I never Felt this Good! *

* My apologies for the terrible pun.

An online contact was cleaning out her craft stuff and asked whether anyone wanted a stack of felt. I've never worked with felt before but paid all of four dollars shipping to get the stuff. It was like 30 pieces of 8.5 x 11 inch felt sheets in wonderful colors (muted nature tones and some brights) and while I've never priced felt, I think I got a bargain. Now I just have to figure out what to do with all of it!

One project I know will happen soon is a new pin cushion (or two!). I have one of those terribly boring and nonfunctional tomato pincushions that I've had since I started sewing for myself back in 1991 or so. It rolls around annoyingly and the filling is too stiff to easily get pins in and out (particularly one-handed while sewing). I have two different sets of pins. The first is a set of heavy quilt pins (also the first ones I bought way back when) and the second is a box of tiny antique pins from my mother. These are much more delicate and have tiny colored heads (some plastic over a flat metal pin top but others tiny beads of glass). I'd like to have a pincushion with a weighted base and very soft top for the little old pins and a second sturdier cushion for the quilt pins.

I also anticipate some Ham-oriented crafty projects -- perhaps a tiny set of finger puppets!

My art proceeds apace. I have two pieces cut: one a bony winter tree, the other a Japanese-style wave. They both need to be mounted on their respective backgrounds, a tedious gluing project that I confess I've been avoiding. I'm not sure how good these pieces are, but they were fun to work on. And they are, to my way of thinking, art. I'm not cutting from a pattern or tracing, but working from my own original sketches.

However I don't anticipate much time for either arts or crafts in the coming weeks as we are moving house. Not to our dream "forever home" as we might have liked, but to another rental. While we want to own again, we just couldn't seem to get anything to come together in the time we need. So for now, we'll be apartment dwellers (or town home dwellers I guess). One good thing is that the layout of our new place supports me having an office craft room on the same floor as the living room (as opposed to being in a spare bedroom).

Sewing Small

I enjoy sewing for my little girl. She doesn't take much fabric (remnants are perfect) and I can make really simple things that she will enjoy. I'm no expert seamstress, so simple is good. These dresses were made from a pattern that I drafted. She's been wearing them with shirts underneath as it's not spring yet.



Both have zippers up the back. The green one has ties at the shoulders, which I'm not sure came through on the picture.

Rebuilding Annie

For my first Christmas, my paternal grandmother sent me a Raggedy Ann doll, the kind with a mechanical music box in the body. It was one of my favorite toys when I was little and my mother packed it safely away for my own children. So along comes the Ham and out comes a bunch of my old toys, including Ann. My little Ham latched onto her in the last few years and she's become her super-special, best bundle buddy. She calls her Annie, or "Frère Jacques" after the song she plays. But here's the trouble. Annie is OLD. I mean really old. I always thought it was a wonder she was still in one piece... and indeed, she'd started getting so worn that she was completely falling apart. This was a cause of great stress to Ham, who will weep when confronted with the idea that Annie may not last forever. In fact, Ham treats her very gently because she knows how delicate she is.

I mended her several times, including completely replacing her legs, but it didn't help. I also redid her whole head of hair. But the fabric had grown so thin that every time I stitched or mended, it would rip open again. When her neck and face began to tear open, I knew it was time for something more drastic.

Here's Annie before her renovation:



You can see the rips in her face and arms as well as places that I previously mended.


Here, you can see the stuffing coming out where the back of the neck ripped open.


You can also see staining from old water marks from attempts to clean her. The back is where the wind-up post is and the whole area had torn out. I'd darned the hole before.


Here's Annie deconstructed with a new body and arms. The legs were already new. Notice how the stuffing isn't some kind of poly or monofill... it's wads of thread!






Painting the face and heart was the most difficult, nerve-racking part of the process. There's no screwing up with fabric paint. But I was happy with how it turned out, even with a few small imperfections. I figure they just show that it's homemade and that I am human (avoiding hubris!).


Here she is with eyes. I searched and searched to find buttons to match her original doll eyes and glued them in so they look the same. I forgot to get a picture of the music box (which is made in Japan and simply the most indestructible and well-made object ever).


My sewing machine had a hard time stitching together the filled pieces (or perhaps it's my lack of skill) so I stitched the legs on and belly closed by hand.


More hand stitching for the arms.




And finally, Annie Mach II.

The Ham was pretty emotional throughout the process -- especially the first night when Annie was in pieces and she insisted on sleeping with the music box by itself. But she seems pleased with the result and has admitted that, since she has the same heart/soul and "smells the same" (yay for old stuffing) that it is, indeed the same Annie.

Wee Little Embroidery

My little girl takes Aikido. But lately she's been nervous about her lessons. In particular she was terrified of participating in the annual exhibition and getting her yellow belt.

The night before the exhibition, when she was upset and unable to sleep because of her fear, I told her a story about a magical garden and a special purple flower of courage that she could use to make the bravery in her own heart blossom. There were fairies involved in this story as well, but Ham had to pick the flower herself and swallow it (because you never eat or drink anything from the fairies -- we are always very clear on that point). She made it through the exhibition, but the next week was still nervous about class. So after she fell asleep, I did this:



This is her Gi (I got it used from the dojo, which is good because size 00 Aikido gis are hard to find).


The left side goes on top, so when she wears it, the flower is right over her heart.


The flower was embroidered freehand, without any kind of pattern or even a plan. So considering that it didn't come out too badly.

On Saturday we went to class and she was fine and had a good class. I'd like to think my little flower helped.

Making Art

I have been making art. I love to do crafty stuff like sewing and baking... but it's been a long time since I've done any art. Those two categories are very different in my mind and lacking expression in the latter has been a source of stress. There are a lot of tedious reasons for that lack, but at least I'm trying to remedy it now.

I've seen a lot of the following quote:
"A laborer works with his hands,
a craftsman works with his hands and head,
an artist works with his hands, head, and heart."

I can't give an attribution and google was no help. In any case, I happen to disagree with this quote and would rephrase it as follows:

"Laborers work with their hands,
craftsmen with hands and hearts,
but the artist works with her hands, heart, and soul."
-- Venecia, original version unknown

That means that while sewing is a crafty endeavor (using hands and heart) it's not the same as painting or drawing. And writing an essay is different, for me, from writing poetry or fiction.

I don't claim these definitions are universal, but that's how it works for me. In any case, I've been working on art involving paper cutting (scherenschnitt). It's very meditative to work on, as opposed to crafty stuff (which I would describe and challenging and stimulating). As the pieces are complete I will post pictures here.

Those Things I Do

I have a live journal where I connect with friends and chat about my life. But I wanted a separate space to chronicle all the creative stuff I do: making art, crafting, baking, and so on. This is that space.

That said, a lot of these first posts were already published over there.