouted out for the benefit of other customers) oath that i Will Never Shop Here Again. *sigh* i really have issues with that place, their staffing policies designed to keep a minimum of 5 people in line at the cutting table *and* the check-out counter, their deceptive pricing, and on and on. but yet, i find myself there because it's closest to my house and adjacent to the grocery store, and i'm loathe to drag two kids in and out of car seats an extra time if i don't have to. despite the location, though, i would probably still save time if i drove across town and went to a real craft store. do other people have this problem at joann's, or is it just my local store? (well, i know i'm not the *only* one -- this woman received the worst customer service ever there.) [sorry, end rant. wow, calm down, there, grinchy...]

ahem.. where was i? yes, this project is perfect for little holiday gifts for your kid's friends, teachers, grandparents, etc. easy, inexpensive, green(ish), and makes for a fun afternoon. yup, those are pretty much all the criteria.

recycle bin advent calendar

2008-11-25T20:15:00.000-08:00

it may sound silly, but i was recently freaking out about advent calendars. i'd say it officially kept me awake at night (once). i wanted to make just the right kind, something we'd keep and use year after year -- but i didn't have the time to make the sort of thing i had in mind. i meant to start on it this past summer, but then -- oh yeah -- i went and had a baby. i guess that took some of my free time.

but then i was filtering through the dozens and dozens of catalogs in our stack of mail that was held during our recent month away... and i knew just what to do. i decided we'd make an advent calendar entirely from the recycle bin (okay. plus some glue and tape). bonuses: 1. eva gets to help make it. turns out she's a whiz kid at cutting out squares. 2. it's cheap. 3. it's green. 4. it can be completed in fewer than four months.

i bought a rosemary topiary (shaped like a baby-sized christmas tree), and i've chosen to fill our advent calendar with tiny ornaments for our "tree". (what? no chocolate? i'm catching flack from everyone about that... everyone but my kid, that is, because she doesn't know what she's missing.) i'm making tiny ornaments out of scraps of things we have around, like a pipe cleaner candy cane, a peanut shell painted sliver, some jingle bells, craft pompoms strung on a twist-tie to make a little wreath, cardboard star covered with scraps of foil, etc. i've only made seven or so thus far, but i like that i only have to stay a few days ahead, and can complete the rest at my leisure. :)

so here you go, a mini tutorial of how we made our advent calendar. sorry, no photos of the process itself, but it's not terribly difficult. (in fact, sorry for the state of these photos in general -- the camera fell off the roof of a car on a mountain highway a few months ago, and the various rubber bands and wedges of paper are no longer sufficient to keep it working... it's no longer able to focus, manually or otherwise. hmm... guess what we're buying each other for christmas?)

supplies & tools
catalogs/magazines
2-3 brown paper grocery bags (one with handles if possible)
ad circulars/newspaper inserts (optional)
glue/tape
scissors
a holiday-obsessed preschooler, if you have one handy

1. collect and peruse catalogs
unless you're conscientious like my mother and have called the 800-number of every company that sends you junk mail to get off their mailing list, you probably have stacks of catalogs and magazines arriving in your mailbox this time of year. rip out images you think might be useful -- beyond the obvious holiday and winter scenes, look for areas of solid colors interesting backgrounds. (most of my pockets are decorated collage-styls, even when it may look like a single image -- a person has to get creative to cover up ad copy. :)

2. find those ad circulars in your recycle bin
you need numbers. large numbers! catalogs are far too tasteful to list their prices in giant yellow 48-point font -- so you'll have to look in the ad inserts. these show up in my mailbox, or if you get the newspaper, that would be helpful. cut out all the numbers you think you'll need, but don't stress that nothing seems to cost $17.23... you may have to hand write the 17 and 23 (but i promise you'll find endless options for the 9).

3. create the backing of the calendar
to make the backing, you need to open up a brown bag (the one with a handle if you have it) into a long strip. cut down the two narrow sides of the bag, veering out to the corners at the bottom (basically, just cut along the upside-down Y-shaped fold lines on the side panels). flatten bag with "wrong"/printed side facing up. roll the side flaps until they are hidden on the back of the bag and tape in place. you can choose to cut them off or simply fold & glue them to the back, but i found rolling them provides more structural support along the sides, allowing the advent calendar to hold more weight without bowing and bending. cut a strip from another bag, roll it up, and tape it along the top edge of your calendar to create additional reinforcement there. if your bag has handles, you can remove the one from the bottom if you like.

4. cut dozens of pockets (two dozens, to be exact)
next you need to cut out 24 pockets from the additional brown bags. i made my pockets 3" wide and 3.25" tall because that's what fit on the paper bag i had (8 rows of three), but you can adjust this as needed. i found triangular-shaped gussets on the sides of the pockets allowed larger items to sit comfortably inside -- to form these, i flared out at a 30 degree angle from the bottom corner of the pockets (see template -- you can eyeball this if your protractor isn't handy). don't forget those flaps around each side which allow it to be glued in place. cut out one pocket the way you like it, then trace and cut the rest. (i stacked & cut five layers of brown paper at once to speed this up.)

5. prefold the pockets
it will make your life easier if you prefold your pockets before decorating them. to do this, cut a piece of cardstock (magazine reply cards are perfect for this) the size of your finished pocket. lay it in position over one of your pocket pieces, then fold against the cardstock template. (this is much faster than tracing lines in place then carefully folding each one.) then fold up the gluing flaps, and finally fold each gusset into place behind the pocket (along the dotted line in my template).

6. decorate your pockets
now the fun part! decorate the pockets with the pieces you tore out of the catalogs. tip: find that piece of cardstock you used to help you fold the pockets. place it behind an image you plan to use and hold this up to the light. position it where you like, then trace around the cardstock and cut out the image for a fast way to get pieces just the right size. add more images until you're happy.

eva had a grand time helping me with this part, doing much of the cutting and a bit of the gluing. she selected images i never would have thought of (like the hopscotch girl, or the flowered rug). and surprise, surprise -- the whole project was more fun and the end result is far more special because i followed her lead rather thank staying overly invested in a picture-perfect result (see? i'm learning, slowly but surely...)

7. number away...
arrange the pockets on your calendar backing the way you like before adding numbers -- this way you can find an arrangement you're happy with. add the cut-out numbers you found, or hand-draw numbers, or both.

8. glue and tape pockets in place
i found it worked to use tape for the sides of the pockets (where the tape could be hidden inside the pockets) but glue for the bottom edges (where tape would show).

9. fill and enjoy
hang up your calendar by the handle (if it has one), and fill with whatever you like. if you're worried about a wee one sneaking ahead a bit, you can secure the filled pockets closed with decorative stickers or tape. or just hang it really high up on the wall.

i can't even describe how excited my three-year-old is about her advent calendar. and it has a very practical purpose as well -- i don't have to try to answer "when will it be christmas?" on an hourly basis. now, just daily. :)

and maybe next year i'll create the heirloom advent calendar i seem to think i should be making... or maybe this is it? as eva would say, "we'll just have to wait and see."

cindy lou who & the grinch

2008-11-04T13:29:00.000-08:00

sometime in february, several months and a hundred or so readings into "how the grinch stole christmas", i told eva that if she still loved cindy lou who that much when it got to be halloween, that i would make her a cindy lou who costume. she was thrilled. shortly after hazel was born, she suggested that she could be the grinch. and somehow or other, baby cousin lilly ended up as max the dog.

the cindy lou who costume consisted of a wig hat, a pink dress, and a giant christmas ball.

the pink dress was made of pink costume fur -- for added warmth, since we're visiting in the north for halloween, and there's nothing worse for a kid than being forced to wear a winter coat over one's costume. the dress is loosely based on a pattern for a nightgown with a raglan sleeve (butterick #4910). i added scallops at the neck, sleeve, and hem, and stuffed them with scrap fabric to make them cartoonishly puffy. the hem was tapered, but i couldn't taper it in completely around her feet, obviously. i fashioned what amounts to a puffy apron to tie around her waist under the dress to add to the effect by widening the dress around her middle.

the wig hat (as i've come to call it) is crocheted out of bernat glow in the dark yellow yarn. i thought i was worth a try -- and especially for halloween -- but i'm not overly impressed. the yarn has a pretty awful texture, and you can't discern much of a glow, unless you charge it up directly under a light then immediately head to a very dark room. but, it was enough to entertain her, so i guess it was worth it. i basically shaped a regular crocheted hat, then added extra rows down the back to make it approximate her hairline. i made separate triangular pieces that i attached around the front hairline to look like locks of hair, and added a few chains of stitches to fill it out. cindy lou who has little red hair bows, and as the last fun detail, squiggly seuss-style antennae. i formed one pipe cleaner (ahem, excuse me, they're now known as "chenille stems") in to a circle, then attached the antennae and poked them through the wig from the underneath. they stayed standing upright perfectly with this method.

the red ball... well, we were planning to make one from scratch, but happily, we found a giant novelty (shatterproof) christmas bulb at a local home improvement store. hurray for the christmas creep that puts christmas decorations within my grasp prior to halloween! (eek.) all i had to do was add the little topper part and the seussian hook. that consisted of a painted small plastic food storage container and more pipe cleaners.

and for the grinch... oh, the grinch. you can't very well paint a baby's face green, nor can you give her green furry gloves that she'll just eat. so as a result, she mostly looked like a tiny somewhat demented christmas elf, i'd say. but, whatever it was, it was plenty cute. the coat was a tiny, shorter version of the same basic pattern i used for the cindy dress. the hat and shoes were just quickly mocked up, and on the third try, i actually made the shoes big enough for my baby's chubby feet and ankles!

to minimize future angst along the lines of "oh sure, i had to be the grinch for my first halloween!", i was sure to make her the happy grinch from the end of the story, the one after his heart grew three sizes. thus the embroidered detail of the heart that grew so big that it broke right through the fancy gold measuring device (i based this off a screen shot from the movie).

and speaking of future therapy bills, my baby niece lilly looked very cute as max the dog. my sister bought her a dog costume, and i fashioned a reindeer horn (with what inside? more pipe cleaners, of course!).

like usual, i went a little more nuts than i intended. but i will always make my kids homemade halloween costumes, for as long as they want me to do so. eva was so very pleased, her face just lit up when she finally saw the completed costume. (though not so much in the photo below... this was taken the day after, when the sugar high had dissolved into a massive cranky sugar crash. :)

maker faire community egg

2008-10-23T17:44:00.000-07:00

Maker Faire has come and gone, and though it took some feats of organization to be there along with a preschooler and a nursing baby for two big days, it was totally worth it. I was so happy to have the chance to share one of my crafts, making pysanky (Ukrainian eggs), with so many great people. Everyone was so friendly, and I loved getting to meet so many crafters from Austin and beyond.

And speaking of that, thanks to Rachel for making me one of her "editor's picks" among the craft makers. I didn't get as much opportunity to spend time looking around as I might have liked, but from the little I saw, I was thoroughly impressed (and am still in awe of the lace-making... hmm, I'm tempted... but do I need a whole new project?)

I helped about three dozen people make eggs of their own to take home, and several people seemed especially taken with the craft. (Oh, and for everyone who is attempting to remove the wax from their eggs at home: I said to use an oven on the lowest setting with the door propped open -- oops! That applies to eggs that have been blown out -- for whole eggs, you need a bit more heat. Sorry for any frustration I may have inadvertently caused... :)

I also had people add to the community egg (shown above). I liked the idea of an egg that was created by many hands, and it also gave people the chance to try it out even if they didn't have time to sit down and make a whole egg.

If anyone I met at Maker Faire has any questions, please feel free to post them here and I'll be sure to answer.

And I promise, we'll return to something other than eggs now... :)

maker faire // nest egg

2008-10-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

maker faire is this weekend, so if you'll be in the austin area (or can grab your hobo stick and hop a train to get here?) come check it out, and be sure to stop by and say hi. i'll be there with my pysanky, which means i've been working on eggs all this week.

above is the final egg in a series of eggs i made to show the steps in the process (thus the simple design; i needed to repeat it five times). given current events, i felt motivated to make a graph of the dow jones industrial average across my entire lifetime so far. in egg form. (it's pretty accurate, too.) seeing the graph that way makes it pretty clear...that whole exponential growth thing had to break sometime, huh? the egg is pictured atop the contents of eva's piggy bank (which includes five different currencies... hey, does that mean we're safe?). nest egg, indeed.

(bonus points if you spot all the currencies... :)

ghosts of halloween past

2008-10-11T20:35:00.001-07:00

i'm currently working on this year's halloween costumes, but thought i'd take a moment to offer a tour of past halloween costumes.

the one i'm most proud of is the evil knievel costume i made for larry a few years back. i based it on a commercial pattern for an elvis costume, but added the red white and blue trim (stars! oh the stars!), a belt, and a detachable cape.

i put more time into it than one logically should put into a halloween constume, but once a decade or so, i think that's okay. as a result, my costume that year was a more or less no-sew project. i made a mummy bride quickly by "draping" shredded fabric over my wedding petticoat, pinning, and basting in place. the bodice is more or less tied on, and the gloves and veil are cheesecloth (in december when i wanted cheesecloth to mull some cider, i couldn't figure out what happened to the full package i knew i had just bought...oh yeah. :)

(forgive the poor photo, this was several years ago...)

my sister lora and her friends are crazy about halloween. (no, really. cra-zeee.) they've done "dukes of hazzard" with tiny little cars, all the shrek characters (i think that damn cat took forever). here are a few others -- click through any photo for more info, or feel free to post a comment if want more details:

the lollipop guild (with a movie photo for reference):

various muppets, including statler and waldorf (the old guys from the balcony), kermit the frog and miss piggy, and beaker and bunsen (shown with a friend of theirs dressed as mary catherine gallagher):

the princess bride:

oops, looks like we got the blindfold color wrong. well, i think it's also a break from complete accuracy that our princess bride was noticeably pregnant. (hmm, i don't remember that plot twist from the movie. :)

and my other favorite, the monkey costume i made for eva two years ago. she wore it for two years, because i intentionally made it large enough and basted it up the first year. she was so cute, and convincing enough that it made all the neighborhood dogs bark like crazy. :)

this year, though, she's old enough to choose for herself. and sometime around february, based on her ongoing obsession, she choose cindy lou who ("who was not more than two") from the grinch. we're making it a theme, and the babies in her life (sister, cousin) will be the grinch and max the dog, and any participating grown-ups will be the whos from whoville. check back after halloween for that update.

plastic bag pompoms

2008-09-29T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not exactly the cheerleader type. I was once a cheerleader, though -- in sixth grade, my first year in a new town, I (along with every other girl in the class save one) tried out for next year's jr. high squad. Unfortunately for me, my cheering older sister had taught me enough that I made the squad, only to find that it just wasn't my thing. I think I ended up feigning illness many Saturdays, and the squad alternate ended up cheering more games than I did. (Granted, that wasn't a terribly mature way to handle the situation... but that's kind of the definition of being in seventh grade, I think.)

