Click here to view Marja’s revised Guinea Pig Pattern.

Her primary language is Dutch, but you can still check out photos of her cute crafts at In de Molshoop :)

Thank you Marja, this is a great revision!

I printed out the pattern from Larissa at MmmCrafts and gave everyone a folder with some felt. I also had tons of colored felt, buttons, thread, stuffing, etc for people to get creative with. The skill levels ranged from advanced to very beginner. Even the kids got to participate.

And of course we had snacks. It was pretty successful overall! Almost everyone left with completed pillows – I still need photos of two more but I was excited to share the idea with you  (I noticed that the craftier a person was, the longer it took them to make one – doesnt that seem like reverse pyschology?!)

Here is the one I made. I suppose I might give it to my niece when she comes of age (Im considering making a new one or showing her mom how):

Doesnt she have a bit of a Flamenco Dancer to her? If I were to do the pillow again, I might use white fabric (so the mouth pocket doesnt show through as much – I just had the craft felt on hand) or something colored. If you check out MmmCrafts other works, the colored ones are pretty sweet: mmmcrafts turns two and tooth pillow for Isabelle. Thank you so much for posting the tutorial, Larissa :D

One day Ill get to play with beads and sequins but she is still far too little so nothing but french knots and other embroidery for now. I love love love the shape of sea horses, dont ask me why. I had fun making them, but I will warn you that the adult is just a tad bit more difficult than the baby to make, since you need to combine two pre-stuffed parts (the body to the head). But if I can do it, you can too! :)

Putting the giant papasan chair in the craft room proved other difficulties. I reworked the layout quite a bit but only once I got my new craft table did the pieces fall together. Looking back at what the craft room use to look like and comparing it to now is amazing. It was so cramped and cluttered!

I still need to whip out some curtains for the closet and window, but tada!

The table placement is awesome because I can work from either side, and need I remind you its counter height? Love that!

The papasan chair still works out for my “reading nook” and ive moved some scrapping supplies to the shelving next to it from the closet.

That has allowed the closet to be a larger sewing space, since now the ironing board can go on the shelving in there.

The set up of the last shelving is interesting to me, and my cats love the stair-stepped aspect of it. I have an office section set up where I can do all my scheduling and office-type things; my “library”; and some odds and ends storage.

And while taking these photos, I came across some items that deserve to be blogged about. First, there is this ceramic piece i made in highschool. It even has a working drawer on it ;)

Then there is this primitive doll that my friend Leslie made for me a few years ago. She used an old quilt for the dress, patched a star on it for moi, named her Estell (the meaning is “star”), and what you definitely cant tell from the photo is that she has a faint cinnamon smell. Super clever!

This little jar is one of my favorite pieces. In addition to the faces reminding me of Brian Froud‘s artwork (one of my favorite artists – youll know him as the designer of the Labyrinth film with David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly), they were handmade by my late great gramma. I dont know if there is a proper name for these dolls, but they are made from hosiery and each one is definitely unique.

I also was gifted this doll, Horse Medicine Woman, for my graduation present. Mik blogged about her here and here, where the light was with her for better photos. It was her first venture for a fully beaded dress and it is stunning (yes ladies and gents, the colors of her dress are tiny little beads)!

And now i must work to deserve the itouch Boy so graciously got me for doing taxes. Bleh.

Its another buttercup bag, from Made by Rae. I modified it just slightly, by sewing it together with the handle between the inner and outter fabrics. Silly me though forgot the button detail on the front and tried to do the best I could not being able to get behind the fabric. Its all good though, it is handmade afterall.

I also whipped out the March toy for my neice, “Arch”. Another Super Cute Sea Creature from Futuregirl. I admit I chose the jellyfish this round because I could slack off a bit and pop it out real quick. But I do what i can, you know? I used glittery white felt, but you cant really see that in the photo.

I learned how to tie a Lark’s Head Knot with this pattern too, which I think will come in handy in future crafts.

I have one other bag ready to be sewn together, but I ran out of fabric for the handles, so I will have to wait for that. And then another bag almost ready to finish up. And then yet another bag that is still waiting just to be cut. With all that being said, Im surpised I even got to take my vespa out for a ride!

]]> http://www.thecrafties.com/2010/04/weekend-crafts/feed/ 0 http://www.thecrafties.com/2010/03/wips/ http://www.thecrafties.com/2010/03/wips/#comments Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:42:31 +0000 CaLynn http://www.thecrafties.com/?p=1231 Here are some sneak peeks of current projects. All of these will be bags and the fabric was (mostly) chosen by the future bag owners. The patterns are cut out, but I need to start sewing the pieces together. I had a bit of a crafting lull for a while when the last bag i made just didnt turn out right. But the good news is that (i think) I know what i did wrong so hopefully it wont happen again.

I also have made more book covers and am working on the March toy for my neice (yep, im running late). I havent taken photos of those because a) the lighting is really horrendous but the weather  seems to be finally breaking so maybe that will no longer be an issue and b) i was waiting for my new craft table, which i finally got put together last night! I got it from Macys for half off, but they are already discontinuing it so good luck trying to find one.

