Space-Themed Quilt WIP

I have been MIA for a while, but wanted to post a quick pic of my latest project, which is a quilt for my son. These are most of the fabrics I'm using to make a quilt for him, now that he's officially graduated to the "big boy bed". I've made quilts before, but I didn't know what I was doing. I just cut a bunch of squares, sewed them together, and added batting and some backing fabric. This time, I bought a book, have a pattern for a throw-sized quilt that I'm using for a guideline, and am armed with a rotary cutter, ruler, and cutting mat. I'll post more photos of my progress, which will hopefully not be too painful...

Needle Felted Kitty

My latest needle felted project was a little espresso cat for my mom's sister. It's not perfect, but I'm happy with it for my first try at an animal. I remembered to take work-in-progress photos, too, so you can see how I started out with a pipe-cleaner armature, then wrapped wool around that, so the cat is partially poseable. Besides adding enough wool to fill out the shape of the body, all that was left were little bits of pink for the ears and nose and some green for the eyes. It's amazing how the projects that look the simplest, though, are often the most difficult to finish. Making objects like a cupcake or a cheeseburger doesn't require attention to anatomy and proportion, which is something I haven't worked on in 3-D since my college sculpture classes...

Bath Before & After

One of the first projects we tackled was the downstairs bathroom. My husband claimed that it made the most sense, because it would be quick and easy. We started in the spring, and we intended to be finished in enough time to spend the rest of the summer working on the kitchen (which we have still not even begun, two years later). The plan was to strip the wallpaper, paint, and install a new toilet, countertop, sink, faucet, and light fixtures. Unfortunately, I started pulling down the wallpaper behind the tub, and the entire wall was water-damaged from a leak in the roof. The water was running down the back side of the wall when it rained and the wallpaper was hiding the staining, so we and the previous owners had no idea. So, all of the tile around the tub had to come down, then the wall behind that, and part of the ceiling. We also had to get the roof repaired. After the repairs were completed, my husband re-tiled the tub surround, put in new bath fixtures, and replaced the 1970's yellow formica with a new granite counter and a porcelain sink from Home Depot (free shipping to our porch!). Of course, the standard-size countertop was too big for the built-in oak cabinet, so he made it work by cutting into the wall and sliding the entire thing back into the wall, then installing the backsplash against the walls where it should be, and it worked out.

I found some old trim in the attic that I cleaned with our air compressor and spray painted white, which we then added as a crown molding after I had painted the walls an icy aqua. I bought a chrome shower curtain rod designed for a clawfoot tub, and we hung that so the shower could be used. I found the shower curtain and the rug in Anthropologie's sale section and bought the fixtures on eBay. It was hard to get good photos in such a small space, but I think you get the gist. And I still can't figure out why someone thought this tiny bathroom needed two doors...

Cupcake Party

This weekend, one of my childhood friends had a cupcake-themed party for her daughter's 1st birthday. I was in Chicago for a Stella & Dot workshop and had to miss it, which was too bad, because my husband and son said the food was amazing: sweet cupcakes of all kinds, meatloaf cupcakes with piped mashed potato "icing", and macaroni and cheese cupcakes. Heavenly!

For her gift, I bought the sweet birthday girl a hoodie from Gymboree with cupcake pockets and made her a little needle-felted cupcake for her tea set. I started with a sort of ball-shape from my all-purpose undyed white wool, then flattened the bottom and sides, trying to make the bottom a little smaller than the top, for that cupcake shape. Next was a layer of bubblegum pink over the sides of the cupcake (where the paper liner would be), and a thin layer of my toast-colored wool over that, so it would look like it had been baked. I then got to work felting vertical lines all the way around the sides to form the ridges of the "paper liner". This is tedious and I really had to pay attention to make the lines somewhat straight, but it was necessary for the look I was going for. After that was finished, I took tufts of fuchsia wool and laid them out on my foam pad, felted them together, and folded over the edges to make a flattened "blob" shape. This was draped over the rounded top of the cupcake and felted into place to make the icing.

The little rose was constructed the same way I made Flapjack's scarf - a few layers of wool felted together in a long, rectangular shape. I rolled this piece tightly and attached it to the top of the cupcake. Then, two small leaves were easily made and felted next to the flower. If you were making a cupcake for an older child, it would be adorable to also add beads to the top for sprinkles.

The Things I Gave Up for You

A list for my son:

1. Going to the bathroom alone.
2. Days spent at the salon.
3. Long afternoons at the bookstore.
4. Sleeping in.
5. My career.
6. Watching movies on opening weekend.
7. Not having to share everything I eat or drink.
8. Smudge-free windows, doors, and mirrors.
9. Wearing 3-inch heels every day.
10. Discomfort about bodily fluids and feces.
11. Needing an alarm clock.
12. Generalized selfishness.
13. A limited capacity for love.
14. Doubt about my purpose in life.
15. Associating a paycheck with self-worth.
16. Looking at the world with jaded eyes.
17. Everything I thought was important, and nothing that truly was.

