Needle felted Christmas lights

I am already starting to think about the holidays. I swore I wouldn’t, but I am tired of procrastinating every year, perpetually surprised to find it December 24. I also have a good chance to get my act together and make products to put in my shop for people to give others as gifts or presents to themselves.

I waste so much fabulous time on Pinterest looking for crafts I will most likely never try, recipes I will never make, and clothes I will never wear. However, I’ve decided that I must do something every week to weakly justify pinning and pinning and pinning and pinning!

My friend Lindsey pinned handsewn felt Christmas ornaments from etsy shop DanielleLondon with the idea to make them wet felted. I immediately thought I could needle felt them quickly, and I tried 2. I ran out of a lot of colors that are bold and bright, so it’s time to restock on grass green, bright red, and other colors. My flash made them extra bright!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’d love to make a bunch of these. They’re cute and easy to make.

Pearhug Studio moves to Facebook

I decided a long time ago that being successful on etsy is hard work, and I am not up to the challenge! I still have my shop open with nothing for sale since I let the listings expire, and I’ve had 9 sales since April 2010. Since opening on facebook a week ago, I’ve had more than 9 sales! I’m primarily making taggie lovies for babies to feel the different ribbon textures and to snuggle with, wool balls, little sundresses, and custom orders for kimonos, Thai fisherman pants, and Halloween costumes (fleece Lilo and Stitch for a pair of siblings).

Pearhug Studio still celebrates what’s under, in, around, and above us through fiber arts and upcycled/repurposed items. Products are a mix of both new materials and upcycled/repurposed materials, this time with more of a focus on children’s items. I know it will also be hard work maintaining the shop, filling it with new things, completing custom orders, and mailing out products, but I feel like facebook is more personal and friendly.

Since the holiday season is approaching, I’d love to add holiday baby legs, long sleeve appliqued onesies, work on my thread sketching to do cursive writing since I don’t have an embroidery machine, and more felted figurines and toys. I also want to do ready-to-mail taggies so people can just order them off the site.

I am so happy to finally feel organized, efficient, and professional. I sure hope this goes somewhere for a good money maker as well as something I truly enjoy by using my crafting skills and talents every day.

Pearhug Studio’s page address is  http://www.facebook.com/shoppearhugstudio  so be sure to tell your friends to “like” the page! Spread the word! You can also friend me as Lucy Hughes (Pearhug_Studio) at http://www.facebook.com/pearhugstudio since I was facebook-incompetent when I set up my page over a year ago and didn’t realize the profile was different from being an admin of the page–whoops! Hope it is not too confusing for people.

Fortune Cookie Baby Booties

I was browsing etsy and saw these super awesome fortune cookie baby booties by sushibooties. I remembered saving a kimono baby bootie pattern a few years ago, so I set out to find a pattern to make them myself. Well lo and behold, Della Slowik of sushibooties was featured on the Martha Stewart show, and the website of the segment includes templates, a visual how-to guide, and a video clip of the show.

Instead of using 2 different fleece colors, I used acrylic felt (couldn’t find wool in my spare hour to run to the fabric store) and muslin lining. I also didn’t print the fortune on the material Slowik uses; instead, I just used a fine tip felt pen and some muslin to write my fortunes. I know if I were to wash the booties, this part would fray and the ink would probably run. I wasn’t too serious about quality–I just wanted to get the process down.

My fortunes say, “Become who you are,” and “Love surrounds you.” Slowik packages them in little Chinese take-out containers–brilliant.

I made a Baby Kimono from the Habitual tutorial about 18 months ago for Hannah Claire out of a Pottery Barn Teen pillow I found at a thrift store, which of course, I cannot find because it’s probably packed up in the winter clothes. It’s time to make baby Charlotte her own little kimono so she can sport her fortune cookie baby booties!

Hannah Claire in her kimono with tie-dyed pants

Felted Wooly Balls!

I have the maturity of an 8th grader right about now…I am proud to say I made some fantastic wooly balls. Sorry, sorry, I still giggle every time I write or say “wooly balls,” but that’s exactly what they are–simple balls made of wool.

I used several combinations to get these balls just right. I rolled up raw wool into a ball shape and wet felted it with a little bit of lavender bar soap, squishing it in my hands just like I saw on youtube about Making a Felted Wool Ball, but quickly lost patience.