It is awesome because its very deep, but not long enough to be too large for the room, and my favorite part – it is counter height! I could have been crafting all morning with it, but since the weather is actually nice i was cleaning out the garage and i took the girls for a stroll while i dreamed all the changes i wanted to make on the outside of the house. I might not start crafting yet still, because now the whole set up of my craft room has been upset and it needs to be reorganized. Good times!

Another project I made was a very belated project – a purse for my sis-in-law kt. I was a little nervous at how small it came out but shes into small purses so it was a perfect choice for her afterall. Phew. I also learned how to do one of the fancy stitches on my sewing machine. I still need way more practice with that, but I was really excited about it! I got this pattern from Made By Rae. Its her internetly famous buttercup bag pattern.

I also made a a little monster for my friends daughter as a birthday present. I had fun personalizing it for her from RevoluzZza’s How to sew a RevoluzZzionary monster tutorial.

This is the first bookcover made with my new process. Im very proud of it because it has a much more quality feel to it but its just so easy. I took some pics for a tutorial, but the light was poor (much like most of my photos) so I am going to sit down tomorrow and make a better effort. Hopefully, fingers crossed, ill have the tute up soon.

There is still one more project to talk about, but Ill save that for tomorrow. Good night and dont forget to change your clocks!

Since this is the littlest she will ever be on her birthday, I started with the largest of the sea creatures – a whale. I found the pattern over at Small Dream Factory. Its not the whale I had envisioned originally, but in the end, making a humpback whale was pretty cool. I only wish that I had enlarged the pattern a bit (the whale is only as long as my hand).

Arent you proud that I was oh so clever enough to think to stick some yarn out the top for the water spout? :)

Of course, I really dig embroidery, so i just had to embellish the polka dot fabric (which, by the way, was gifted to me and has therefore a bit of an heirloom quality to it).

The pattern suggested to use felt for the eyes, but I wanted them to stick out more so I used some of grammas buttons I had left over from the baby shower. Here I ran into a problem though, as I sewed myself into a corner. The buttons were too close to the edge to use the sewing machine (OH! Did i mentioned that as part of our wedding gift, Pseudo-Mom-turned-MiL gifted me her awesome Bernina and all kinds of goodies?!?!) So i sewed what i could, and hand stitched the rest. Then i was paranoid I could never turn it, what with these giant buttons and all, but luck smiled upon me, phew!

I also was clever enough, if i must say, to add some detail on the underside. I just poked some yarn through, then went back over it with white thread to tack it down.

To top it all off, it is stuffed with some bells inside so it rattles! She loved it, however briefly that lasted, and honestly that was more than I expected. But apparently I won her with the buttons, so i will keep that little tidbit in mind!

It was very easy to piece together by hand although I altered where the opening was for the stuffing because i had chosen very thick felt to use as the fabric so i needed something larger to turn it out.

And my usual trick of using a teeny tiny crochet needle (12/1.00mm) to assist in turning out the smallest corners worked like a charm.

I also took boys suggestion and stuffed it extra full – i could have still added some in the tail area, but it was hard to do since thats where i left it open at.

Originally, i thought that by using this cool fancy felt, it would be enough to have a cool fancy bird.

As it turns out, the more you work the felt, the image burnished onto it begins to fade. So my birdie was pretty blah.

I decided it would be cool to embroidery the pattern on the felt and chose black as a stark contrast to the solid red. I was excited because it really looked cool.

However, the more i worked it, the pattern disappeared completely in parts, so some of the pattern was done free hand. Thats totally ok by me except i didnt really know how to tie it together. To me, it looks like a few different patterns on one bird, and I am still sorting out whether i like that look or not.

I felt that if I had continued the patterns to the bottom as well, something would be lost. So i ended the patterns at the seam line and needed to tidy it up so I chose to line the seamline with black. I think this look would equally be cool, if I had done black felt on the bottom.

I also started to trace the seam line with an actual stitch through the felt, here and there when I had extra thread but not enough to continue a pattern. At the end, i decided to use a full 6 strand rather than 3, and loop it around the stitch from the seam itself (red thread). So sometimes those two lines are separated visibly, but as my first of this kind – its awesome. :P

It took me so long because my finger was sore from pushing and pulling the needle so i took some days off between to finish. Another drawback is using white stuffing because it does get pulled out here and there and looks like cat hair (i do have cats, but i am fortunate that they dont shed much). I need to look into ways to dye stuffing. Any ideas?

I loved the simplicity – just cut two pieces and sew together! As my first attempt to try out the pattern before making my neice Kaia some toys, i am pretty gosh darn proud of it. Its so cute:)

I had trouble turning the tail out. And I wish I had sewed the gills, mouth, and eyes first before stitching together – the needle kept getting caught in the stray felt threads. But i think using little white sequins and tiny light blue beads for the eyes was practically ingenious.

I worked on it while the cable guy was here. He was pretty cordial. My point is, this project went by fast! I certainly suggest it for a novice.