Things I’d Have Made If I Weren’t Moving

I love fall. I love fall crafting. I love the holidays. I even like baking during the holidays, and I normally don’t bake. But this is not your typical Thanksgiving post because I am moving and all my fabric and yarn is boxes. Not bitter at all, no sirree, not me.

I’m sure all of this will work out wonderfully once my stuff is safely in a new place, and I can start to get on with my life. At the moment, however, I’m in the lamenting stage. Today, instead of stuffing myself with potatoes and … well, stuffing, I will be shlepping boxes and furniture. Oy vey. Big round of applause to my brother, who has volunteered to help with this madness. But enough of my whining (or whinging if I were British).

In any case, my blog reading has made me want to do some simple fall-themed crafts.These things you see here. Ok, granted the two from the Purl Bee are not simple, and one could be DIY but isn’t, but they are all pretty and I’ve been wanting to make that table runner for over a year. Besides, I have fall-colored yarn that really needs to be used up, and a foot-high stack of felt from a moment of sale-price-related weakness.

From L to R, top to bottom:  DIY Yarn Wreath with felt flowers on BlogHer (wonder how much yarn this takes?!); Linen Thanksgiving Napkins from the Purl Bee (I predict this would not be simple given my usual arguments with bias tape); Felt Leaf Potholders from Design Sponge (yay! simple!); Autumn Garland from Bird for Bread Studio (ok I’m divided about this. I like the thought but hand-forged metal leaves aren’t in my budget); Felt Flower Bouquet from Creative Jewish Mom (I could totally do this, and then the cat couldn’t eat the flowers); Thanksgiving Appliqued + Quilted Table Runner also from the Purl Bee (this looks totally up my alley, but I’d probably do it in a less-laborious manner).

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving! Hope yours was awesome and filled with people and food you love.

A few updatey type things

It’s been rather rainy and chilly here lately, which I’m enjoying very much, although it seems like everyone else just wants warm, sunny weather. Despite the frostiness, spring is soon to arrive. As evidenced the pictures gracing this post, which I took while walking to work one day after a night when it froze and even snowed. Leaves were damaged, but the flowers were undeterred.

I think it’s worth noting that I actually sat down and messed with the stuff (sidebar, pages, settings, etc.) on this blog the other night. I think some things hadn’t been futzed with since June 2007 when I started this blog, and others have stayed static since the redesign in October 2007.  I’d love to do another redesign, and restart the Index of Indie, but that will have to wait for available time, so I thought some tidying was in order. My blog’s making me feel a bit claustrophobic, it needs trimming. But I did like that I put the projects I’m working on in there.

Wesley graduated from the first round of obedience training last Monday. He is now an occasionally obedient dog. I’ve gotten mixed reactions about dog training – you all can rest assured, obedience training does not turn your dog into an automaton and there aren’t any choke collars involved. Our trainer Tara and co-trainer Amanda have been great, they love dogs, and they actually specialize in difficult, aggressive dogs, which Wesley is not. I love people who love animals, and don’t give up on them. Anyway, Wesley is still very much puppy-like and doggy. Just the other day he ate my wallet and license, the plastic on Jeff’s new tea mug, part of my shoe, the cheese crackers from a friend’s purse and an entire box of Kleenex. We are doing intermediate obedience training because Wesley enjoyed the classes so very, very much, him being an intelligent dog who likes people, activity and treats. I enjoy that he’s not chasing the poor cat as much, and that he’s ceased trying to dislocate my shoulder on walks.

I have sadly suffered cooking fail twice this week already, and it’s only Wednesday. On Valentine’s Day I did my usual and cooked Jeff dinner. The baked vegetable baklava turned out well, as did the saffron rice, however I … sort of melted the falafel. I used a recipe. I shouldn’t use recipes. The last time I made falafel I just invented it as I went and it turned out beautifully. Then tonight I tried to make red beans and rice – another recipe! – and burned the ever loving hell out of a dish I’m eminently familiar with and is only rice and beans, after all. I must be tired or something. I’m off my game.

I’ve been working really hard on my stack of crafting organizational items, and am proceeding quite satisfactorily. I’ll have some show-and-tell once I have some acceptable lighting. I am enjoying the time sewing very much. I should do this more often!

Flowers for my Mom

This past weekend Jeff and I made a trip to Houston to visit our respective mothers. Since I work on Mother’s Day, we were a week late, but the love is still there, right?

So for this past Mother’s Day I decided to make my mother a gift of one of her favorite things, violets. I wouldn’t have thought of it except one of my favorite crochet designers – June Gilbank – provided a lovely pattern for a cute little pot of violets just in time to make them for the day.  It didn’t take too long to make it, it was fun, and it turned out so, so well!  June is one of my favorite designers because her patterns are deceptively simple, but just exactly right.

As you maybe can see from the picture, my mother loves violets, and as long as I can remember has grown lovely examples on her kitchen windowsill. So the idea was to make her a special, permanently flowering version of them.  I took June’s pattern and altered it just a wee bit, and it became not just a pot of violets, but a basket for jewelry.

I made sure to use fuzzy green yarn (Jiffy yarn in Avocado) for the leaves, because I always loved the soft velvet of violet leaves. Apart from that, the main difference from the pattern was that I split it in half to make a basket.  The original design is all one piece and stuffed with fiberfill.  In order to change it, I judiciously applied plastic cross stitch canvas, some matching stash fabric and a bit of fiberfill.

The first step was to cut out circles of plastic canvas to stiffen the flower top “lid” and the bottom of the pot.  Then I sewed a rectangle of the canvas into a circle shape to stiffen the pot sides.  I also sewed the circle for the pot bottom to the sides. I used plastic canvas because (1) I could sew it and (2) plastic doesn’t disintegrate over time like cardboard does and (3) it’s waterproof.

Next I got a large circle of coordinating fabric from my stash and stuffed it into the little basket made from plastic canvas.  I stitched the fabric to the canvas with yarn around the top, and then I tacked the fabric to the bottom of the pot with four tiny stitches, also using yarn.  That leaves you with a basket lined with fabric.  Then I trimmed some of the major excess off the outside, still leaving a considerable amount so it’s fabric-lined inside and out.  Here’s the lining basket after sewing (and a lovely picture of the Men’s Health magazine I was using as a table).

The final step was to stuff the fabric basket into the yarn basket and smooth the fabric down, and tack them together with matching yarn. Voila!  fabric lining inside and out. Creating a lovely, structured, lined basket capable of holding the most lovely of jewelry, if I do say so myself.

I did something similar to structure the “flower lid” by adding a circle of plastic canvas to the bottom of the lid. I also obviously added the brown lid bottom to suggest the dirt the flowers are growing in.  In the original there is no need for this bottom.  Apart from the canvas, the lid is mostly stuffed with fiberfill.  The crocheted bottom structured with plastic canvas is the lovely structural finishing touch that makes the lid match the bottom in shape and style. I don’t want to say more beyond that, because I don’t want to give away June’s clever pattern.

I also added a “lip” to the top and bottom of the crocheted pieces in white by adding two rows – I crocheted around twice in both the back loop and front loop of the last row of the top and bottom.  The point of the lip is to create a way to fit the basket together in a neat way. (sorry for the fuzzy picture below)  I did this before attaching the fabric.  You can see the bottom of the lid including the “dirt” bottom and lip in the picture of the two halves also.

So that was my Mother’s Day gift to my mom!  She loves jewelry and violets and purple, what better way to tell her her crafty daughter loves her than to make something out of the things she loves?