Well, my daughter saw pompoms on TV, and declared that she wanted some. "How do you even know what pompoms are?" "That's just what they're called, Mom. They're pompoms." Hmm. So much for that whole plan of not indoctrinating her with immutable gender roles. Pompoms it is!

Rather than go pick some up at Target -- where they would assuredly be bright pink with pink on top and emblazoned with some distasteful licensed character -- I decided to make our own out of Target bags. That's what I had on hand (Gimme a "T"! Gimme an "A"! Gimme an "R"!...), but I think this would be really cool with some solid colored bags if you could get your hands on them. (Just last week I had a red one lying around, too bad we decided to clean up! Lesson learned. :) Here's how we did it, but I'm sure this method could be adapted in any number of ways. See what you come up with...

Materials: 7 plastic bags (for a pair of pompoms), a rotary cutter/mat/straight edge set or a scissors. That's it. You don't even need tape or a ruler.

1. Slice off the bottom. Cut off the bottom inch or so of one of the plastic bags.

2. Open it up. Pull out the pleats and lay it flat. Fold the bag in half side-to-side. (That's optional, but folding it in half means less cutting.) I used a rotary cutter, but a scissors would work too if necessary.

3. Cut fringe. Cut strips about 1/2" to 3/4" wide, from the bottom of the bag, stopping about 2" before you reach the top edge. The width isn't that important... don't bother measuring (but do try to keep the cuts parallel). Feel free to experiment with wider or narrower fringe, but you might not want to go too narrow unless you're using thicker plastic.

4. Snip one handle. Cut one of the handles at the top. (This photo shows multiple bags stacked up as I got into production mode, sorry if that's confusing.)

5. Roll it up. Starting from the edge with the intact handle, roll up the bag across the top edge. The snipped handle will end up on the outside of the roll.

6. Pull down the outside handle. This reminds me of one of the battalion of brooms in Fantasia. Send your fledgling pompom around the room carrying a bucket of water if you like.

7. Tie it up. Use that snipped handle to secure the roll-up. Wrap the two ends around the rolled-up area a time or two, tie off, and trim off the extra (photo was taken before I trimmed).

Repeat this with a total of 3 bags for each pompom you want to make. Two is a popular quantity. :) If you have bags of different colors, you could experiment with placement: roll multiple bags together to blend the colors, or group the little poms so that the center is white and outside is purple (just like my jr. high pompoms).

Next we need to make some plastic strips with which to wrap the handles -- think of it as grip tape like used on a tennis racket or hockey stick. (Or, anthropomorphized broom?) One bag yields enough "tape" for a pair of pompoms.

8. Create tape loops. [I'm basically following the continuous strip-cutting technique from Laughing Purple Goldfish, so you can check out her instructions if you need more photos.] If you want a contrasting color for the handles, this is the time to grab that bag.

Cut off the bottom inch of the bag and pull out the pleats (as before) to make the bag lie flat. Trim off the handles, creating a nice rectangular tube of plastic. Fold one side edge (as opposed to the trimmed top/bottom edges) almost over to the other side edge (maybe 3" shy). Starting at that newly created fold (bottom of photo), cut 2" wide strips extending nearly to the opposite edge, but leaving 2" or so connected. (I'm compressing many steps here, so if it's as confusing as I suspect it is, check out the Goldfish tutorial :)

9. Turn the loops into one long strip. Open up the bag, and cut on a diagonal across the part you left connected, which makes one long strip of plastic tape. (Clear? Good.) Find the approximate middle of that very long strip, and cut it to create two pieces of tape, one for each pompom. Repeat steps 8 and 9 for each pair of pompoms you wish to make.

10. Prepare to wrap. Group three poms together (hey, feel free to go nuts and put like 20 together and make a mega-pom... you've got spirit, yes you do!). Tie the end of your tape around the base of the fringe, then begin wrapping up toward the handle, catching the tail of the tape underneath.

11. Keep winding. Do your best to keep the tape flat, overlapping generously (like that racket handle), but if you're not too bothered about it, you can just let the tape twist up into a rope as you wind. Just depends on how much you want to be concerned about it. When you get to the top (the base of the handle), start winding through the handle.

12. This part isn't so fun, but keep going. It helps if you roll the remainder of the tape into a little ball so that you can shove it through the handle (over and over) a bit more easily. Make sure you're overlapping the tape quite a lot in this part (or, if you've given up and are going for the twisted rope rather than flat tape method, keep the rope fairly snug).

13. Finish up. Once you get around to the other side of the handle, wind back down to the base of the fringe. Tie a knot, then let the remaining length of tape blend in with the pompom fringe (trimming as necessary).

14. Rah, rah. Repeat the final assembly steps for the other pompom. Now you're ready to outwardly exhibit your enthusiasm for a whole variety of things. Rah, indeed!

t-shirt bag

2008-09-23T21:42:00.000-07:00

i've vowed several times in the past many years to stay away from cheap disposable one-season clothing and focus on quality, timeless pieces. well, i try, but it's been a struggle lately, and somehow an embarrassingly high percentage of my wardrobe comes from target (hey, did you know you can just wheel that whole damn cart right into the dressing room, toddler and all? that's on a good day. most of the time, i just pull things off the rack, try them on at home so i don't have to do it while juggling kids, and return what doesn't fit. lame. you can imagine how well this plan is working for me.)

well, i have big plans. i've been holding off until my body figures out what size it wants to be post-baby, but shortly i plan to equip myself with, say a minimum of two pairs of pants that fit (up from my current total of zero -- it's summer, i've been relying on those roughly three skirts i have. seriously sad.) this time around, i really want to commit to avoiding disposable clothing. i'm sticking to timeless styles, remaking old stuff i have around or that i find resale, or sewing. eek! i've always wanted to have a wardrobe of clothing i've sewn, and have never managed more than a few pieces at a time. of course, now i have less time than ever... so i think i may have to ease into this, but stating the goal is a good a place to start as any.

so, in an effort to clear out some room in my closet, i pulled down a whole stack of t-shirts that are all from 2004 or earlier. remember? back when we were made to believe that it was hopelessly frumpy if the hem of our t-shirts so much as grazed the tops of our jeans? well, i saved all my t-shirts then when i switched into maternity clothes, thinking i'd wear them again some day. i'm pleased that i've more or less fit back into them since then, but lo and behold, they're... short. now it's really important that our t-shirts not only sit squarely below the tops of our jeans, but it's ideal if they extend nearly to the thigh. perfect. and, unlike the hemlines of my mother's day, i can't just raise or lower my t-shirts so that i can keep wearing them. you would have thought t-shirts were more or less a basic item, not so affected by the whims of fashion. but were that so, how else would they get us to buy all new t-shirts every two years?

lesson learned. that's why i'm not playing that game anymore (as best i can avoid it, in any case.)

all this to say that i used laughing purple goldfish design's strip cutting technique to attack those short t-shirts, and while i was over there, got inspired by her crochet bags. i will say, i didn't bother with the pattern (too lazy to walk over to the computer and remind myself what it was, though i would have been better off if i had), so mine is just made up. luckily, it's the sort of thing you can make up while sitting on the floor attempting to have a conversation with an old friend, as two babies and two kids swirl around the room (we had house guests this weekend, which was really too much fun.)

a few details: i cut the strips 1 inch wide (might go narrower next time?), and used a N hook. (i'd read the metric size for you off said hook, but my daughter took a liking to its novelty-like giant goofiness and now it's somewhere among her things, i'd guess.) i did it single "strand", which kept the colors distinct and formed a stripe pattern (so to speak), but using thinner strips and crocheting double-strand would give a different look if you like. the handles were a twisted rope sort of thing formed by the loops cut off the bottoms of the shirts (to avoid having to deal with the thicker hemmed fabric). i opted not to line it since it's so stretchy, i wanted to go with that rather than work against it with a lining. also, it's heavy. really heavy. just something to keep in mind.

so there you have it. my too-short shirts have become a just-right-sized bag. i like how the colors worked out, but really it's not that surprising. after all, i did choose all those shirts once upon a time. really, the surprising part is that it's not all just shades of green.

crochet toddler dress

2008-09-23T20:24:00.000-07:00

two months ago, i decided to crochet something for hazel. i settled on a sweet timeless looking dress pattern from a book i have around (candy crochet by candi jensen, the pattern is "summer love"). i really want to just make up my own stuff, which i will do next, but i figured i'd try not to tax my recently-postpartum brain for now. similarly, i made it 18 mo size so that if it took me a long time to complete, there would be no chance she'd outgrow it before it was completed.

plus -- and i really believe this -- 'tis better to make clothing for toddlers than for babies. babies grow ridiculously fast, and ideally you'll want them to wear it for more total hours than the number of hours you spent making it. (unless you just really love making baby booties... which i've done and can totally understand the appeal.)

well, it's finished, so i think i did okay with that whole schedule/sizing thing. :) in fact, i started it during the opening ceremony of the olympics (remember that? weird how it already seems like ages ago) and finished it before the olympics ended. i wonder if other people do this or if i'm weird, but when i look at something i've made, i always remember what i was thinking or what was happening around me while i was working on it. thus, i'll always think of this as hazel's "olympics dress".

i was going to title the post that way, but i figure that will just confuse the search engines. in fact, if anyone arrived here looking for patriotic, athletic-inspired clothing, i apologize. (but if you did, and you read this far anyway, leave a comment to say hi. because that's something i'd do... the internet is so distracting. :)

p.s. this is the second thing i've made out of bamboo blend yarn (the first was a springy sweater), and i'm really sold on it. it's easy to work with, has a lovely sheen, and works well for those of us in warm climates where wool isn't always the best option. this time, it was bamboo/nylon babyboo in color "blue ice" -- quite economical, too, at $5.50/skein. last time, it was wool bam boo (guess what it's made of?), and after washing it a ton, i can attest that it really holds up well.

garden party cake

2008-09-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

two weeks ago, my sister called to chat as she drove home from work:
"so, what are you doing?" she asked.
"um... i don't want to tell you."
"why?"
"well, okay. i'm making 1,000 blades of grass out of sugar."
[pause, then she asks:] "do you ever ask yourself, 'why did i think this was a good plan?' other people wouldn't think of doing this stuff! well, they might think of doing it, but then they'd come to their senses and not actually do it, because they're not crazy."

i have to admit, she has a point.

i often find that i have these grand ideas for things that "won't be that hard" and then somewhere around 2 a.m., i'm starting to reconsider. yet, despite all my crazy plans, i can only think of one time where i actually threw in the towel and went with a less-cool Plan B (which was my Wii cake, which actually turned out to be my most viewed project ever, despite the catastrophic failure of Plan A).

in this case, though, the 1,000 blades of grass weren't really so bad, maybe an hour to pipe and and 90 minutes to place them. and, hey, this math major got to use some numbers! (hmm, area of the cake plate, minus the area of the cake itself, times the number of blades per square inch... i did have to recheck my figures when the answer came out to be 960-something.) but the very idea... i'm fessing up, it's a bit nuts.

i was inspired by a filler photo (not one of the featured projects) in "kate's cake decorating", a 2004 cake book by kate sullivan. that book seems to be out of print, but a newer book, "fun & fancy cake decorating" appears to be largely a reworking of the older book (from what i can tell peeking inside it on amazon, anyway). i quite enjoy the book i have; if you have some basic skills from a wilton class or something, but don't want to make the same semi-dated ordinary cakes over and over (sorry, wilton! i know you're trying...), kate sullivan's ideas can help you transition into something a little more interesting. that said, i disagree with some of her specific methods (why the obsession with painting over untinted icing? it seems easier and tidier just to tint the icing, IMO), but everyone has their own way of doing things, and i never follow the methods as presented to me anyway! overall, i definitely got my money's worth from it as a source of ideas, so you might want to check out the new book. (hopefully that typo about putting approximately a metric ton of leavener into the otherwise amazing (!) chocolate cake got fixed in the second version -- at least, the lava flow of cake batter that's still charred into the bottom of my oven feels that it might have been a typo. can't say for sure.)

enough with the mini book review (so timely and useful, reviewing a book that is out of print!). this cake was for my mother-in-law's recent birthday. we wanted to do something special for her this year, so larry and i brainstormed and came up with an idea for a little garden party. his mother lives in a beautiful setting, with a little green space next to a creek extending from her back yard, so we decided to utilize that wonderfulness and set up a table there. with some flowers, candles, paper lanterns, and a few other little decorations, we had a lovely table set up, all in green and yellow. the cake followed that theme, and included daisies which i knew to be one of her favorites. we ordered in food from a nearby italian restaurant that we all really enjoy (too many babies around to consider cooking ourselves). she seemed genuinely surprised (hurray, subterfuge!) and everyone had a great time. (and i'm learning that you don't have to stress about going 100% martha to have a lovely party...)

i do have one party idea i want to share, though. after dinner, we played a bit of family-themed pictionary. i wasn't sure how this idea would play out, but it ended up being really a lot of fun: i made up pictionary cards with concepts or events from the family, that most everyone would be familiar with (people, professions, cities where we had lived, family quotes, etc, as well as funny notable events like "the time the boys changed the baby brother's diaper by hosing him off in the yard".) as we played, people started making up their own clues, too, which was really funny. we used one of those giant presentation pads from an office supply store, but that wouldn't be necessary if you were indoors. the fact that the game triggered lots of remembering and joking around made it perfect for a family party. try it out at thanksgiving, ideally after some wine but before the naps take over.

pysanky

2008-09-07T19:40:00.000-07:00

i've created a flickr set showing and describing my Ukrainian eggs (pysanky). i haven't worked on this project for a while and have been really wanting to start back up again, so this is part of my motivation to do so.

rather than repeat everything here, if you're interested in reading more, i invite you to click through to the flickr set. as always, i'm more than happy to answer any questions, so just leave a comment (either place).

