One Inch World

Rebecca is 4, which means that she gets to pick out the birthday presents for her friends, and while I may retain some veto power, and can provide suggestions, it’s really her show. But sometimes *I* want in on the fun too! So I made this barrette for one of her fashion conscious friends who was turning 3.

As usual I was planning an extravagant set of six barrettes, some leaves, flowers, an apple, an ‘A’, but reality set in, and I only ended up making one, which with all the hand stitching took me at least an hour, possibly two. I’m really not very fast with my hand sewing I guess. Too much of a perfectionist. When I was gathering the lace for the back I carefully took a stitch in the 2nd and 4th holes of the lace, pulled them together with the 0th and then tacked it down with a back stitch. Please, I’m gathering lace to the back of a barrette, not counting cross stitch, but I have a really hard time going fast. I find slow and precise relaxing, but frustrating at the same time.

To make this barrette cover I traced the barrette, cut two, clipped a hole for the back prong of the barrette, and with the barrette in the center sewed them together with a running stitch. Then I whip stitched the monogram/lace stack to the edges of the barrette.

I have been doing a ridiculous amount of cooking and fermenting and sprouting rather than blogging recently. I think I have 4-5 containers of various ginger ferments, 3 jars of somewhat suspicious pickles, I made crackers and quinoa milk today for heaven’s sake. I idly think about blogging as I’m cooking, and sometimes take pictures, but I don’t really think I should diversify this blog any further, it’s already gotten pretty unfocused from where I started! And sometimes that bothers me, but not enough to do anything about it yet. Would you like my blog better if it was my crafts only or children’s activities only?

Marigold is a doll I made roughly based on the Black Apple pattern. I drew the pieces myself, changed the directions around, embroidered her face, and boxed the bottom so she would sit up. I should have stuffed her butt with beans or made it thicker… The jersey I used for her face/arms/legs is too thin unfortunately, and I think her inner leg joint is already tearing a little, because Neleepop likes to yank her around by her skinny legs, which are fabulous for grabbing.

Also, she is quite fond of poking, or smashing her eyes. But they are quite sturdy. And then there is the head biting. But then, then there is the hugging and squealing!!! So thrilling! Obviously 10 months is the perfect age for first doll love.

I’m not supposed to be blogging right now, I’m supposed to be meeting my deadline. But it’s been a week! My house is getting messier and messier and older daughter spent an unheard of amount of time in front of the computer today. So here, here is something I whipped up before I was sucked into this One Yard Wonders 2 thing.

Birthday. Mother suggested that she would appreciate play acting props, careers other than ‘princess’. I chose mail man. This hat, other than being too small, worked wonderfully from my imagination to implementation!

The bag, well, it is recycled from a shirt in the rag bag. I got a new serger! Named Sammy. This was practice using it, quite a different thing than I’m used to, it was quite fun! I made the strap about twice too long and tried to just lap it and sew to make it shorter, but that was a disaster, ended having to undo the bag seam, remake a bunch of it, but it was still a quick satisfying project. So what if I did write the letter shapes with permanent marker rather than erasable marker… It is still quite good for play acting, not going to be winning any design comps with it though!

So, when I created the tutorial for this felt doll house chair I wondered what would happen if I turned it into a toddler chair. Well, when the next One Yard Wonders book comes out, you’ll be able to decide if it was successful or not. Clearly the ‘muslin’ (canvas) pattern holds weight, but, I don’t know, I’m not totally satisfied with it. Is tying a chair weird? Should I have used upholstery buttons instead of just thread? But I don’t think I can do any serious redesign now.

I do still need to make the final version, that’s next on my table. I’ve finished one project for the book, and I have two more and a looming deadline that is totally stressing me out! It’s like I have a real job again! Stress! It makes me want to crawl into bed and wait until those in authority come and haul me away for pretending that I can accomplish something good. Erg. But! One foot in front of the other, and not wasting time online can work wonders. Also, just a little sake before I sit down to write really helps me get out the first draft of a pattern! I found that out last week. Is that bad? Should I not admit that? Maybe, but it was nice to have a little help with the voices in my head saying, ‘no!’ ‘that’s awful’ ‘no one will understand that’ ‘that’s too basic! People will think you’re condescending!’ ‘give up!’ But what would be the point of life if we gave up, right? So, forward forward forward.

This project was inspired by Richard Shilling’s Land Art, via 5 Orange Potatoes. After looking at Richard Shilling’s inspiring gallery of work we gathered a big bag of leaves, a pile of Monterey Pine needles, some scissors and got to work.

There was some arguing about who got to use the blue scissors (vs green), and who wanted to sit in the pink chair, but there was a lot of leaf cutting and stabbing with pine needles. Dunno about the kids, but the moms had a lot of fun!

This is probably three weeks old. I am going crazy packing boxes! Monday is the move, I’m sad I’m missing all the great valentines day crafting I could be doing.

I’m back from vacation in modem land, and I have a lot of catching up to do on this blog! I think I need some kind of schedule, craft, homeschool, and kid art once a week on their own days, but I haven’t gotten there yet!

This is a carrot. Carrot leaves look nothing like that in reality, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a soft carrot with a realistic top. Only plastic ones.

This carrot is a basic cone pattern, with velcro patches holding it together. I’d really like to get some colored velcro for projects like this, and making sushi rolls, I’ve seen some really cute patterns that use colored velcro. I used random orange fabric patches to make the pieces I cut the cone sections out of, which I like. The construction is pretty messy though! I tried to get away with sewing the tiny circles on with the sewing machine. That never works…