Next, I put them in some Target tights I keep around for wool projects, creating what looked like the beginning to a Wilma Flintstone necklace and continued felting by hand. I finally gave up that method and threw the whole 4-bead strand into the washer, left them in a few cycles, and then dried them for a few cycles. This method is outlined in one of my favorite felting books, Uniquely Felt by Christine White. 

I then decided that plain white wool balls were no fun, so I covered them with merino wool, Noro wool yarn, and other tidbits from my stash. I felted the base colors again with another load of laundry, and needle felted the decorative elements in after the colorful base layer felted enough. Needle felting helps get that surface yarn down into the wool really well. I used colorfast dyed wool in hot water cycles, but you can also make them on cold. They will felt slower than when using hot water, but the same end result, a wool ball, will still occur!

Wool balls can be great in the dryer used with regular laundry in lieu of fabric softener if one is trying to avoid chemicals. They absorb moisture, therefore helping your clothes dry much faster, which saves electricity. You can also make wool balls by winding wool yarn into a ball and using the same method as loose wool rolled up.

They can get a bit of static electricity…

These also make fantastic kids’ toys. I think it would be really cool to make a globe ball so you can have the whole world in your hands. They’d also be fun with other images needle felted on or a child’s initial. My toddler loves to throw wool balls, and I know these won’t knock out a 5 month-old when tossed in her general direction!

Reconned kid’s halter, fish, bicycles, and vintage ric-rac

I found this fabulous 3/4th length baseball style shirt in a size S (not surewhose age category S) with red sleeves at a thrift store. The front says the quote, “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.” –Irina Dunn and the back says: ECHHS Women’s Caucus” and some sponsor names. I immediately thought, “that must be a dress NOW for a very special girl whose mother is one of the funniest people I know–Rachel Diroll-Zack, who was recently featured on The Mamafesto’s series, “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” on the July 31, 2011 post.

I chopped it up and only using existing pieces of the shirt. I went through a million revisions in my mind and made it up as I went. I even found vintage ric-rac from my mother’s stash while looking for red bias tape that said “3 for 10 cents.” Crazy! The vintage ric-rac was also used in the recon Valentine’s Day project for my older daughter for her first Valentine’s Day. I decided it would become a halter top instead of a dress since I didn’t think a dress would be long. This was one of the first projects I reconned myself, so I love it despite its imperfections.

Toddler reversible apron and felt food gift

The basket of felt food and a reversible apron were made as a holiday gift exchange in 2008 for a very creative son of the awesome Avi from The Mamafesto: Where Motherhood and Feminism Collide. Check out the facebook page at The Mamafesto (“Writing about feminism, parenting, pop culture and any random thing that gets me thinking or sets me off”) and be sure to click “like!” Her articles are always thought-provoking and challenge conventional “norms” of motherhood. She’s started a “This is What a Feminist Looks Life” series that I am looking forward to reading with a giant mug of coffee.

I wanted to make the apron reversible with an applique of his first initial. I didn’t use a pattern, but instead drafted one using newspaper and his measurements. I’m pretty sure I used 2 fat quarters and some ribbon, making this project less than $5 total. It could even be free if you raid your stash! For the “e,” I used fusible webbing and stitched around the edges on each piece before I stitched them right sides together with the ribbons on the inside. I actually traced the letter backwards on the paper side of the fusible webbing, but have since learned to just cut a square and cut out the letter that way–much easier! Then I turned it inside out, poked out all the corners, and top stitched around the entire thing. I used light blue thread on the top and orange thread in the bobbin, both threads being the same brand/type.

To go along with his food theme, I also made some felt food. Again, I had no pattern because I was too cheap to buy patterns. I figured I had decent knowledge of what the food looked like, and I could just try my best to replicate it. Since 2008, an explosion of patterns have been made available online. I hand stitched most of it and filled them with polyfill. I really liked puffing up the butter pats! If I made them in the future, now that I have lots of wool, I’d probably use wool instead of acrylic-based wool, especially now that I’ve learned to either needle felt or wet felt my own sheets.

pancakes with syrup and butter pats, wedge of cheese, loaf of bread with velcro bread slice, carrots, and an eggplant!