Update 09.16.2008: I just found out I've been accepted to Maker Faire! I'll have an interactive display of these eggs -- if you'll be around, stop by and try your hand at making one, or just to say hi!

kid craft: fun with food coloring

2008-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

i don't find much time for crafting with a preschooler and (not-so-)newborn in the house, thus the dramatic slow-down in posting the past three months. today, though, we did a bit of kid crafting that i wanted to share. not quite a guest blogger post, but a collaborative effort to be sure: not only is the artwork eva's, but she took all the photos as well (she got her own camera for her third birthday, complete with her own flickr site -- have i gone off the deep end?).

we started out by playing around with food coloring and water, as suggested by a fellow mama. as you can see, we decided to start with the three primary colors in "tiny" (ahem, shot) glasses and go from there. we worked out things like what colors you need to make green, what you get if you mix red and yellow, and that no matter how many times you try it, mixing all three will give you a version of brown. ("how about if we add blue to the orange we just made? oh, look, that makes brown too, mama!")

we used a syringe to suck up water and mix it in a small white bowl (the needle-less syringe i happened to have lying around was a marinade injector. why? because my sister is a foodie, that's why. normal people can use a dropper from a craft or teacher supply store). from there, the new color went back into the syringe to be placed on our medium -- first, a paper towel. (the original idea was to use coffee filters, which would be great, but we didn't have any handy.) the colors bled and mixed in cool ways, and being a paper towel, it soaked up enough of the water to prevent a huge mess. we even made a duplicate "print" of the original by pressing a second paper towel onto the first. neat.

next, we tried doing a modified tie-dye: i rolled up an old tea towel and bound it with twist ties and rubber bands to make a "caterpillar" shape. eva placed different colors along the caterpillar, then we unrolled it to see the design. this is a somewhat ephemeral project, as my understanding is that you can't permanently dye cotton with food coloring (maybe next time, we'll try kool-aid?). i may try heat setting it with an iron -- still won't be washable, but might be good enough that i can let her use it for her toy kitchen without worrying that it will stain the carpet.

now, since this is eva's project, here is the method in her own words in a 17-second-long video, which she recorded herself with her camera. (it's only her third (or so) video, so you can hear me telling her how to turn it off at the end. :)

[caption: "mom, we used this colored water, and we used "play water", and we put it on that cloth right there. with twist ties and rubber bands."]

this isn't earth-shattering stuff of course, but we sure enjoyed ourselves. and with minimal set-up/clean-up, we did the whole thing while baby hazel slept. perfect for our rainy afternoon!

globe cake

2008-07-05T20:35:00.001-07:00

here's the cake i made for eva's third birthday. she loves her earth ball (an inflatable globe ball) and likes to talk about where different places are on the map -- where we live, places she's traveled, where family members live or have traveled. so, why not make an "earth ball cake"? sure it's round and complicated, and sure i just had a baby, but why not? :) luckily my sisters are visiting, so i had both hands free for long enough stretches to enable me to make this. hurray for sisters!

it's hummingbird cake (pineapple/banana/pecan) with cream cheese icing, and each half of the earth is composed of two 8" cakes (torted into four layers) plus half a torted 6" cake on top. then, the whole thing is carved into shape (i could have bought a special pan, but this worked fine). i covered each half in fondant, inverted one, and stuck them together. (structural notes: there are dowels supporting the bottom tier (hemisphere?) of the cake, and i put hot glue between the two pieces of cardboard to help hold the two tiers together.) the fondant on the bottom half threatened to fall off -- and in the heat at the park, it did start to slip -- but i added a band of fondant around the center to bind the two halves together.

the continents are piped on in royal icing, which i did by looking at a map and using latitude and longitude lines as a guide. i got a bit impatient around 1 a.m., so the filling in of the land masses got a bit sloppy at the end. good enough! (i'm learning the beauty of that phrase.) the topper -- a girl holding a toy airplane -- is made of fondant, with a piece of wire in there to support the arms. it's eva-like, but as she'll tell you, her hair is a little bit lighter... the flags are to denote places of interest, places we've found on the map time and time again. ("mama, show me seattle again. remember when we saw the face needle?" she's still working on pronouncing that "sp" consonant blend :)

the location of the party moved at the last minute from our back yard to a park 20 minutes away... so the cake suddenly had to survive an unplanned transport and *then* had to endure the texas summer heat. i'm surprised that it did all of that without a hitch. (we rigged up a clever support system in a cooler.) it didn't come out exactly the way i envisioned it, but i'm quite happy with it. and it was really tasty, too.

rocking chairs

2008-06-15T19:53:00.000-07:00

in honor of father's day, here are photos of the rocking chairs my dad made for my daughter. (she received the larger chair for her first birthday, and upon realizing it was a bit too big, he promptly started making the smaller one for christmas! thus, two chairs...) now that he has two new granddaughters as of this year, he's got more woodworking ahead of him, it seems.

both my parents have always helped me to know that i can probably make most anything -- or, more accurately: it might not work out at first, but it's sure worth giving it a try. the first thing i made with my dad (that i recall making) was a wooden jigsaw puzzle. i colored a drawing on a scrap of plywood with some crayons, and he used the table saw (okay, so it wasn't a jigsaw, but who's ever heard of a table saw puzzle?) to cut it into about 10 pieces. strangely, this resulted in a really challenging puzzle that adults had difficulty putting together, even after a bit of practice.

happy father's day, dad. :)

home made

2008-05-24T17:32:00.000-07:00

yesterday we welcomed hazel into our family. she was born peacefully at home, and we're all doing well...

frog meets bear

2008-05-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

sometimes i get into this mode where i enjoy some project so much, i then repeat it (with variations) several more times before moving on to something else. well, those bears i made last week were pretty entertaining... so this week i made a frog. (seriously, the kyuuto amigurumi book is totally worth it -- for the price, it would have been worthwhile had i made only one project out of it, and i've done three already...)

my main difficulty, though, is the facial expression. this is as true of stuffed animals as it is of dolls (when i made eva's doll, i restitched the second eye about ten times so she didn't look depressed or crazy, and in the end i gave up and settled for half-drunk -- isn't it weird how a pupil half a milimeter to the side can cause a whole different expression?). it took some effort to get the frog eyes to look roughly balanced, and then i did the mouth (which is embroidered since i had no red felt on hand) three times before he looked friendly and not like he might try to eat you in your sleep. expressions are harder than they seem, and i have much respect for people who have learned to do this well. (i luck into a passable expression eventually, but some people can achieve the look they want with actual skill.)

this is for a friend's little girl, but i think first i'll have to convince eva to relinquish it. she's been ribbit-ing it around the house for a few days now. and of course, she's now asking about her bear. soon...

crochet stitch marking trick

2008-05-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

i hate stitch markers. there, i said it. sure, it's nice not losing your place in crochet (or knitting, but i'm basically a crocheter). but they're so annoying! (*whine*...) they get caught in your working yarn, it slows you down having to remove and replace them, ... i just don't like using them.

but on my last project, i came up with something that really works, won't fall off, and takes almost zero effort to place or remove. it's so simple that i'm sure lots of other people have come up with it before, but i've never read about it anywhere, so i thought i'd share.

basically, take a short length (4-6 inches, whatever) of contrasting scrap yarn. when you get to the place you want to mark, just drape it across the previous row of stitches before you make the next stitch. the contrasting yarn will be caught under the stitch, and that's your mark. but here's the cool part: when you get to the next row/round, no need to pull it out and reinsert it, just flip one end of the contrasting yarn, say, from the front to the back. on the next row/round, flip it back to the front. the result is what looks like a little vertical row of running embroidery stitches. when you're done, just pull and it comes right out.

and here's a bonus: let's say you're in a part of your pattern where you need to count a bunch of rows or rounds. (when it's the same for a big set of rows, i tend to lose track -- and again, too lazy to do something as crazy as use a pencil and jot down a count on some scratch paper.) you can use your marking yarn to count rows (or rounds) -- just pull it out before the section you want to count and replace it at the first row. you can then count the "stitches" created by the contrasting yarn as you proceed; that is, each stitch or space created by the contrasting yarn is one row. now you're marking your rounds (or rows :) and your stitch count at the same time. and there's no little plastic doodad snagging your yarn.

and i should say, i'm sure there are stitch markers out there that actually work well. but i like this, because it's free, and i always have a little scrap of yarn on hand without having to dig around in my bag. give it a try and see what you think. (and as always, if anything is unclear, feel free to ask and i'll try to clarify...)

amigurumi bears

2008-05-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

eva started preschool last week (just two afternoons a week), and in order to help her transition, i sat at school with her for the first two days. hmm, what to do with my hands? as i've gotten closer to the end of my pregnancy, i've been less absorbed in crafts (as you may have noticed), so i had nothing (portable) in progress.

i bought the kyuuto amigurumi book a while back, and decided this was a good opportunity to put it to use. i made a tiny orange bear for the baby (which thrilled eva to no end), and then she decided that next i needed to make a green bear for her. so, i made a version of the striped bear project in the book (eva said no stripes, so i omitted those, but liked the size of this bear -- there are three sizes of bears alone offered in the book, let alone a whole assortment of other animals...) i went ahead with plastic eyes for eva's bear, but just embroidered on some eyes for the baby's bear for reasons of safety.

i really like this book -- for about $10 you really can't go wrong. i mean, sure, after you do one or two, you can pretty much make up any sort of amigurumi you want. but, even if you're making up your own patterns, this can still be really useful as a general guide for sizes and patterns of stitch increases, etc.

so, now we have a big sister bear to go with the baby bear. i've hid it from eva so far, so it can be a present ("from the baby" so to speak) after the birth. i'm amazed she hasn't asked for it (the typical toddler "out of sight out of mind" thing), but i'm excited because i know she's going to love it. after all, she squealed and came running when she saw the baby's bear...

(oh, and see my next post for my cool stitch marking trick. very useful for amigurumi or any crochet in the round.)

what everyone needs

2008-04-15T19:35:00.000-07:00

i've been telling eva for weeks that i'll embroider her a truffla tree shirt (she's really into "the lorax", which was one of my favorite books as a kid, too). i had planned to do some hand embroidery, but then i saw girl popcorn's machine embroidery tutorial on the craftzine blog and got inspired. while i was on bed rest for a month or so, i watched a lot of crafty tv, which included some of those traditional quilt shows on PBS. one show (hmm, fonz & porter or the other one? it's all a blur) had a guest who basically drew her entire quilt design in thread on black fabric. it ended up looking like a printed fabric, because she used very dense stitching and a variety of colors (unlike basic quilting motifs). so, i sort of combined the two ideas and though my free-motion machine stitching is decidedly inexpert, decided to give it a go on some beloved truffla trees.

sometimes the right tool makes all the difference. i was unaware of the water soluble stabilizer girl popcorn mentions, but it's perfect for the task. you can transfer a very precise line drawing this way, and keep stretchy t-shirt fabric under control at the same time. i always wondered how people did that! so, i just traced some images from the book and fused the stabilizer to the shirt (i also put a layer of soluble stabilizer on the back -- given i still got some puckering, maybe a more basic embroidery stabilizer -- that stays in place? -- would have been preferable?) i then began to stitch the various colors (eva helped me choose thread that matched the trees in the book). here you can see the line drawing and the first trees stitched in.

i did the black outline stitching last so it would stay on top. i thought it would be really difficult to pull off the level of detail i had drawn into the design, but i just went slowly, and was surprised to find it worked out just fine. here's the final result. i haven't machine washed the shirt yet, so maybe some of the puckering will go away? there are a few ink marks from when i rinsed out the stabilizer (they do warn not to use just any pen, but i'm not always known to follow directions), but i think that'll wash out.

not bad for a first attempt, and it really went quite quickly -- an easy one-evening project (i'd still be working on the hand embroidery version well after the baby arrives, i think). more importantly, though, is that eva adores it. i'm so happy to have this technique in hand; just think of all the possibilities...

katherine's banner

2008-03-26T20:29:00.000-07:00

there once was a time when i made a quilt for every baby in my life. then, i hit that certain age when not only is everyone i know having babies, but i have my own, thus severely curtailing my free time. so, given the pesky laws of supply and demand, things adjust. my niece katherine is already 4 months old, and as it became clear a quilt was not in the cards, i hit upon an idea. her mother (my sister-in-law) mentioned that her first daughter had a name banner for her bedroom (a sweet sunny felt item made by a friend) but that katherine did not. combine that with the fact that they will soon likely be packing up everything they own to move to another continent, the smaller the gift the better. i decided to combine the concepts -- quilt and banner -- and came up with this. (it's difficult to photograph something that is 10 feet wide...)

i decided this was the perfect application for the set of amy butler fat quarters i bought recently (when i buy something with no plan in mind, i'm always happily surprised when i use it in a timely fashion). i found a great font online, and (by tracing a printout at the proper size) used it as a template for embroidering the letters -- i even found i had floss around that coordinated nicely with the fabrics, and had white fabric on hand, so the only thing i bought specifically for this project was the ribbon. i added the botanical heart flourish seen below as a tenth panel (to allow the banner to hang evenly), and i think it adds a nice touch. this sort of addition would be needed if the name was quite short, or if you needed a space between two names or words. also seen (at bottom) is my test of filling in the embroidered letters. i liked the bolder look, but it was time consuming and also left the result feeling less clean, i thought, so i stuck with the outline.

i also used this opportunity to play around and try to boost my confidence with free motion quilting. i came up with a different quilting pattern for each of the ten panels, and since each was small, i could figure out what i liked and what i didn't. (i was surprised to find how much i liked outline quilting, following the print on the fabric, because i thought that might be annoying to work.) i didn't mark anything, and it is now reinforced for me why i should. (lesson finally learned this time, i promise!)

fabric eggs

2008-03-21T22:38:00.001-07:00

fabric eggs, originally uploaded by kelanew.

inspired by sew mama sew's secret pocket eggs, i decided i'd whip up a dozen for the easter egg hunt we had today with friends at the park. i didn't have anything on hand to put into the pockets, so these eggs have to be treat enough on their own, i guess. eva had fun helping me choose fabrics and stuff them, and i enjoyed being able to use up those tiny, tiny scraps i knew i was saving for some reason.

my friends are so creative -- the other eggs contributed to the hunt contained lots of great treats (and no corn syrup in sight :) -- egg-shaped chalk, graham cracker bunnies, pipe cleaner flowers and bunnies, stickers, stamps, craft dough, real flower blooms, and even strawberries! (honestly, i'm not sure what all, since eva didn't gather all that many eggs herself, content to take it a bit slow.)

after the egg hunt and picnic, the kids enjoyed splashing in the fountain and running around while some of the (non-pregnant) parents partook of a glass of wine. and as the sun set on our little celebration of spring, a beautiful huge yellow moon rose over the downtown skyline.

spring can just last forever as far as i'm concerned.

crochet baby bonnet pattern

2008-03-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

This little bonnet is for my sister's baby, who we are hoping will arrive by Easter (she'll be a day or so shy of 42 weeks by then). Maybe a little bonnet will provide some encouragement? I couldn't find what I wanted, so I just made this up. For once, I actually wrote it down as I went, so now I can share with you my very first pattern. It's pretty adaptable to your needs (different stitch patterns, different sizes)... it can't really be messed up if you just stick with the basic shape. Enjoy!

