One Inch World

Things have been a little slower around here since pennyloaf came along, but I have been working on some tiny felt dollhouse food. I’m planning on sugary treats and a farmers market basket full of vegetables. I’d like to draw up a pattern and instructions for them and possibly sell patterns or kits on Etsy, but I’ve had similar goals before. This time for sure! Always an optimist.

So far I’ve made ice cream cones and an ice cream cone holder that looks sort of cake-ish, and a cake (with, um, a cupcake embroidered on it…) and a cupcake and some cupcake tops that need bottoms. Lots of tiny hand stitching, and since it’s dollhouse scale (the cake is an inch across) it’s easy to carry around to the playground.

I’d like to add some plates and cookies and a box for the cupcakes. Then of course there’s lots of photos and instructions before I can call the project ‘done’. We’ll see.

Penelope Jane was born Friday the 14th, around 11:30am, at about 7lbs 18″. We didn’t get to have a homebirth this time for dumb insurance reasons, but we did have a perfectly acceptable natural hospital birth, and we were all home and happy relatively quickly.

Rebecca is a thrilled and doting older sister, and Penelope is still in the happy sleepy newborn phase, and thus perfect. We’ll see if she grows into a sleepless colicky terror in the next month.

I freestyle crocheted this sun hat, on the assumption that my soon-to-be babies head would be about 14″ in diameter at some point, but it came out a little wonky without a pattern, and unless her head is ovular like this teddy bear, it may never fit reasonably. Oh well! Maybe it’s a bear hat, but really, I’ll make baby wear it even if it does fit funny.

I like the way the rolled up brim came out, it gives it a nice stiffness that may actually keep the hat out of her eyes.

In addition to the flower on the front, there’s also a crochet pompom hanging back off the top that you can’t really see in the picture. It’s a bit excessive to have both, but that’s just what happens when you are randomly crocheting at the playground. You just keep chaining in different directions until it’s time to go home. (^_~)

I’ve been trying to clean things up in our work and play space, call it nesting if you want, and for me that usually means finishing or discarding or, ahem, hiding, unfinished projects. Finishing is usually the most satisfactory, but of course it takes the most time. The particular table I was cleaning off yesterday had several clothing repair or alteration projects on it, most went in the discard pile, because they were for Rebecca, and thus since I’d put them off for a year, I could just pack them up in the too-small-box. They primarily needed to be altered for head size, since she had an enormous head, but who knows what the next baby will need. Probably the same thing, but I’m going to cross them off the list for now.

I just added these pants this morning though, so I got them done. They had a stiff corduroy draw string, which caused panic and unhappiness when Rebecca tried to use the bathroom herself. Obviously an untenable state of affairs, I don’t like clothes with buttons or snaps in the back either, kids should be able to reach everything themselves, and fasten everything themselves. But I liked the pants. So rather than chucking them into the donation bag I pulled out the drawstring and added some elastic. Now they are much more functional, although I should probably do something about the ankle ties too.

Also in my project pile was all of the materials and a sketched paper pattern to make these produce bags. (The design is heavily borrowed from Linen, Wool, Cotton although I didn’t actually use their pattern.) I wanted to make more, but I’m going to put the rest of the fabric back away and see how these hold up, I doubled the loose weave fabric, but I’m worried it’s going to fall apart. It’s really suited more for curtains, which is what I bought it for ten years ago, rather than being a workhorse. It’s just loose woven cotton, not an actual net fabric. I really like how it wrinkled and shrank up when I washed it though, I should have taken another picture. They survived one trip to WholeFoods today, and if I never try to put an artichoke or oranges with stems into them they might last…

And that table is mostly unburied now, hurray! There are just a lot of whole and partial thrifted clothes that I need to fold into my fabric stash, and a couple things I haven’t figured out what to do with. I really should have taken a before and after picture!

It’s Monday already, isn’t it? Oh well. I guess I can’t be too hard on the unborn baby for not being early, clearly she has plenty of bad examples from me.

Last week I got a package filled with starch packing peanuts, so we used them as our material for our art playgroup on Friday. Everyone started out with a card stock base, a glue stick and cut up paper to do some collaging, then we got out the starch packing peanuts and just a little bit of water to dip them in, and the kids stuck them on top of their collages. If you give them too much water they will dunk the whole thing, and it will dissolve into a slimy mess they don’t want to touch, so I just put about a quarter inch of water or less into a flat bottomed bowl. Probably a wet sponge would be perfect, because they still try to mash them into the water, and the peanuts don’t stick as well if they are too wet.

There are SO MANY things I want to make right now, if I could create full time I might be able to keep up. I want to make a mechanical (automaton) music box with my husband, quilted mattress pad for the imminent baby, tiny one inch laser engraved hollow house box cubes at the TechShop, make doll house food and create patterns and kits for Etsy, doll house kitchen furniture, unpack and finish a half done quilt for the baby, clean and organize my space finish (proofreading now) my Blurb photobook for our 2006 Japan vacation, get started on my 2007 photobook (I try to make one each year, but I’m just falling depressingly behind on that, obviously I need to lower my standards or *something*.) And? There are only so many projects I can keep in my head at a time! I’m trying to prioritize finishing the things that are cluttering up my work space though, and trying not to start new projects, but new projects are so exciting! And once you start them, then they fall into the category of things that need to be finished! I know, that is so cheating.

Sometimes just thinking about something seems to move it into the category of things I’ve started that need to be cleared away from my mental workspace. In any case, I saved these birthday cards with the idea of turning them into puzzles, so the cards were cluttering up my workspace. Thus the puzzles had to be completed.

I glued the cards (with Mod Podge) down to 1/8 plywood with a nice veneered back, cut them into rectangles on the bandsaw, and cut the puzzle pieces on our scroll saw. I know, we have tools for everything and I love it, it is our greatest luxury. When we had our first one bedroom apartment we had a shop bench and bench top bandsaw set up in the corner. Of the fully carpeted apartment. And a mattress on the floor in the bedroom. You have to have priorities.

The first puzzle I sanded all the interior edges, and it looks nicer, but really, my daughter went through that so fast that I decided I should just cut them up and throw them at her, she doesn’t mind the white fuzzy edges on the picture, and the scroll saw doesn’t cut rough enough for their to be actual splinters, so whatever. Let’s go! Make!