Cupcake Dress

My baby has now turned 2! She loves cupcakes and calls them “birthdays,” so what better way to welcome her into the Terrible Twos than with a cupcake birthday dress? She also loves stars, so I got a fat quarter of purple star print fabric to make the sashing.

She got so excited when I showed it to her! Cupcakes, balloons, bubbles–perfect day in a 2 year-old’s life!

Somehow, a disposable diaper got washed and left these gel beads everywhere. The entire load now feels sort of worn out and papery even though I got those gel beads under control. I decided to use a braided strap tank top from Target and repurpose it into the cupcake dress.

I followed this excellently written tutorial for the Sweet Pleated Dress  on Make It and Love It.

I am very happy I chose to tackle pleats. For some reason they scared me, but then I felt ridiculous for being scared of a sewing technique and just tried it out. I found the rhythm of making pleats while not rushing was mindless and soothing. The trick is to adjust them so that you match the amount of fabric with the cut off bottom of the shirt.

Sewing french seams was a nice way to finish the seams since I don’t have a serger. I’ll definitely use that technique for future projects.

I think my favorite part is the cupcake applique I made using fusible webbing and a simple running stitch along the edges.

A happy birthday, indeed!

 

Pockets at the beach: Mom’s birthday art quilt

Happy Birthday to my Mom on July 3!

My mom is so wonderful. Words cannot express how awesome she is and how many amazing things she has done for my family and me, especially now that we have children and she can be Grammy Pammy. I wanted to make something instead of buying something to celebrate her birthday to express my gratitude.

I know she has a favorite photo of my dog, Pockets, at the beach. He was watching some birds that don’t show up very well in the photo.

Just pretend you can see the birds

I had a grand idea to turn the photograph into a small art quilt. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. It just seemed so complicated. I decided to just stop worrying about it and DO IT. The whole idea is to cut bits of fabric and iron them on to create the fabric “painting,” and then use thread painting, stitching, and wool to translate the photo into a small art quilt.

Mom's mini art quilt

My Process

I started by posterizing the photograph using GIMP, a free program similar to Photoshop, and then turning it into grayscale so I could get crisp shading. Then I printed out the image on regular copy paper.

     

Next, I chose my fabrics and ironed on fusible web product that bonds fabric to fabric. When heat is applied, it turns into a sort of glue that allows you to “glue” fabric into place. I selected and cut some muslin for the blank canvas. I then used my grayscale image as a pattern to individually cut out the shades of Pockets, matching a different fabric to the shading. It’s hard to get it exactly the same, so I just figured I could rectify any wonky spots with the thread painting aspect. I even used the back of a yellow fabric because the shade matched better than the regular side!

I then figured out that I should start with the overall background images first and then leave the details like Pockets for last.

Assembling the background. I ironed them in place once I was happy with what it looked like.

The next few pictures show different aspects of the details I added once I had the background in place.

I wanted the darker stitching to look like water trails and pools from the surf

I used different color threads to make the birds. At first, I wanted to do pelicans, but am glad I just stuck with a simple line shape. Cheesy as it is, I thought it would be nice to have the two birds represent her two grandchildren.

Pockets and his shadow. I used 2 different threads on Pockets--a boring neutral, and some flashy gold. I left the shadow alone. You can also see the wool I stitched and glued in place, hoping to create the illusion of surf.

I used low loft batting and hand-dyed muslin from another project for the backing. I am trying to make the back look as good as the front by trying to eliminate shoddy stitching–trying being the key word!

I do like the back

My biggest area of growth hands down is getting a straight binding. I used bias tape instead of making my own, and I think the lessons I learned speak for themselves without me having to point out everything. I did, however, slice it up really evenly with my rotary cutter. I guess we’ll say the binding adds some, um, character.

I didn’t add a hanging sleeve, mount it, or frame it, because I’ll let my mom decide how she wants to display it.

Overall, I am way excited about how it turned out. This is my second time fusing and stitching a picture into a small art quilt, and I am just smitten.

Some of the fabrics are the same ones I used in the Something Blue quilt for my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding.
Total number of fabrics: 13 including the binding
Total number of threads used on the top: seven

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!