Baby Bonnet
Perfect for spring/Easter, Christenings, or just general cuteness. Written in American crochet terminology; convert as needed.

Materials:
1 skein (really just half a skein or so) Rowan cotton glace or similar yarn (this is 23 st per 4"/10 cm).
size F (3.75 mm) hook

Gauge:
Gauge is not critical for this project. Just add or remove repeats to reach desired size.
approximately 4 repeats of fan stitch (used in MAIN section) per 4" (10 cm)
8 rows of fan stitch per 4" (10 cm)

Size:
Finished bonnet has an approximately 15" (38 cm) circumference.
Approximately "newborn" size (or 0-3 mo, probably). It would be very easy to size up to suit your needs by making the rows longer and adding a few rows... nothing complicated here.

Construction:
Bonnet consists of (1) the MAIN section worked in a fan stitch, a rectangle that forms the sides and top of the bonnet (think wide headband), worked from back to front edge (brim); and (2) the BACK section, a square attached in the center back of the MAIN section, which covers the back of the head. This t-shape is then seamed along the sides of the back to form the bonnet shape.

Instructions:
MAIN section:
Ch 57 (or a multiple of 5 st + 2, as needed for desired size). Ch 2, turn.
Row 1 -- Skip 3 chs *in next ch [2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc], skip 4 ch*. Repeat from * to * across, ending with dc in last ch (having skipped only 3 ch). Ch 2, turn.
Row 2 -- Skip dcs *in ch-1 sp, [2 dc, ch 1, 2 dc], skip 4 dc*. Repeat from * to * across. After working last ch-1 sp, dc in turning ch (now abbreviated as "tch"). Ch 2, turn.
Rows 3-8 -- Repeat Row 2. On last row, omit final ch 2 and fasten off.

BACK section:
(The idea here is to work a square slightly less than 1/3 the width of MAIN section, centered along the starting chain edge. Adjust starting/ending points of the rows as needed if you have modified the size, and add enough rows to keep this section roughly square. I worked it in a modified open stitch, but you could just do rows of dc or the fan stitch from above or whatever is to your liking.)

At starting chain edge of MAIN section, join in ch-4 space that follows fourth fan. Ch 2.
Foundation row -- Dc in same ch-4 space *ch1, 2 dc in next "space"* 6 times, where "space" is alternately the ch in a fan center or a ch-4 space between fans, ending in ch-4 space that follows seventh fan. Ch 2, turn.
Row 1 -- Ch 1, dc in ch-1 sp. *Ch 2, dc in ch-1 sp* 5 times across the row. Ch 1, dc in tch. Ch 2, turn.
Row 2 -- Dc in ch-1 space, *ch1, 2 dc in ch-2 space* 6 times. Ch 2, turn.
Rows 3-6 -- Repeat Rows 1 and 2. On last row, omit final ch 2 and fasten off.

Finishing:
On both sides of the BACK section where it meets the MAIN section, slide the stitches along the ch-4 space in toward the center, thus "rounding out" the corners a bit. Sew the two sections together (technically, there is no right/wrong side, so choose what looks best). As you sew, keep the sections even for the first half or so of the seam, then ease in the extra length (if any) of the MAIN section as you complete the seam so the bottom edges are aligned (again, this helps give the crown of the bonnet a nice round shape, avoiding pointy corners at the crown of the head).

Join at bottom front edge of bonnet on either side. Sc around the bottom edge all the way around to the other front edge. A note about stitch placement: across the bottom edge of the fan stitch, place 2 sc in each tch space. As you stitch across back, hold in slightly to help shape bonnet (I placed 1 sc in each ch-1 sp and 1 sc between each pair of dc). When you reach front edge, ch 1 and turn. Sl st in each sc around.

Without fastening off (if you like, to save weaving in two more ends), ch for about 8" (20 cm) to create a tie. Cut yarn and attach at opposite front bottom edge. Ch an equal length to create second tie, and cut yarn.

Weave in all ends. Block as desired.

Update: Here she is! arrived just in time for Easter...

Please report any errors and feel free to ask questions by leaving a comment below.

bargello baby quilt

2008-03-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

last week i finally finished up this quilt for my sister's (due any day) baby girl. i actually began this quilt two years ago: i made the same style top for a friend's baby, and wasn't terribly confident on how many strips etc i'd need. it soon became clear (before even sewing anything) that i had enough for two quilts, so i did both tops at once. (economies of scale! hurray!). i knew at the time the second quilt would ultimately be for my sister's future baby girl -- and if she happened to have only boys, someone else would be the lucky recipient.

given the quilt was started two years ago (i vividly remember shopping for fabrics at a local quilt store with my now-toddler then-wee-squirmy-babe bouncing around in a sling), some savvy fabric types will recognize a few amy butler prints from an older collection, including the large-scale floral on the quilt back. it's a little time capsule of a project, isn't it? i will say, one of the fabrics (the lavender one with little white dots) caused no end of trouble, since it was a more open weave for some reason and thus stretched more and refused to line up. now i know: if i ever encounter a suspicious fabric like that in the future, i'll just fuse interfacing to it before i begin cutting to keep it in line.

i chose this design since i was always intrigued by bargello style quilts. they're not as hard as they seem -- sure, there are so many tiny little squares (528 in this crib-sized quilt), but the whole thing is quite orderly once you get going. the basic method is this: you piece equal-width strips (say 2") that run the width of your quilt (include extra for dozens of seam allowances). fabrics should run light to dark of two colorways to maximize the effect, and just repeat those 8 or so fabrics until you get the desired height of the quilt (i did three repeats for 24 rows). now cut strips the opposite direction (creating column strips), varying the width from as little as 1" up to around 4". make every strip into a ring by joining the ends, then lay it all out and decide how you want to place everything. the fabrics should shift up or down one "square" as you move across the rows, creating the effect (sort of like a stock market graph to my eye). strategic placement of wide or narrow strips give you a more extreme or gentle slope to your "graph" pattern. once you have it all figured out, decide which row of squares will be the top of your quilt and use a seam ripper to open up your rings above that row. number your strips all at the top or all at the bottom edge, then sew together. this sounds confusing but i promise it isn't; if anyone has questions or wants more info please just leave a comment and i'll do my best to help.

this was my first real attempt at free motion quilting, so i didn't attempt anything too elaborate. i did a curvy swirl of sorts that roughly tracks the darkest and lightest fabrics as they move up and down in the bargello pattern. my stitch length isn't the most consistent, but i overcame my fear of "ruining" a quilt by subjecting it to my novice free-motion skills, so that in itself is an accomplishment. i filled in with some in-the-ditch quilting every 3" or so to keep the cotton batting from bunching up, and on the border, i did some randomly angled lines, sort of reflecting the art deco feel in the border fabric (and contrasting the hard angles with the curvy quilting in the center section). i like the overall effect, and the quilting is all pretty subtle anyway since i used a blend-in beige thread (wimp!).

i believe strongly in the idea of signing one's quilt (because you never know what will become an heirloom, and your great-grandchildren might want to know who made the quilt and just how old it is -- my family has some generations-old crocheted lace socks that have an old tag pinned to them indicating they are "60 years old"... not so helpful to us now). so, i always plan to include a patch on the back with lots of great info on it... but then i can never think what it should say! in this case, i don't yet know the baby's name, so i couldn't list the recipient, and everything else i could think of beyond my initials and the date seemed like fluff -- or just a lot to embroider. (anyone want to share what they put on quilt labels? favorite methods?) so this label is my little bit of hand-stitching on a machine pieced and quilted project. i also secretly enjoy doing all the tiny even little stitches required to secure the bias binding to the back of the quilt -- so maybe i should contemplate doing a future quilt without the machine for once? then again, just the hand stitching part of the binding took four hours, so i'd need to prepare myself for a very distant completion date if i did it all by hand.

so there it is. julie seems pleased, and i'm sure the baby will like it. (babies are traditionally easy to please like that. it can get more difficult later when they develop an aversion to everything that isn't, for example, entirely purple. but the babies are just pure love.) off to put notes on the photos, so click through to flickr if you want more tidbits of information.

julie's sling

2008-03-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

i'm back... mostly. i'm still not back to normal (whatever that means in your third trimester), but i'm not stuck prone on the couch all day, so that's a major improvement. the best part is that i have enough energy to work on some projects again! first on my list was to finish up the baby projects for my sister, whose first baby will be arriving pretty much any day now.

i'll leave the more elaborate projects for later -- i don't want to post them before the box arrives at her door -- but i think it's okay to show off the sling in advance, it doesn't need to be a big surprise. i whipped up this pouch sling in a few hours. it's made of home dec weight fabric and lined with a thin cotton -- a basic cotton sateen or something with a tiny bit of stretch is probably preferred, but i like the prints you can find in the home dec fabric. i don't line the slings i make for austin summer babies, but i think it will work okay for a northern climate (even though it gets hot there in the summer). the benefit of the lining is that now it can reverse to solid brown, in case there's a day when she's not wearing blue (but no worries, she wears blue most days, so we're good.)

i put a loop at the bottom for clipping on her wallet/keys or for a toy for the baby, and since it was lined i also was able to add an in-seam pocket. that's a great place for a few wipes or some cash or something small (bulky items would be uncomfortable for the baby). i like the idea of adding these ways to carry a few items, because (once the baby is a bit older and not potentially needing a fresh diaper or spitting up everywhere every 10 seconds) you can just leave the diaper bag in the car, especially for quick errands.

i've made several pouch slings for myself and friends, basically through trial and error. rather than write it up here, you can find some great directions on jan andrea's site (along with directions to make lots of other baby-related gear).

for the uninitiated, i can't say enough positive things about babywearing. you don't have to carry the heavy awkward baby seat around, your hands are free, you can nurse the baby while you get groceries and no one can even tell, and you can even keep a young baby away from germs if it's flu season. but best of all, it's great for the baby and he or she will be far more content -- what mama wouldn't love that? all this for a few dollars worth of fabric and a few hours of time. (i will warn, however, that correctly fitting a pouch sling is tricky business, so read up on proper fit and be prepared to adjust the size if you make one as a gift. other options include a ring sling -- which is adjustable -- and a mei tai style carrier, which can be worn like a backpack or baby bjorn, but less bulky to lug around and holds the baby in a better position.) lots more info can be found on the baby wearer site, among other places.

oh, and sorry the pouch sling photo doesn't show it in action... it's a bit awkward trying to model it over my big belly! but below is a custom mei tai sling i made back when i thought i might sell them as a business. ooh, silk...

i can't wait to share the other baby gifts! next week...

back soon

2008-02-22T13:00:00.000-08:00

i'll be taking a short break from posting because unfortunately i'm stuck on bed rest for the time being and only have energy for short bursts at the computer. i have several things i'd like to post, but they'll just have to wait until i'm running at full speed again, as frustrated as that makes me. i just wanted to say please do check back; i promise i'm not going to be inactive forever. thanks!

valentine

2008-02-13T18:54:00.000-08:00

as a romantic holiday, i don't get very wrapped up in valentine's day. however, i am starting to see the appeal when it comes to kids. eva's really excited to exchange valentines with her friends at a little party we're having for them. we've been working on these two projects for a couple weeks (amazing! i started with time to spare!), and she seems to think it's the best thing since christmas.

for the photo collage, she helped me make the letters. (glue sticks and coloring? perfect kid craft!) we used cardboard from a shipping box, covered the cut-out letters with packing paper from said box, and decorated away. despite the inherent glue & markers appeal, she actually wasn't into it at first, but then i caught her in a better mood another day. it pays to be patient; something i so rarely remember.

then she agreed to pose for all those photos, which was key (a collage of scowls doesn't say "love" in quite the same way, does it?). we stumbled upon the perfect setting, a nice monochrome winter outdoor sort of thing, which i think adds to the effect. also, dogs and bikes kept passing by, so she was suitably entertained. then i just smashed it all together in the gimp (like photoshop but open source and free).

we also made these hearts to mail or pass out to our family and friends, inspired by the very cute "colorful heart bough" (item #3) in kid craft weekly's valentine's day issue. rather than tape smaller hearts to a bough (which doesn't fit in an envelope the same way, so didn't suit our long-distance needs), we made larger hearts and added a bit of yarn with which to hang them. like the "love" letters above, the hearts were made almost entirely from packaging detritus -- we used the brown mailing paper that had wrapped a box mailed to me, made a heart stencil from leftover cardboard, and decorated all with tissue paper that had wrapped my recent birthday presents (it pays to have a february birthday, i guess. my gifts -- including a bouquet of flowers -- came in red, purple, pinks, and white. how convenient! i didn't even have time to put it away and pull it all back out again.)

eva glued ripped up tissue paper to the brown mailing paper, then i traced and cut out hearts. (again, she wasn't that into it at first -- but ripping paper and using glue are your favorite things! i don't get what the issue could be. that is, until my mom so astutely pointed out: "she's two." oh yeah, that's what it is! i forget that sometimes...) i taped scrap yarn to the back, then covered the backs with one heart-shaped piece of tissue paper -- those were easy to cut out once i figured out to fold the paper to the right size in big stacks, place the stencil on top, and cut through a dozen or so at a time with the rotary cutter. (we made about 30 hearts total.)