Felted Flapjack

My son loves (okay, and my husband and I do, too) "The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack" on the Cartoon Network. Flapjack is a cherubic little boy whose best friend is a cranky old sailor named Captain K'nuckles. Flapjack sleeps in the mouth of his adopted mother, a whale named Bubbie. The gist of the show is that Flapjack & K'nuckles spend most of their time trying to find and eat candy and searching for the elusive "Candied Island".

For the felted Flapjack, I started with a snowball-sized bunch of white wool and formed it into a hard ball. I then flattened it a little here and there, making more of a head shape for Flapjack. Then I felted a short cylinder and attached to it 4 thinner cylinders to make the arms and legs. I covered the body in pinky-tan wool (it's actually the toast color I bought to make hamburger buns). That part was very difficult to do over the arms and legs, especially the fingers. Next time I make a doll, I'll go ahead and construct the arms and legs from the wool I'm using for the skin color, rather than trying to cover the white wool on such small areas. I use the white wool as a core for construction because it costs less than the dyed wools. For the eyes, I made white discs and attached them to the head, and a small ball and two half-circles from the tan wool for the nose and ears. I had some wavy yellow wool, so the hair was just a matter of placing the curls where I wanted them and attaching them to the head. I made the hat with a flattened circle and a ball with a divot, and the scarf was felted in a long thin shape, then tied around his neck. I finished the details by choosing the colors I needed, cutting the fibers to size and arranging them where I wanted them, then felting to attach. Another thing I wish I'd done differently is give him a pipe cleaner endoskeleton so he could be posed more easily. A wire armature would have also given the legs more strength to support a massive head like Flapjack's. It works okay as-is, but if anyone is thinking of making his/her own Flapjack, I would recommend using the pipe cleaners.

Hello, Gorgeous!

After we moved from Miami to Michigan, I assumed that I would be giving up one of my loves: big, sexy tropical flowers. I planted a little hibiscus tree that grew tall and continuously bloomed outside my kitchen window in Florida, and it was one of my favorite things in the garden. My plan for after the move was to console myself with armfuls of fragrant lilacs and visions of bushes full of hydrangeas.

However, each spring, a strange looking plant snakes out of the ground and slowly winds its way upward, growing taller the entire summer. Then, in late August, I am greeted by the sight of eight gigantic, crimson hibiscus flowers, peeking at me from behind the other, traditionally Midwestern plants and flowers. This is one of my favorite things about living in an old house - the continuous surprises, like gifts from a person who lived here before me.

The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton

This summer, my son and I found some vintage books at a garage sale. One of them was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton from 1942, which won the Caldecott Medal that year. I love how old children's books have pages made from really thick paper and the way the illustrations seem so much richer. My two-year-old really enjoys the story of the little pink house, which starts out in an idyllic country setting, then suffers as the years go by and urban sprawl consumes "the field of daisies and the apple trees dancing in the moonlight". Burton's depiction of the city is dirty and dreary, and while that's not my memory of living in the city - a part of my life I loved - it's a sweet reminder of the beauty of a rural setting: watching the light change as the sun makes its daily progression across the sky, the leaves turning brilliant hues in autumn, being able to see so many stars at night, and yes, our apple trees swaying in the wind.

Felted Pear

My family and I met my friend, her husband, and their baby daughter for sushi recently. All was going smoothly until I went to remove my son from his car seat and realized that the blanket he'd had wrapped around him was hiding his bare feet (!). Luckily, there was a Shoe Carnival nearby, so we bought the only shoes they had in his size, which happened to be a nerdy little pair of boat shoes that my husband loved. I always joke that if it looks like something Charlie Brown would wear, then my husband will want it in his wardrobe.

This was the same friend for whom I had made the needle-felted pear that I mentioned a few posts ago. She graciously brought along the pear, and I took a photo of it next to one of their sushi orders. Then my son pulled off the stem, so I owe my friend some repair work next time I see her. If only everything he broke were so easy to fix...

Athena's Burger

A friend in Canada asked for a needle-felted cheeseburger for her daughter, Athena. I didn't have any more of the cheddar colored wool and instead felted a little slice of Swiss. A tomato was also requested for the menu, so Athena will have lots of options when she assembles a burger. As you can see, it's comically tall when it's put all together, but that's not something children worry about. I love the kid concoctions that happen when friends and family come over and play with my son's kitchen. For example, my nephew will attach the halves of a carrot and a pear and make a "pearrot".