Threadhead

I’ve got a plan for what my stitching will be for the TMQG’s July Challenge. I figured I ought to take inventory of all the thread I have, since my idea involves free motion stitching on 25 different areas with different thread colors. I also set an additional challenge to myself to only use items already in my house for every aspect. This goes for the quilt top, thread, batting, backing, and sashing–everything.

Well, let me just say I had no idea how much thread I had! I knew my thread box sat perched on the bookshelf with slivers of color spilling out over the edge, like some technicolor bird’s nest on acid.

the thread stash

When I roam the fabric store, I tend to pick out thread for the project, which of course, rarely gets made. That’s how I end up with all these spools! I found metallic threads in gold, silver, blue, and green, enough blue thread to make 54 blue quilts, 3 spools of neat variegated thread, embroidery thread in all colors, 2 heavy duty spools, monofilament clear thread, and elastic thread, in addition to the normal sewing thread. I was surprised I didn’t get bogged down on myself for seeing a visual representation of all the projects never finished, as I tend to throw myself under the bus as a default thinking mode for irrational reasons.

While I can’t remember how I acquired some spools, other spools had me thinking about the project for which it was intended and what I was doing with myself that year. I’ve only been serious about sewing since 2003, so it’s not like I had decades to wade through. I’ve had so many changes and transitions in my life since 2003 that lining up the thread spools by category and then color was a nice exercise in reflection. Who knew thread would bring up so many memories?

I really am glad I took inventory of the stash so I can maybe design projects around the thread I have as I explore thread sketching and thread painting in the future. I also know I have a LOT to learn when it comes to the types of thread available to art quilters.

I could easily get tangled up in blue

What does your thread stash say about your buying habits or crafting personality? What thoughts and memories do you find bubbling up to the surface as you think back on projects and life? I am also curious if you think this is a tiny thread stash or an excessive one, since we all bring different experiences in interpretation. Tell me about your thread stashes!

Finding time to create with little ones around

I’ve been trying to figure out how to find time to create with two kids under two while also trying to feed everyone and keep the house off any of those hoarding TV shows. I’ve actually managed to find some inspiration with half my screen with blogs while sharing the other half with youtube Elmo videos for the older one while bouncing the younger one on my knee. When is nap time again??

I came across an interview with Beth Helfter on Quilting Gallery whose words really are an inspiration to me with her “20 Minutes a Day” personal rule.

For those quilters in the throes of raising families, quilting is just one more thing to add to the day’s “to do” list, and in our quest to make everyone in our lives happy except ourselves, something that gives us pleasure is the first thing to go. But it shouldn’t be. I am a firm believer both in “a happy mom means a happy family” and in my own personal 20 Minutes a Day rule…

Sure, that was a lot of 20 minute increments of my life over the course of two and a half years, but those 20 minute increments may have been all that kept me sane and feeling like I was accomplishing something just for me during the first two and a half years of my twins’ lives. And there is a lot to be said for remembering what makes YOU happy while you are trying to keep everyone else in your family happy. I am not sure how to reach all the former quilters who have given up due to a perceived lack of time, but I sort of want to make it a personal quest now to get them back. Because for one thing, the more under 45 quilters we have, the longer I can stay well under the average age. Do it for you. Do it for me.

Well, Beth, count me in at 31 years and small kids! I love the concept of 20 minutes a day–and no one said they should be consecutive. 34 seconds here, 4 minutes there…it will add up.

My wonderful sister-in-law and brother gave me Lyric Kinard’s Art + Quilt: Design, Principals and Creativity Exercises for my birthday. Among other inspirational and practical things, she talks about being creative and realistic with your workspace. She has 5 kids, so she ought to know. She says,

For a few years, I sewed standing up at a corner of the kitchen counter. It was too high for the little ones to reach. I could leave my projects out and take a stitch here and a stitch there…it does help to have some space, no matter how small, dedicated to your artwork.

These women are both inspirational to hear how they managed to create art while having small ones around. I create not to win some sort of race, but as a means of art therapy–to stay sane and as a focus in concentration and patience. Creating during my “me time” gives my brain a break from the constant chaos of kids, and I will take all the inspiration I can get and share it here for people saying, “But I have no time to make anything with kids!” I’m learning I have the same amount of time as anyone else; it’s what I do with that time that will allow me to get something, anything, done. And that is way better than not creating anything at all.

By all means, leave a comment if you have tips!