despite her occasional reticence, eva's really proud of her valentines and can't wait to share them. i do enjoy mailing out valentines (under the pretense of their being from eva, even when she was a baby and we made footprint cards by repeatedly painting her little foot). i think that it makes more sense for me to do this than holiday cards in december. i'm too busy then, and plus the odds of your card ending up in a huge pile of similar cards is lower at valentine's day than in december. and who doesn't like a surprise valentine? (note how i make the slacker method sound so well planned out?)

so, happy valentine's day, everyone, in whatever way you view it (as a holiday it's a bit loaded, isn't it?) and, if you're against it in every way, happy early fifteenth of february, then. :)

she sews

2008-02-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

although (most?) parents try not to push their own identities onto their children, i think it's probably normal to be a bit excited when your child takes an interest in one of your favorite activities. so imagine my pleasure when eva became fascinated with the sewing machine, and wanted to have one set up just for her.

it never would have occurred to me to try this at such a young age (she's 2 1/2) if i hadn't just read wendi gratz's great post about sewing with children (i found it via whip up during their crafts with kids theme last month). she mentions her daughter starting at age four, so i asked larry first if this seemed like an okay plan for our kid or if i was going to end up being harshly questioned when we ended up in the ER with puncture wounds in my toddler's fingers ("gee, but she really wanted to sew...")

like wendi, i set my machine up on a kid-sized table, put on the walking foot (which blocks the needle a bit more), and wedged some stuff under the foot pedal so she couldn't sew too quickly. i also ended up duct taping the foot pedal to an overturned box since her feet don't reach the floor even from her kid-sized chair.

i made sure she knew to keep her hands on either side away from the needle, and let her just go. i thought she'd just want to sew random lines (i gave her a scrap quilt sandwich to work on), but within two minutes she insisted she raise and lower the presser foot herself. (from my vantage at the side of the machine, seeing her little hand reach to the back to find the hidden presser foot lever was just too cute.) we couldn't find her scissors, so i taught her to cut the threads with the cutter attached to the side of the machine. our biggest challenge was that she insisted on "fixing" the various knobs for me, and every so often i'd find the thread tension had been set to zero when i wasn't paying attention. as she sewed, the look of concentration on her face was sweet, and she'd proudly show me after she finished each line: "mama, look at my beautiful stitching!"

so far that was her only sewing session, but when she seems ready, i'll see if she's interested in following a line or seam. maybe i can help her make a simple little bag, since she's fond of them in general.

of course, she'll eventually rebel against me and everything i stand for, but for now she wants to sew just like mama. it made my day.

crocheted toddler sweater

2008-02-06T19:11:00.000-08:00

i ignored this blog for a good chunk of last year due to our ceaseless travel (eva now has more frequent flier miles than i had when i was about 20 years older than her two-and-a-half years). given that, i'm catching up on some of the travel-friendly crafts that kept me busy over those months in 2007.

this little item was my first attempt at crocheted clothing of any kind. i made it during our month visiting my parents in alaska over the summer, with most of it done while sitting in a camping chair next to some river or another. maybe that's why i like the result so much; it has that energy put into it? or, equally plausible, is simply that it's a great yarn -- wool bam boo, a 50% wool 50% bamboo yarn from classic elite yarns. it's really soft and drapes well (as the label goes ahead and tells you it will), and was easy to work with as a beginner. i like that it was something other than cotton that she can actually wear for more than two months out of the year in our texas climate. the open/lacy design combined with just a bit of wool means it can keep the chill off when needed, but not make her too hot the rest of the time.

back then, before i knew if i was going to like crochet enough to invest in some books, i sought out a free pattern -- it didn't take me long to discover that a great many yarn manufacturers have free patterns on their websites. they're not always the most unique or inspired (especially from some of the more mainstream companies, ahem), but a good starting point for a beginning crocheter. i used this pattern from lion brand yarn. i know more places to look for patterns now, but i'm sort of glad i didn't at the time or i wouldn't have stumbled upon and made this sweater, which eva and i both love.

halfway through i began to fear that she would grow out of it too quickly (turns out she doesn't grow very fast... hurray?). since it's a wrap style, i really only had to worry about the length, so i added an extra row (or two?) of the edging pattern right above the bottom scallops (there's a note showing exactly where if you click on the above photo). i think the extra bit of length helped, and how could it hurt? it blends right in, only apparent should someone compare it to the original pattern. (and should someone do that and actually care, i'd be a bit more concerned about their mental state than i would about the sweater.) so when in doubt, i say, go ahead and size up a bit when you're talking about children's clothing, even if that means adjusting as you go.

it was all pretty straightforward, though i had some trouble with the sleeves. looking at the sample photo with the original pattern, clearly my sleeves came out too short? i found the instructions for that section ambiguous (though now i can't remember why), and redid the sleeve a couple times, as i reinterpreted the pattern (i attribute the confusion to my beginner status). actually, the sleeve ended up too short in both directions, requiring me to ease in a bit too much around the shoulder, probably because my starting chain for the sleeve was too tight (which i now know to be a common beginner mistake -- going up a hook size just for the chain can remedy that if you have the same problem). the lesson for me here is that garment construction still follows largely the same rules, be it in yarn or fabric. had i trusted my instinct (and knowledge from sewing) that the sleeve wasn't fitting, i could have easily fixed it, but "that's what the pattern said" (as best i could tell), so i left it alone. as a result the sleeves are a bit off, but no matter. now i know.

eva was kind enough to model her sweater for us on a recent spring-like day. (it's early february! see why we can't wear so much wool around here? by march wool-wearing is long in the past, and we start swimming. which, as a former northerner, i know sounds great -- until it's july and you already don't know how you'll ever make it until the reprieve of october. so, it's a trade off. not that i'm missing the snow right now.) we had fun taking photos -- though she never stopped moving for even two seconds -- and then she decided it was time to hike back to the playground. when it comes to toddler photography, shots like the one below are how you know you are done. "come on mama. are you coming? stop taking pictures and come with me!"

digitally created silhouettes

2008-02-03T19:25:00.000-08:00

I love silhouettes. My husband has one his preschool teacher made of him when he was about four, using the now old-fashioned method (which I presume was ultra new-fashioned at the time): she used an overhead projector to cast a focused shadow of him on the wall, where a piece of black construction paper was waiting. He (I can only guess) was a very patient preschooler and stood mostly still while she traced with a pencil, then later cut out the silhouette and glued it to a background piece of paper.

I can see the appeal of that method, I really can. Or better yet (given that my impatient toddler is not yet a relatively patient preschooler), I thought I might trace around a photo. However, based on my love of messing around with image manipulation software and my lack of a really solid pair of left-handed scissors (or confidence in my xacto skills), I decided to do it digitally. I concede, it might lose some of the charm this way, but nonetheless the method suits my needs. If you are similarly inclined, here's the method I used. (Note that this particular digital method preserves the hand-drawn nature of the older methods; I tried to generate an automatic selection through a series of adjustments to curves and thresholds and fuzzy selections, but try as I might, the results were choppy and unnatural looking. For me, (digitally) hand tracing the outline proved faster overall and produced a more friendly result.)

Take your photo
Photograph your subject in profile, framing tightly (say, from the bottom of the neck up). As much as possible, make sure your subject is in full profile and not somewhat turned toward or away from you. Also, it is best if the camera is level with the person's head so that you don't get a funny high or low angle. More than you would expect, the expression comes through in the finished silhouette, so aim for a natural expression rather than a scowl (produced, perhaps, by a somewhat uncooperative model's exasperation with your need for one more shot). Bonus points if you can find a contrasting background -- if you have black hair like I do, a white background would be preferable to the background of dark trees I managed to put behind myself.

Prepare the image
+ Open the image in a photo manipulation program (I use the GIMP which is open source and freely available; Photoshop would also work. You know... I hear it's a good product, too.)
+ In your Layer dialog, add an alpha channel to the background (and only) layer.
+ Add a new layer, selecting "white" as the fill type (I called mine "silhouette"). Move that layer down, so that it is below the photo layer. This is the layer on which you will draw the black silhouette.
+ Change the opacity of the photo layer to something around 65% (adjust to your liking). This enables you to see the photo and what you are drawing on the silhouette layer at the same time. Handy.

Outline the silhouette
+ Select your brush -- I used the 11 pixel circle, but you could go smaller if you wanted finer details; just don't use one of the fuzzy circles. Make sure you drawing (foreground) color is black.
+ Zoom in on the image so you'll have better control over your pen. (In the GIMP, you just hit "+". I'm sure most of this stuff is the same or very similar in Photoshop, but I haven't used that in a while and can't remember exactly.)
+ In the Layer dialog, make sure you are on the silhouette layer (so you don't draw right on your photo). In fact, stay on this layer for the duration; the photo will only be used as a visual guide.
+ Begin to outline the silhouette of your subject using the basic drawing tool. Keep in mind that you want to keep the entire width of your pen inside the profile (unless you want a slightly extra large nose or forehead). Tip: Rather than draw in one continuous line, you may find it helpful to draw in shorter strokes (just pause and let off your mouse button once in a while as you draw). That way, if you go slightly off course, you can just hit "undo" to remove a short bit of errant drawing, rather than have to pull out the eraser or redo a long line.
+ To check your progress as you go along, just turn off the photo layer and you'll see your black lines on the white silhouette layer. This way, you can get an idea of exactly how much detail (say, on the hair) you'd like to include.

Fill in the outline
+ You can try to use the bucket fill tool at this point to fill the area inside your outline. However, you may find that you end up with a little halo of white dots between your black outline and your black filled area (see right, click to see larger photo -- those dots are small). To avoid that, try this little trick:
+ Undo your bucket fill. Select the fuzzy selection tool, and click on the white area inside your outline to select that area. Before filling the area, you need to "grow" your selection so that that ring of white dots is included in the selection and thus will get covered up when you fill. To do this in the GIMP, under the "select" menu, choose "grow". In the dialog box, specify the number of pixels by which it should grow -- just enter something smaller than the diameter of the brush you used (my brush was 11, so I entered 7).
+ In the bucket fill dialog, select "fill whole selection" rather than "fill similar colors" so that it uses your fancy new selection when filling. Now you're ready to fill your outline. Hurray! A nice clean silhouette.

Tidy up and finish
+ Now is a good time to clean up any rough edges and refine the details. I found it helpful to change my drawing color to white and "shave" off any shaky bits that look untidy. Pay special attention around the facial profile; subtle differences (such as a slightly errant tracing of the curve of the nose) can affect the resemblance of the silhouette to your subject. Also, you can add or remove details as needed. (I always need to adjust a bit on the hairstyles. Not unlike real life.)
+ Rather than have the neck/shoulders continue all the way to the image's bottom edge, you may want to trim it at a nice jaunty angle, like traditional silhouettes. Just draw a white line at the angle you like (note: holding down shift constrains the pen to a straight line). Then, do the fuzzy select/grow the selection/bucket fill trick we used above (this time filling in white) to cleanly remove the, well, body from the head. (Ouch.)

Your silhouette would be lovely framed alone or in a set with other individually framed silhouettes. If you'd like to do a couple or family grouping in one print (so your silhouettes can chat with each other?), just create a new image with a white background large enough to hold all your silhouettes and copy/paste the individual silhouettes into it. I like to make all the silhouettes the same height -- all the better to compare the wacky differences in proportion of child and adult faces -- so before merging the images into one, scale each accordingly. Tip: crop each image so that the top and bottom of the silhouette precisely touch the image boundary. Now just scale each image to the height you want (say, the height of the smallest of your silhouettes), and they'll all be perfectly the same.

(Click on any photo for a larger version; the details are hard to see at this size.)

And there you have it, some lovely silhouettes to save for posterity. It would be interesting to do a silhouette of a child each year or so as they grow and their profile changes (okay, let's see if I can remember to do that...) If you know of clever uses for silhouettes, I'd love to hear them -- maybe embed wee tiny faces into resin buttons or something? In the mean time, I'll consider it a success if I remember to print and frame a more tangible version of these digital silhouettes. (Oh, the follow-through!)

crocheted slippers (and a lesson learned)

2008-02-01T20:59:00.001-08:00

slippers, originally uploaded by kelanew.

i crocheted these slippers for my sister-not-quite-in-law (my brother-in-law's long-time girlfriend... there's no convenient term for that, is there?) for christmas. i rather like how they turned out, a bit retro, a little seasonal, not too hokey, and they used up exactly the amount of yarn i had left over in that skein of vanna's choice lion brand yarn (say what you will about acrylic yarn, you have to admit vanna or her people can really pick colors -- that's what drew me in).

but here's the thing: i didn't really use a pattern, and didn't write down what i did. so, even if i like them, i can't ever make them again. oops.

life lesson #8295: write things down. and not on a postage-stamp sized scraps of paper that you found in the bottom of your purse, which you then shove into the pages of one of your craft books and subsequently can't find.

i started with a pattern, but didn't like the choices they were making, so from the very first row i started changing things. then, before long, i wasn't even looking at the pattern anymore and was just winging it. (other than the basic "it looks like a slipper", ultimately no measurements or stitch patterns were kept from the original pattern). knowing that slippers in a pair tend to want to be the same size as each other and look, well, alike, i did jot down random things like "inc 2 each side & 1 bot for 3 rnds then 2 more next 2 rnds". it worked well enough when i made the second slipper the next day and could remember what i did, but wow, that's not terribly helpful not even two months later. what did all that illegible stuff even mean? who made these slippers again? some mildly deranged woman (or talented monkey?) with free access to an (unspecified size) crochet hook but strictly limited access to office products?

so, i'd love to be able to tell you how i made these, but i can't. here's one cool tip i can share, though:

i didn't know her exact size (i knew she was maybe a size or so up from me, but that level of knowledge only takes you so far), so how big to make the slippers? my solution was to err on the side of caution and make them a row or two longer than i thought i might need (the back of the slipper is a straight seam; the last row of sc is folded in half and just stitched together). turns out i was right, and they were just a bit too long, but no matter. i left the pompom unattached until i had her try them on, pinched at the back of her ankle to determine how much needed to be "taken in", then attached the pompom at that point, keeping the slipper pinched together the proper amount. this accomplished two things: i effectively shortened the slipper, and i also added a bit of contouring to the heel area. rather than a straight up-and-down fit along the back, the shape comes in above the heel (at the achilles' tendon), helping the slipper to stay on the foot a bit. to be frank, this trick was the entire motivation for the pompom in the first place -- it creates and also hides the after-the-fact sizing/shaping.

i plan to start using patterns less often and to start "designing" (read: randomly making stuff up as i go along) more often. note to self: start using that notebook you made yourself and write things down!

rose petal bead rosary

2008-01-27T11:49:00.000-08:00

in december after my father-in-law passed away, his home was soon filled beyond capacity with flowers (i say "beyond" as some of the arrangements fit only on the back patio.) over time, as the flowers began to wilt, i wanted to find some useful way to preserve them. years ago, i had heard about making rose petal beads, and rather than make jewelry of some sort, i decided to make a rosary for my mother-in-law.

i googled around and found several methods to make the beads. some options, like simply putting petals in a blender with water, didn't seem like they would produce a nice bead. i sort of combined the various instructions, and made up the rest. here's what i did:

1. gather ye rosebuds
i had the mistaken impression that one needed piles and piles of petals. not true. i think a half dozen or dozen petals would be sufficient. you may choose to use all one color (red would be especially nice, yielding a mahogany color), or do as i did, mixing whatever rose petals you happen to have around. be sure to discard any brown petals. some suggest snipping off the fibrous bottom end of each petal, but i'm too lazy for such things. (not having a control group, i can't say whether it would have improved the results.) if you like, you can keep the petals fresh in a plastic bag in the fridge while you wait for subsequent flowers to hang their heads.

