Here's a little glimpse of the dryer costume in progress. Below you can see the time display Annabelle made this morning with what she calls "copious amounts" of glow-in-the-dark paint.
The washer and her family will be here for the weekend, so I'll probably be back Monday with pictures of the finished duo on the night. Wait for it! ;-)
It's awfully gloomy today, weather-wise, so it's hard to take good photos, but I happened to glance down at the floor around my work chair--
--and I think it's safe to say I probably have the prettiest garbage on the block (which has here been artfully arranged on the table).
Yes, this is what procrastination looks like, people.
But the thing is, if I don't make these sachets, well, the world won't smell quite so much like lavender, and---
Oh, come on with the yawning. I feel like you're not even listening to me.
In the end, they stayed pretty much as they were--many of you said they could be slid over ribbon, taped onto a package, or fastened by slipping the tag through its own loop around the handle of a gift bag. Sounded good to me!
I've run out of velvet ribbon, so production stopped after six tags. Annabelle was happy because that meant I had time to make Cowboy Potato Chowder for lunch.
Now the big question is this--should I sell 'em in packs of three or six? And would you prefer a pack of mixed colors or, say, all red tags or all green tags?
"Welcome Home," that is, and this one's Norwegian. One of the coolest things about doing custom work is the collaboration that always takes place--the color scheme here was suggested by the client, but I'm gonna keep it right up my sleeve because it's gorgeous. 
And speaking of great collaborations--thank you so much for all your thoughts and advice and just general enthusiasm regarding the gift tags. They're a pet project of mine, for some reason, and your help was--truly helpful. I'll keep you posted on developments, tag-wise.
Meanwhile, my mom-in-law is flying in from Texas tomorrow afternoon, so I have a lot of prep to do, mainly cleaning the bathroom and the kitchen, which have suffered in the recent flurry of felt activity. Tra la la. (That's code around here for, "Who cares--I do what I like!" ;-))
It's a wee wool-felt luggage-tag sort of gizmo with a red-velvet-ribbon loop on one end--you slide a piece of scrap card into the hole and write whatever you please. Mr. Crowe's question was will people be sad to give them away? Will the recipients likely reuse them? (I thought folks might buy a set for internal-family use.) My question is this--will this work physically? If you stumbled upon a little six pack of these puppies, say, in an alley, how would you attach one to a gift?
I think I intended this to be a brooch--I sat down on the couch last evening with a vague plan (having seen this gorgeous-but-glued-version) and a furious needle (and a rather dashing mister alongside), and this rather ferocious bloom appeared some time later.
Next morning, everyone who lives here insisted it's a wall hanging, so.
I know when I'm outnumbered. And these jokers are pretty smart generally.
What do you think? Wall brooch? :-)
Is the autumnishness making you swoon--and sew--too?
I've surrendered to a whole new color palette these past few fallish days, and from here at my work table, I can see through the front door my girl, in a cable-knit sweater, sitting on the front stoop sketching leaves.
It makes me want to mull something. And, luckily, it makes me want to make stuff from felt.
How about you?
Some of you were interested in how these would be finished up, so I thought I'd share some photos before I ship the lot off. These guys are little plush ornaments made for a customer who was looking for a unique way to give her child's crazy-adorable drawing to friends and family for Christmas. I printed the image she sent and used this tracing paper to transfer it to natural linen. Next? Pretty red floss and a backstitch, folks.
I made a little wool-felt label to note the year at the back--and then I moved on to make this similar cushion in a bigger size:
I love this fabric, which was sent to me long ago by the bird queen:
(I do not so much love the fabric of my free-if-you-haul-it sofa, but not buying stuff is a big part of how I make all this magic happen.)
And off they go!
My obsession for the past 48 hours has been garland making (you know, when I'm not propping up limping thesis statements)--this one's cut from some lovely reclaimed, felted woven wool in dreamy sherbet shades, but we're also working on a Hallow's Eve variety made from plain old felt. All this concentrated circle cutting, I think you'll be glad to know, caused an epiphany (which is one of the vocab words I taught my lit class this week--watch me blending the parts of my life so seamlessly, will you?!). I've been telling you poor souls for months that there's no trick to cutting circles by hand. I just do it--lots of practice, a steady hand, yadda, yadda. Well guess what? Around the millionth circle, I figured out that I do indeed have a bit of a method, so I put the camera in the the capable hands of my sidekick, Miss A. (who knew all along, apparently, that this was how I cut circles--maybe she should answer your emails from now on? Sheesh.) Anway, here goes:
I start by cutting a square of about the same dimensions as the circle I hope to end up with. Next, I put my thumb smack in the center of the square, with my fingers underneath, and apparently (who knew?), I use said thumb as a kind of pivot while I cut, turning and cutting as I go, but always keeping that thumb in the center. As long as I make sure there is approximately the same amount of space on either side of my thumb at all times, I can be relatively certain I'm getting a decent circle.
See?
When I get all the way round, if I've got a bulge anywhere, I trim it down. Sometimes this causes me to wind up with a smaller circle (and sometimes it causes me to wind up with, well, nothing), but with most of my projects, that's totally okay.
What's also okay, for the record, is an imperfect circle. We are, after all, talking about handmade. If we want stuff to look like it was cranked out by a machine, there's a Walmart in almost every town, right?
And if you want a little taste of my addiction, once you've cut a few dozen circles, try the garland making. All I do is feed the circles into my machine one after another. Fu-un.
Hi, gang. Today? Lots of paper grading, very little making (unless making online composition students unhappy counts--ahem), but I did want to pop in and tell you about this project--a jumbo felt-board dollhouse on canvas that I created for the Fall 2010 issue of Living Crafts Magazine, now available on the newsstand. I'm thinking it makes a pretty exciting Christmas or Hanukkah gift for the 3-10 set. Heck, I had a great time playing with it before it got shipped off (in the biggest box ever) to the magazine. 
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