2. cook your stinky porridge
first of all, don't be fooled by instructions that say that cooking the petals will cause the aroma of roses to fill your house. rather, to my nose, it smells strongly of decay -- a combination of your valentine's bouquet in early march along with some rotting leaves. my husband swore it made his throat feel allergic, and hours later, the surprise was in jeopardy when my mother-in-law came home to a stinky house for which i had no explanation. it's not terrible, just not the most pleasing. you might want to open a window weather permitting.

so: put your petals in a pot (something non-reactive, probably), cover with water, and heat. as soon as it boils, reduce to a simmer, and let it cook for a long time, stirring occasionally. i think i had mine on the stove for around 4-5 hrs, but if you're not cooking up many bouquets worth of petals, you might find a few hours is sufficient. basically, you're looking for the petals to have broken down into a a slimy brown mess, with no petals distinguishable from the others. it won't be a completely smooth paste, but the petals should be well broken down. see before and after (right) don't worry about the unpleasing color at this point.

3. remove the water
drain the whole mess in a colander or sieve. wait for it to cool enough so that you can handle the, um, solid matter (whatever it is now?). handful by handful, squeeze as much water as possible out of the stuff, and place in a container of some sort with a lid. the more water removed, the better. you can keep this "clay" covered in the fridge for several days if necessary.

4. shape your beads
you'll need some sort of drying assembly, including some way to keep the holes in the beads open. i used squares of corrugated cardboard and t-pins -- stick pins would be fine, but i liked the wider diameter of the t-pins, giving me more flexibility later in stringing the beads with bigger holes.

grab a (grape sized?) bit of the petal-gunk, and squeeze it in some absorbent cloth or paper to remove more residual water. pinch off a small bit and roll it between your fingers to form a ball (or whatever shape you like), making it as smooth as possible. carefully insert a t-pin, slide the bead halfway up, and stick the end of the pin into the cardboard. two things to be aware of: first, the bead will shrink a good amount -- i'd guess maybe 30% or so? so make the bead larger than you want the finished bead to end up. second, it will not shrink uniformly -- it shrinks more in width than it does in height (perhaps due to friction along the pin shaft?). my beads started off mostly round and ended up oval; my (unused) set of oval beads ended up very long and thin, almost like a stout bugle bead. you might find it to your advantage to make all the beads at once -- once they begin to dry/shrink, it's more difficult to keep them a consistent size.

5. wait. repeat.
let your beads dry, spinning them half a turn on the pins every day or so if you think of it (i doubt this is crucial). it's probably best that they be in a moderate temperature and not overly humid environment, so that they will dry before they grow mold. i had no trouble with this, they dried to the touch overnight, and continued to dry (and shrink) for another day or so. (be aware: they will still shrink a slight amount for up to a week or two after you make them, so if you don't want any gaps in your necklace, wait longer to string them up.

the results: you probably weren't fond of the color of the cooked petal goo -- mine was reminiscent of some unpleasant baby-offerings of which i'd rather not be reminded -- but surprise! the color now is much improved. mine (from a mix of rose petal colors, with red in the slight majority) went from an ugly tan to a lovely dark brown with a deep purple undertone. the texture becomes a bit more rough after the beads dry; i chose to view this as part of their inherent natural beauty rather than get concerned about it. it's also worth noting that some people recommend coating the beads with some sort of varnish, wax, etc. i chose to leave mine natural as i liked their look (and the oil from your hands supposedly enhances the beads over time), but you could research different options. (oh, and the foul smell goes away as they dry as well. luckily.)

6. create something useful and/or beautiful from your beads
you could easily make a necklace, bracelet, or earrings, or incorporate the beads into sewn or crocheted items (keeping in mind it's best to store the beads in a non-humid environment if possible). i chose to make a rosary for the meaning it would impart give the source of these particular petals. (i had to look up the proper configuration of a rosary, and i used a few standard variations: rather than use small ave beads and large pater beads, i just put more space around the pater beads to set them off. also, i couldn't find a pendant i liked, so i used a large stone bead for the center, plus a sterling silver crucifix for the end.)

string the beads on whatever size beading wire fits comfortably through your beads, interspersing (or not) some other beads for variety and interest. (i used some garnet colored glass beads to pick up the mahogany tones in the rose petal beads.) for the rosary, i didn't need a standard clasp (just silver crimp beads to secure the ends), but choose whatever style clasp works for your needs.

stored (generally) in an airtight container, and not, say, dropped in the swimming pool, these beads should last indefinitely. (or so i'm told... we'll see, eh?)

and there you have it. a lovely keepsake, especially meaningful if you used rose petals that had some meaning to start with. (valentine's day is coming up -- are any of you the type of person to get roses then? if not -- i'm not either -- or you just don't want to wait, the cheapest way to get petals is to ask for some (specify you'd take the wilty sad looking ones!) at a flower shop. they'll either just hand them over, or sell them for not much.

as for this particular rosary, its meaning tends toward the somber rather than other potential meanings, such as celebratory or romantic. however, although it could be seen as too sad and morbid to make something from funeral roses, i choose to view it differently. those flowers were given not only in sorrow, but also as a sign of the love and respect the givers had for my father-in-law. it's this -- the profound effect he had on the lives of others -- that i see symbolized in the rose petal beads. an unworthy tribute, to be sure, but meaningful nonetheless.

quilted plastic bag

2008-01-20T22:14:00.001-08:00

some time ago, etsy labs posted tutorial on making fused plastic bags. as far as i can tell, they didn't start the ensuing crafting trend, but certainly fanned the flames (fumes?). you can see examples and more examples all over the place. (and really, if it's on etsy, craftzine, and whip up, it's been covered. thoroughly.)

i loved the premise of up-cycling (yes, we get to make up whatever words we want these days) only marginally useful plastic shopping bags into something better. so, in trying my hand at this technique, i decided to juxtapose it with something that in many respects is coming from the opposite viewpoint -- traditional quilting. (i did see some examples where bags were pieced somewhat to combine logos or to get large enough sheets of material, but didn't see anything pieced in a quilt style -- but that doesn't mean it hasn't been done.)

traditionally, back when quilting was at least in part a utilitarian undertaking, quilters used whatever fabric was available to them. it was common to repurpose old or damaged clothing, and whole styles of quilting existed for the sole purpose of finding ways to use every last scrap of fabric. nothing was wasted. plastic bags, in contrast, are used once and (often) thrown away. use and toss, use and toss (or maybe use it again once for something and then toss). they're a pretty apt symbol for our whole consumer disposable culture. (those early quilters would feel a bit disoriented my this mindset, i think.)

and so, i turned my horrible plastic bags into traditional quilt blocks, to sort of play with that dichotomy. i deliberately chose very familiar quilt blocks: the ohio star and shoo fly on the front, as well as the friendship star on the back. i added sashing between the blocks (to continue the whole quilt representation), then formed the whole thing into a tote bag -- coming full circle from bags to a bag. (as you can see, i behaved like a quilter and even drew out a quilt pattern -- plastic or not, you need to know sizes and where the pieces go, so that was actually helpful.)

i didn't have any trouble fusing or sewing the plastic. it was a pretty uneventful rendition of the much-described technique, so i won't elaborate on the process here (if you want to know how to do this, follow those links above to samples and tutorials galore). my only tip: if you're fusing outdoors to avoid fumes, wait for a warm day. in cold weather, the plastic cools too quickly and wrinkles more than otherwise necessary.

i'm pleased with the results, but i doubt i'll be returning to this technique unless i have a pressing need for something made out of this sort of material. should that come up (various halloween costumes come to mind), it's useful to know how to do this.

little white dress

2008-01-19T22:39:00.000-08:00

i have a hard time cutting kids' clothing completely without a pattern. i find that i need to use an existing garment or bits and pieces of some cut up, recombined, or altered patterns for reference. that said, since i'm about to hack up the pattern i used to make eva's white dress last year, i thought i should finally write about the dress first.

last may, we returned to smith college for my 10 year reunion. smith is full of traditions: weekly friday afternoon tea served in every house, mountain day -- a surprise holiday each fall for everyone to go hike around and have a picnic rather than go to class (announced by the ringing of tower bells on whatever day has nice weather), and, of course, the whole white dress thing. for graduation, there is a big ivy parade where all the seniors wear white and carry red roses, and all the alumnae wear white along with a sash in their class color. for my five year reunion, i made my dress (and though it was well constructed, discovered why bias cut dresses are not for me). so this time, i decided to buy myself a cute little baby doll minidress and instead made a dress for eva.

i found some sweet embroidered eyelet fabric (there's a name for it, what is it?); slightly more geometric in pattern than the usual frilly variety. using a pattern pretty much straight-up (butterick 3782), i turned out the dress fairly quickly. (however, i spent a bit more time than strictly necessary ensuring the vertical pattern of eyelets was properly aligned between the skirt and bodice pieces, and between the front and back. of course, the pleats make that impossible, but i successfully lined up some key areas.) one deviation from the pattern: i'm resolutely against the use of packaged bias edging for necks and armholes (unless there's a compelling design reason to use it), so instead i just lined the whole dress. beside that, i find lightweight white fabric (with eyelet holes) sort of want for a lining anyway, don't you agree?

never one to leave good enough alone, i decided to make some edging for the hem with my then-new crochet skills. i tried using crochet thread and a wee tiny hook (maybe a #7) and quickly gave in to hand cramps and frustration. i then found some lovely rowan cotton glace -- which has a nice sheen that worked well with the embroidery of the eyelet fabric -- and had much better luck. i've since lost the pattern i used, and can only guess that i used an F hook, but what i can tell you is that i then vowed to make (and have yet to follow up) lots more fun edgings and trims for handmade and purchased clothing.

like everything i made for eva in that span of several months, she cried and ran away when i tried to get her to wear it. at least at first. once she put it on at reunion, she loved it and seemed to get that it was special. (now she loves it when i make her things, and every project i start prompts her to ask "are you making me a backpack?" no, not yet. but i need to move that up on the list.)

unfortunately, it rained -- literally -- on our parade. as a result, it was a bit less fun for an almost-two-year-old -- instead of frolicking along a parade route through campus, she was made to sit (relatively) quietly and listen to speeches in a giant gymnasium. regardless, the dress was a big hit. and after all, isn't that what really matters in life?

recycled cardboard dollhouse

2008-01-14T20:47:00.000-08:00

inspired by elsie marley's blog entry on the topic (thanks for the great idea!), today eva and i made a dollhouse out of stuff from the recycling bin. it was a fun project, that can be as easy or as perfectionist-obsessed as you make it (guess where i tended?), and it costs nothing and takes up little space. hurray!

basically, i cut three rectangles of cardboard from a big box slated for recycling. i cut slits on the top or bottom of each piece extending halfway down (or up). this allowed the pieces to interconnect -- if this is confusing, think of those cardboard divider things inside a box of wine or beer bottles. then, eva and i collected fun images from magazines and cut them out (in her case, she mostly cut them "up" more than "out", but she's two and that's to be expected). sadly, the recycling went out yesterday, so our selection was somewhat more limited than it might have been (and i didn't find that ikea catalog hiding in a stack on the coffee table until too late!).

based on elsie marley's comments, i decorated each cardboard piece individually so that the house could fold flat. i also determined that if i wanted to easily cover the walls with magazine pages, i should cut the cardboard walls to that height (10.5"). i added doorways between the rooms by tracing a 3x5 card -- the exterior door was cut on two edges only so it can close. the other thing i did was to use an item not strictly from the recycling bin -- tape. after i completed decorating, i taped along the top and side edges so that little hands didn't inadvertently peel or rip off the paper.

i also made one other key structural modification: i added braces at the tops so the walls don't pivot (in a way toddlers apparently find incredibly frustrating). basically i cut cardboard strips (for strength, i glued two layers together), bent each strip in half, and cut notches at the bend and near each end. i cut matching notches on the tops of the walls, and these quick braces seem to help a lot. (see top photo for the best view of this.)

in some places, i used whole pages from things like pottery barn; other places, i cut out individual items like furniture and lamps. since i couldn't find a good kitchen scene, i made my own i constructed perspective-challenged pantry shelves out of strips of black paper and filled the shelves with little individually-cut kitchen items like bowls and pots and spice bottles from the macy's and penzey's catalogs. add some curtains, artwork for the walls, a cute dog in a bed near the door and, say, a microwave on a table, and pottery barn has nothing on you! (if i had it to do over again, i might use fewer pre-made scenes and make more of my own -- the amount of detail in the magazine pages can get a bit overwhelming.)

eva also got a bit frustrated with the time it took (and the fact that i stopped her from cutting up or putting glue all over certain key pieces), but she seems to like it. time will tell, but even if she doesn't, it was free and can just be recycled when we're done, so it's no great loss.

i think it would be fun to use the same concept to make other scenes beyond doll houses -- a stage for shows with tiny puppets or dolls, an outdoor scene like a campsite by a lake, or more activity-themed rooms of a house, like an art studio or garage workshop or music room depending on your kid's interests. you could also cut strategically-sized cardboard pieces to slip into each room (or a larger cardboard "pad" that the room sat upon) so that you could add some floor decorations -- particularly for an outdoor scene. more of a three-dimensional feel could be achieved by using cardboard pieces to form, say, a murphy bed or fold-down table if you didn't have doll furniture handy to fill those roles. and so on...

if you're interested, click on a photo to head over to my flick page. you can mouse-over each photo to see tags highlighting some more details.

scarves for mothers

2008-01-12T20:58:00.000-08:00

i didn't realize it until after i'd done it, but it seems i crocheted scarves for both my mother and my mother-in-law this christmas. one is really more of a necklace than a scarf, and the other would have been more of a shawl had i had enough yarn, but yet there you have it. scarfy christmas and a happy new year.

i was inspired to make the necklace thingy for my mom by sooz's tutorial. i already knew how to crochet flowers, but i wouldn't otherwise have thought of making them so small and stringing them together. so thanks for the great idea!

i was looking around for rowan glace cotton (or similar, but everything else i found came only in blah pastels), but then went out of town before making it to the one local store that i knew would carry it. out of desperation, i ended up finding a great little yarn store called the hook and needle in bryan texas of all places, and they had some similar weight cotton (schachenmayer nomotta catania) in lovely saturated colors. that was perfect, just the sort of colors my mom would like.

i used #1 (2.75mm) hook for the flowers and (i think?) an F (3.75mm) hook for the chain. despite my hesitancy regarding tiny hooks, i found the work fairly easy. that said, the weaving in of the ends proved a bit teadious. i've already forgotten, but i think i did ten flowers in each of five colors. and, only one flower went walkabout with a toddler, which i found pretty amazing given that i was working on this project in the presence of two two-year-olds. (i made an extra, then the original turned up later, which seems to happen every time i crochet flowers... hmm, mysterious...)

i like that you can wear this necklace as a choker, short, or long, depending on how you wrap it. it even works as a belt in the right context. my mom liked it, and reported back that she was wearing it with various outfits over the next week or so -- that's good, i chose the colors to match the sorts of things she wears.

-----

while at the aforementioned yarn store, i came across some beautiful recycled silk yarn by himalaya yarn. handspun with a beautiful variable texture, it was a mix of fucshia, purples, and blues with bits of everything from light pink to green. it's made in nepal from remnants from sari factories or from old saris, which i love -- not only does it employ people in nepal, but the yarn tells a story (of saris that were or might have been?). like the yarn for my mom, i knew this yarn was to become something for rita. sadly, they only had two hanks, so the shawl-style scarf i had planned had to become a scarf.

the main part of the scarf and the edge scallops (in left-over cotton from the above project) are done in the same fan-style pattern. you almost can't tell, given the dramatic differences in the two yarns, but i sort of like it that way, it's a bit of a secret. the pattern is chock-full of (american) treble crochet stitches (double treble elsewhere i believe?) -- that's one tall stitch! i found myself counting to four without meaning to (for all the yarn-overs -- oh, the obsessive couting). this was also my first time referencing a chart rather than reading a pattern, and i must say, i found it much simpler (as it seems i am basically translating the written descriptions to a "chart" of sorts in my head anyway -- starting with a chart saves the effort :).

for the silk yarn i used an I (5.5mm) hook and the fan repeats three times across each row. for the cotton edges, i used (i think?) an F (3.75mm) hook and joined the yarn carefully so that i fit exactly five repeats of the fan pattern. i then adjusted the design a bit so that subsequent rows tapered off to end with three scallops at the bottom edges. the cotton edges were i part to add interest, but honestly, it was to add length! since i was limited in the amount of silk i had, the scarf would have been a bit short without the additions.

i sort of intended this to be a dressy sort of scarf, they type of thing you might wear over a little black dress when you enter the room and maybe hang over your chair later. however, the yarn was a bit bulky for that, so it probably works better as a good old-fashioned scarf. thinking "silk" i was thinking delicate, but it's really quite warm and functional. i'm pleased with the results, and learned a lot in the process. oh, and i'd estimate that both scarves took me around 6-8 hrs to complete (based on multiplying from how long it took to complete one unit, a flower or row, etc).

so there you have it, scarves for mothers. i didn't mean to make it a theme, but as gift themes go, it does seem better than, say, scented bath soaps.

japanese stab binding

2008-01-10T21:39:00.000-08:00

inspired by the article in craft magazine, i decided to dive into some bookbinding for the first time. and if you're going to try something, why not make ten?

so, eva and i collected lots of new, recycled, and repurposed paper -- some lovely things from the paper store, recycled printer paper, and random things from around the house, like pages from my alumnae magazine, old calendars, the phone book, the instructions from eva's wooden kitchen, on down to graph paper and cut-up grocery bags. i don't have a paper cutter, but my more fabric-geared craft tools include a rotary cutter and mat, so i cut everything to size a few pages at a time that way.

borrowing some of larry's tools, like his collection of assorted clamps, i drilled the necessary holes. the pattern of holes depends on the binding pattern you're creating, but in general i put them 1/2" from the edges and spaced no more than about an inch apart.

the stitching only seems complicated the first time through -- after that, it fit with my math brain and i soon found myself making up my own patterns. however, i mostly stuck to traditional japanese patterns, such as standard, standard with variation, hemp leaf, and tortoise shell. in general, i found i needed the embroidery floss 7-9 times the length of the spine. the knot is cleverly hidden inside the book.

that's all there is to it. i really like the idea that i can simply bind my own books (for writing, photography, whatever -- preprinted or blank to be filled). a fun experiment. for better descriptions, search online or find issue 05 of craft magazine (which is my favorite issue yet).

above, top to bottom: the pattern that i don't know the name of, hemp leaf, and tortoise shell patterns.
top photo: green binding is the standard with variation pattern (standard is the same, but binding stitches are evenly spaced). books seen with tools of the trade -- clamps, drill, omnigrid ruler.

butterfly wings

2008-01-04T12:56:00.001-08:00

butterflies in flight, originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

i've been making tons of things since i last posted in -- what, april? -- but we've been traveling nonstop, so the photos never seem to find their way here. i'm about to start catching up on that...

over the holidays, i made these butterfly wings for eva and sarah. they were more proof-of-concept than any great masterpiece, but the girls were quite happy with them.

i hemmed a square of cheapo satin fabric (sized to roughly their armspan), and ran a gathering stitch down the center by hand. rather than gathering it evenly, i put the bulk of the fabric toward the top to balance the fact that the fabric would all be hanging down (well, that was my plan, but i got distracted and eva's ended up upside-down, oops). to secure the gathered fabric, I placed a strip of polka-dot ribbon over the gathering stitch and stitched it in place down the center.

i then used the same ribbon at the top, leaving a length near the center (roughly at the shoulder, to use as a tie at the neck), folded it over the hemmed fabric and stitched out toward the corner (like a binding). near the corner, i secured a loop of ribbon so the kids could put their hands in and out without adult assistance to tie it. repeat on the other side, and viola. simple but effective (and cheap!) butterfly wings.

as an interesting tangent from this project, i started and ended on different machines. to start, i was using my mother-in-law's early 1980's (83?) singer, one of the first computerized ones. sadly, it reached the end of it's unexpectedly long life when i was halfway through the second pair of wings. the next week, she bought a schmancy new brother nx-450q. damn, that's a nice machine. beyond sewing well, it does fancy tricks like threading the needle for you, cutting the thread for you, etc. hmm, my beloved manual bernina is seeming a bit lacking in bells and whistles all of the sudden. in fact, she kindly let me borrow it for now, so expect a rush of fun projects soon. i'm excited to try some quiting, and it even does machine smocking, faggoting, etc. hmm, eva needs a cute old-fashioned dress, i think. :)

"we two cousins are being butterflies!" they ran and ran and flapped until they could flap no more.

i should note that this project is "inspired by" (read: a blatant rip-off of) the silk wings sold by magic cabin, and i'm sure, other places. i'm sure the waldorf crowd would be aghast that i used polyester satin (!) rather than silk, but the whole point of this version was to find out if she would play with butterfly wings without spending very much. if they prove popular, i'll make her a better pair from silk (which still won't cost $30).

naturally dyed eggs

2007-04-10T19:12:00.000-07:00

(if you like, click on each photo to get further description of the eggs picutred.)

while julie was here, i dyed eggs using natural dyes, something i'd never done before. a reasonable thing to do would be to try three or four colors, so i decided on ten.

along with the several cups of vegetables or a few tablespoons of spices, i added 1-2 T vinegar along with 1/4 tsp alum per cup of water. i'm sure the vinegar helped, and while the alum didn't always make a difference, in the cases where it helped, it was key. for example, red cabbage dyed the eggs a barely-preceptible faint pink, but after adding the alum, the water instantly turned deep bluish-purple, and the eggs took a lot of color very quickly. basically, i brought to a boil then simmered each pot for 15 minutes, then dyed and hard-boiled the eggs at the same time by simmering for 15+ minutes. if i thought the egg could use more color, i switched to the "cold" method, and let it soak in strained dye in a glass for a good long while. (i have no intention of eating the eggs, so i didn't worry that they became overcooked, took on weird flavors, or sat out of the fridge in dyes for a long time.)

the best dye of all was onion skins -- i used yellow and red onions, and to get a good number of skins, i rifled through the bins of onions at HEB collecting skins -- while eva patiently looked on -- to go with my modest onion purchase. (this didn't phase the cashier at all, causing me to wonder what sorts of things stranger than bags of onion skins they see in a day?) yellow onion skins resulted in beautiful eggs a bright golden yellow color (almost indistinguishible from the tumeric eggs, actually). an egg directly wrapped in yellow onion skins came out yellow with rust colored patches. red onion skins created some deep olive green eggs, one left in too long was nearly black (with a white flower). one egg wrapped tightly with red onion skins came out pink and a paler shade of olive green. nice.

onions and red cabbage were the best, but i also had success with beets (brick red, but only after soaking for several hours -- before that, a displeasing brown, alum or not), tumeric (very similar to yellow onions but less dappled and more likely to stain everything), and hibiscus tea. i expected the tea to result in purple or blue eggs, but instead got a sage green, both with and without alum, but darker with). very unexpected. i also had a few disappointments -- spinach barely colored the eggs at all -- even after i tossed in some fennel fronds for good measure, and cumin created not an orange-brown, but just plain brown -- even after i added some cinnamon just in case. coffee also did little but lightly stain the egg. however, imagine the confusing smell at this point: tumeric, cumin, cinnamon, fennel, onions, coffee, and cabbage... yum! (??)

i also tried some special techniques, with varying degrees of success. i tried layering the colors, but one tended to overwhelm the other regardless of the ordering. i put oil in some of the cold dye, resulting in some interesting brown-and-red spotted beet eggs, which seem to come from some seussian bird creature. i rubber-banded onion skins directly to eggs as mentioned above, yeilding a sort of tie-dyed effect. but by far the best technique was the resist method -- i placed leaves, flowers, etc on the eggs and held that in place with a square of sheer fabric pulled taut and rubber-banded at the back of the egg (hosery was suggested, but i apparently finally threw out every last pair of my 90s nylons at some point, so in a pinch i used scrap organza, which may actually be the remnant from my wedding veil but i'm not positive about that). i achieved some nice, crisp outlines of azalea blooms, clover leaves, and various tree leaves. the most unexpected result, however, came from a yellow flower i picked along the sidewalk when julie and i took eva for a walk in the wagon. the flower transfered its yellow petal color and red center color onto the blue (red cabbage dyed) egg. it looks almost like a watercolor painting of a flower... what a lovely surprise.

next time, i'll stick to the more successful yellow and red onions, red cabbage (with alum), and maybe beet or hibiscus. i'll also try out a few items that didn't make the cut this year, like blueberries, cranberries, and maybe some spices. i'm trying to think of how to make this a more kid-friendly project -- the dyes work best when on the stove, and even at that, the results are not of the instant-gratification variety. we'll work it out, though, because i find the results far more pleasing than the super-bright PAAS dyes. i considered combining this with my ukranian egg skills (a wax resist batik method), but the natural dyes tend to rub off, so i don't think it would work. in fact, these eggs aren't so great for hiding indoors (tumeric-stained upholstry, anyone?), so eva didn't get to hunt them this year since she was sick and it was 37 degrees outside. all in all, a fun project.

wii cake

2007-04-03T21:40:00.000-07:00

i had a grand plan to make an actual-sized wii cake for larry's recent birthday. i needed sharp edges, so fondant was out... i decided to make my first attempt at sculpting with modeling chocolate (white, in this case). and everyone knows when you're doing something for the first time, be sure to make the project as complicated as humanly possible.

it started out well. without referencing a recipe, i made up some cherry filling (larry loves cherries) and it turned out really well. i adjusted the buttercream and cake to be almond to complement the filling. i sculpted a kick-ass wii remote and nunchuck out of white modeling chocolate (with a few marshmallows in the middle to reduce the amount of chocolate needed, something i won't do again -- the springy marshmallows kept trying to burst out, making little bubbles on the surface). i went a little nuts on the details, imprinting tiny letters "c" and "z" on the buttons, adding the one-two-three-four dots above the blue lights (makes sense if you've studied a wiimote), carved out the little plastic latch for the battery cover, added the crimping where the cord is attached to the nunchuck, etc. that part was fun.

then i boldly began to form the wii itself out of cake. i knew this was a bad idea, but suffer from some overconfidence in my ability to do things i've never tried before when it comes to making stuff. i sliced my little two inch wide layers, and stacked nine of them up to reach the height of the wii standing in it's base. that all went okay. i inserted wooden dowels to give it some structural support, but alas, the dowels had nothing in which to anchor. (hmm, have i hit you over the head with foreshadow yet?)

i rolled out and cut and carved all my wii chocolate panels. (no problem.) i attached the pieces for the base of the wii. and painted it with luster dust to achieve the metallic-plastic finish of the real thing. (easy, lovely.) then i attached one giant side panel (hmm, okaaay...) then the other side. now working as quickly as possible so i could get the damn thing back into the fridge to harden up the chocolate, i managed to get the front panel in place. sensing disaster, i called for larry to come take a photo before things went horribly, horribly wrong. the weight of the chocolate was pulling the cake, dowels and all, over to the side. i tried propping up the edges in various ways, all to no avail. sadly, the ultimate outcome was pretty clear. (apparently there's a reason people don't routinely make 9-layer cakes that are 2 inches wide.) damn you, laws of physics!

at this point, it was nearing 3 a.m., but i was not ready to accept defeat, since i'd put about 10-12 hrs into the cake *that day* (that didn't include the earlier full day of baking the cake and making the filling, royal icing, and buttercream). in one last desperate attempt, i pulled off the chocolate panels and tried to affix them to a styrofoam-and-cardboard base i quickly mocked up. it was soon apparent that this plan could work (yes!) -- if i had about 3-4 more hours to work on it (no!). in the old days, i would have gone for it (unable to just let it go, eager to throw good money after bad, so to speak), but that's not a great plan when you're responsible for a toddler, i suppose. after much frustration and a few tears, i painted a smiley face on the side of the failed cake, stabbed it with those useless dowels, and went to bed.

i'm used to biting off more than i can chew and having to redo parts of my projects, or work through some serious frustration. what i am not accustomed to is catastrophic failure. i was really bummed by both the failed cake and all the wasted hours, but my reaction was clearly colored by fatigue, because i felt more-or-less fine about it in the morning. by then it was funny (mostly).

the next morning, i pulled out the low, round turquoise cake (which was to have been the pedestal for the grand, tall wii), and contemplated "plan B". while i had been throwing spatulas and bits of chocolate the night before (just briefly :), larry had the foresight to salvage the front panel from the wii, so i used that to make a wii sort of popping out the top of the cake. turned out a bit dorky, but it was an homage to the "plan A" cake, so i'm okay with it. i attached my wiimotes up on some luster-dust painted dowels to get at least a bit of three-dimentionality out of the flat, flat cake, and used one of the big side wii panels as a palette for a wii logo. i threw all this onto a cake and called it a morning.

it's a shame, because the way it was shaping up, that wii was going to be awesome. after the fact, i can think of about twenty things i could have done differently to prevent or fix the problem, but you know... that's why they call it a learning experience. oh, wii cake...

but, it was tasty. eva loved it, overexcitedly calling for "more papa happy cake papa happy birthday papa cake" (with a "please mama" tacked onto the end for good measure). it makes a good story. so, all in all, it turned out okay.

(see my flickr photo set for a bit of extra commentary.)

crocheted balls for cassia

2007-02-17T20:26:00.001-08:00

for cassia, originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

these are the soft throwing balls i made for cassia for her first birthday (she turned 1 when eva turned 19 months, on the 7th -- so easy for their mamas to remember the age difference!).

this is basically what i was going for on my first attempt, but it came out more in line with my expectations this time. i used a different pattern [note: link now broken, sorry! i didn't save the pattern, either -- if anyone has a good one, post it in the comments. 02.07.2008] (one that lora found for me on craftster), and the increases in stitches by row is much more methodical and makes for a round ball, which is... you know, preferred.

i found this great yarn, nashua handknits "julia", which i bought (at hill country weavers on south congress) in eight colors so i can mix and match for several different projects. it's alpaca/mohair/wool, and has to be hand washed in cold water, which is of course ideal for children's toys. :) i used a G/4.00mm hook, which was sufficiently small to keep it tight and preven the stuffing from escaping (at least at first, i guess it may work its way out over time?)

i'm a big fan of the orange and pink one, very modern and sleek. the green and pink one is okay, but i learned not to put the darkest color on the ends because the optical illusion make it look oblong. i'm not a fan of the stripey one -- it looks too reminiscent of a 1970s afghan, which i guess can be a good or bad thing depending on your perspective.

as it turns out, cassia is a big fan of balls. they have a game of playing soccer with them, with cassia trying to throw the balls into a box or the like, so her parents can throw up their arms and shout "goooooal!". jenny and cassia introduced this game to eva when they were here for dinner, and she was suitably impressed. (however, eva's probably confused as to why, when you throw up your arms, you sometimes shout "goal" and sometimes shout "touchdown". it's good, this early exposure to multiculturalism. haha.)

i really love the colors of this yarn. that's the best part. i'm getting faster at crochet, so let's say these took me maybe 6 hours for the set...

i'm so bad at estimating, but i'm doing it because it sort of adds to the sense of accomplishment in a weird way. the opposite of saying "look how many hours i wasted", rather, i can say "look how many hours of my life i spent doing something i enjoyed, and making something for the people i love." i'm explaining, lest my struggles at estimating the time be taken the wrong way.

enjoy, cassia, and happy birthday! goooooal!!!!!

sadie's blanket

2007-02-17T19:36:00.001-08:00

img_7350.jpg, originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

this is the blanket i crocheted for eva and "seh-deee". it's nine granny squares (you know, remember those multi-colored crocheted blankets? all granny squares). i used bulky yarn -- okay, i don't know all the yarn terms and the label has since been tossed, so i'll just call it "bulky" but not super bulky -- and a 8.0mm hook, which was one or two sizes up from recommended. i wanted an open look, and it is fun for eva to stick her fingers through, but i tends to get caught on things like toy stroller handles. it's probably about 30" square.

unlike many of my crochet projects, this one actually uses more than just single crochet -- hurray for chains and double crochet! however, the best part was the pattern of stitches. it was very appealing to the mathematical side of my brain. each square is worked from the center in six concentric circles, and each "round" has its own pattern, for the sides and one for the corners. crochet patterns aren't written exactly this way, but i essentially "convert" them into a more mathematical formula because it makes more sense to me that way. it's surprisingly similar to computer programming, with all the nested loops and such. hey, i get to use my brain!

so, on the first square, it took me a good amount of time to decipher it all out and "translate" it in my head. then, the second one was easier, and by the third i had it memorized and eva was free to play with my scrap of paper where i had jotted down the code (her scribbling was slowly obscuring the numbers anyway :). by the ninth square, though, it was no longer challenging, so that's how i knew the blanket was big enough. next time i'll do a different kind of square so it will be fun all over again. or, now that i know how it works, i'll make up my very own patterns! even better.

after i got the hang of it, i could complete a square in under an hour. so, including the time it took to stitch it together, it probably took just over 10 hours.

eva's favorite way to use this blanket is to convince someone to throw it at her from across the room, and then she whips it off her head and giggles. she does on occasion put sadie on it, but she prefers the 4"x6" blankets that came with her doll house. apparently toddlers lack a sense of proportion.

river's ball

2007-02-17T17:55:00.000-08:00

this was my first attempt at crocheting a ball. i looked at an unreliable pattern, so while i thought i was making a 5" diameter ball, it ended up several inches larger. oh well, that just makes it a two-handed throwing ball. (in addition to the size being off, it's pretty flat on the "poles" and straight on the sides, making a cylinder of sorts.)

i embroidered his name using a basic chain stitch. i found out that crochet rows in effect run in a spiral (as opposed to knitting where you have a definite grid pattern). so, i started out stitching the letters using the crochet stitches as a grid, but then noticed my letters were all in reverse italics! i compensated for this eventually, but overcame my urge to rip out all the existing letters. so, it's got that definite homemade look going for it -- that and the somewhat 70s colors. :)

this ball was filled with basic fiberfill (polyester, i'm sure). i'm sick to death of using that stuff (it's all i've been able to find in the horrible chain stores), so i finally ordered some wool stuffing from some lovely waldorf doll people online. that way, i'm not using nice wool yarn and crappy stuffing, or working for ages on a natural cotton doll (like sadie) and stuffing it with gross polyester. i think that would give the items some much needed heft, as well.

i also bought some bells... i thought about using them, but then does it start to seem a bit too much like a cat toy?

i'm not really sure, but i think (due to the larger than expected size), this probably took around 6 hours. i'm bad at estimating, but i'll try to keep track (a little) in the future. who knew i spent so much time crafting!

anyway, i know river likes to throw soft balls, so i thought he might like this. this project was a definite learning experience, but i'm sure river doesn't mind.

doll sling

2007-02-17T11:43:00.000-08:00

today's fun-during-naptime project was to make a baby doll sling for our little friend ella, who is having her second birthday party today! (nothing like waiting until the last minute, but i couldn't think of a good idea until this morning.) ella loves her babies, and is about to become a big sister, so this seems like a good gift. (maybe she already has a doll sling? but, who can have too many slings?)

it's not like you really need a pattern for a doll sling, but i have had great luck with the practical, easy-to-follow patterns from jan andrea in the past. sure enough, she steered me right once again.

the fabric is from a duvet cover that was on clearance at target last year (look for a dress for eva in the same fabric coming "soon" -- there are pearl snaps (ala western shirt) along one edge, which i hope to utilize for that project, still thinking it through...) anyway, it's a nice soft fabric, girly-fun but not princessy.

it's a basic ring sling, really, with a box pleat on the shoulder. i added a patch on the tail with ella's name, and i'm proud that my skills at using a basic zigzag stitch to machine embroider (sans computerized machine) are improving. i worry that the sling may be a bit small, but i didn't want the tail to be too long and become a tripping hazard... hopefully it will work. (i'll test it on eva when she wakes up, she's roughly ella's size).

lots of doll slings i've seen don't seem to keep the dolls in very well, and i think that's because the "pouch" part isn't secured, so the kid ends up wearing a tube rather than a pocket. i tried to fix that by folding the fabric in half before affixing the rings, but that inadvertantly made it work for one shoulder rather than both. i guess i'm okay with that, since having the baby stay in is probably more important.

i must credit the jan andrea pattern for the idea of using velcro at the rings. rather than permanently sewing the rings in place, they're secured with velcro. that way, if the child gets the sling caught on something and pulls, the velcro should come undone, thus avoiding a strangulation hazard. i bought velcro that has both hook and loop on each side (cool, huh?), so it should be snag free -- so if you forget to close it before throwing it in the wash, it doesn't attack and destroy your underwear.

i think i completed this in just over an hour (not counting my jaunt to the fabric this morning for macrame rings). pretty quick little project. i'm a fast sewer, in part due to practice, and in part due to the fact that my presser foot was maladjusted for years, so my machine only had "off" or "zippy-fast", so i got good at zooming along. :) i've since had it replaced, so normal speed sewing is now an option.

thanks to winky for being the model. off to get ready so we're not late for the party.

Update: eva ran away screaming "no!" when i attempted to have her try it on. she seems to have this reaction to everything i sew, which is moderately distressing, i'll admit. wendy liked it, so it just remains to be seen if ella will. if she doesn't, i'd bet she'll warm up to it once she sees her mama carrying the new baby. modeling is a really strong instinct (i say, as eva is across the room next to papa turning a screwdriver at various bolts and things on larry's project.)

sadie

2007-02-14T22:09:00.001-08:00

sadie, originally uploaded by Kristy and Eva.

sadie is the doll i made for eva, let's say "for christmas" (since she didn't get anything else from us, and i made this between christmas and new years, so it's sort of a yule/solstice time of year thing, i suppose). she's an 18" doll with moveable arms and legs (but no knee/elbow joints). straying from the pattern, i added embroidered ears (my mom said that dolls my grandma made had ears, and i tried to copy the idea as best i could understand it over the phone), and i added the all-important belly button and nipples, which eva spotted immediately. i also changed the hair dramatically from what it said in the pattern, but i'll save that for another time.

i used the eyes suggested in the pattern, but i'm not that happy with them. i made a doll for a friend's girl many years ago, and i made up a method for making multi-hued/flecked irises that i remember liking much more. i'll return to that in the future. these eyes give her a bit of a dopey expression, i think... i did the left one first then took 8 attempts at the right one to make it match exactly in size, angle, position, etc. i don't know why it was that difficult -- or why i was being such a perfectionist making eyes i didn't like in the first place!

the dress is some fun japanese fabric i found, i thought it struck that balance between classic and a bit fun/modern (and of course avoiding anything overtly floral or princessy). i used the dress pattern that came with the doll, but it's a bit too traditional, with the puffy sleeves and all. i'll make something up for the coordinating bit of japanese fabric i bought for a second dress. the thing about doll clothes is that for less effort you could make toddler clothes (easier because the bits aren't so tiny), so we'll just see how many outfits sadie really needs.

that said, the apron is eva's favorite part. after a lucky bit of suggestion from a friend's 3 1/2 year old (they know all the fun tricks!), she's been enjoying having the apron tied on her so she can dance, waving her hands turning in a circle jumping around, saying "dansh, dansh, dansh!". she sometimes insists "mama wear apron. mama dance!", but as it is about 5 inches wide, it takes more of a cod piece or fig leaf appearance on my size frame. to this end, i made her a dancing skirt, which she hates (as of its introduction today, we'll try again later). she runs away screaming "nooooo!" and when i tried tying it on her to show her in the mirror (usually a fun activity), she went into full on back arching rolling on the floor tantrum mode. yikes. so much for the dancing skirt.

i have no idea how much time i spent on this doll. several hours to sew and stuff the body (6ish?), a good 3 on the embroidery, maybe 3 on the clothes, a good hour on the first attemt at hair which i then had to cut off because the yarn frayed dramatically, at least an hour on the ears, 4 or so teaching myself to crochet and making the wig cap, and probably 5 evenings hand tying the hair one piece at a time, so maybe 10-12 hrs. of course, i forget to consider things like washing and pressing the fabric, cutting out the pattern, ... and, i tend to dramatically underestimate my time. so let's say something around 40 hrs in all? that's a total guess, but better than nothing.

so, such is sadie. i'm sure she'll be making return appearances in this blog...

craft blog

2007-02-14T20:25:00.000-08:00

Craft blog, craft blog, craft blog... that's been bouncing around in my head for a month. Here it is. I'll start from where I am (current/recent crafts in no linear order), and add in old stuff as I become inspired to do so. This isn't meant to be any serious crafter sort of thing; more it's just to share with friends and family what things I've been working on.

Sewing, quilting, embroidery, crocheting, dollmaking, Ukrainean eggs, cakes (cakes aren't technically crafts, but we'll just get over that), origami, ..... we'll just see where this goes.