For a special sister who has turned another year older. Happy Birthday!
A handmade Wee Wonderfuls Snail…
And a handwoven infinity scarf in just the right shade of coral/conch/peach.
Little Presents
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Tag Archives: felt
Etsy of the Week -Miss Bumbles-
I was cruising through etsy when I found this amazing needle-felted guinea pig by Miss Bumbles. She has rabbits, an elephant and a kitty as well! I can’t imagine anything more adorable than a needle felted guinea pig complete with dress and hat. Can you!?
Happy Love Day
Three Bits
It’s been a little while since I posted anything that I’ve been working on. I’ve been knitting a sweater (the Featherweight Cardigan from Knitbot) as fast as my nimble little fingers can go, but it’s still taking a small eternity. I decided to take a little embroidery break last night and whipped up this little bunny…. 
The story is that long, long ago I found a story about a disabled bunny in a little chariot and it’s floated around in the back of my brain ever since. So I did a wee bit of researching and finally drew this little guy. However, I need your help! I want to embroidery something achingly clever below him (aka: Cruisin’… or Low Rider… or Hello Ladies). I haven’t come up with that perfect little somethin’ yet, so it will have to remain unfinished until ya’ll help me out!
And here is the foxy-man I posted a while ago, with his little chicklets…Â 
And here is the Hiker’s Waistcoat that I knit months ago, but never posted about. This is knit with wool that I hand-washed, spun and knit all by myself! It actually turned out pretty successfully considering that the yarn was a wee bit uneven and I had never made something all the way through like that! This is all wool from Bonnieview so it’s local to boot!
Mongolian Wool Felt
You’re in for a bit of an experience with this video on how to make Mongolian wool felt.
Via: Craftster
Effortless… or so it seems
So, today was the first of five winter Farmers Markets in Craftsbury. I worked pretty hard for the entire week making hair pins, finger puppets, fabric birds, wool pom poms, needle felted wood-legged animals… and so many many more. I borrowed Paul and Keren’s big drying rack and John’s wee drying rack for displays and spent two hours setting things up in the Craftsbury Academy common area.
Woolies on parade!
I made a mess of hand warmers in monkey fabric, finger puppets, fabric covered buttons and needle felted critters including…
Mister Deer-man! I’m pretty proud of that one.
Here are the two ponies, a llama and a sheep. So good. But so fragile.
And here are some of the felted pins I made. I bought a felted flower pin years ago at Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland and I love it so I decided to make some for this sale. They turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. After the last sale I decided that I needed to make some more… conventional things. My answer where these flower pins, some fabric covered buttons, fabric birds, wool pom poms and those needle felted animals. All in all I was right, those were the things I got the most comments on and what actually sold at the end of the day. I’m glad I did it.
Crafty Business
So, as you all know I haven’t worked at Bonnieview for a while. What you might not know is that it’s crazy difficult to find a job in rural Vermont… in winter. So, here I am getting down to crafty. This weekend (Saturday) is the first Winter Farmers Market and I’m going to be vending everything I can dream up. I’ve been roosting in the apartment for the last week, my little fingers busy at the sewing machine, embroidery needle and anything else I can think of. What does that look like? This!
I just discovered this thing called shank buttons. You know, those buttons that aren’t flat but have that little metal hoop in the back. I found a shop on etsy that sells kits that let you make your own fabric covered buttons. I hand embroidered all of the teal ones in the pictures but I’m not sure how well I like them. They’re fairly difficult to keep centered when you put the buttons in the mold. They’re 3/4 inch buttons. How cool is that!?
Look at all them buttons!
Some of the new batch of finger puppets.
Here are just a few of some stuffed bird ornaments. Some have loops to hang them from things and others have little alligator clips so that they can perch on whatever the feel like. There’s about 15 of these. Â 
Here are the birds again and one of the puff balls I’ve been making. The puff balls are extremely simple and fun to make. Essentially you make them the same way you would make a yarn ball (like the kind you put on the top of a knit hat) but you use wool roving instead of yarn. They’re so soft and light and fuzzy, I really like how they look. I got the idea from Wee Wonderfuls and used the technique from Kid Craft Central.
Here’s a new woolie man man. I really like this one….
I saw an epically beautiful horse on etsy that used wooden sticks for legs and I decided to give it a try. I really really like how it turned out! It reminds me of a cave painting horse with it’s thick body and spindly legs. The head pivots around too…
Lastly I got a custom order on etsy! This person wanted custom portraits of she and her sister as little girls. I think they turned out rather well, no? Any Christmas requests?
Way to be Awesome, Me!
Star sent me a postcard in February:
So I sent her some felt leech finger puppets and then promptly forgot about them. Fast forward three months to my next visit to Olympia. Ben’s doing homework while Star hibernates in the other room… guess what he’s using as a bookmark? Yes, a leech. How great is that? PLUS he comes up with a great idea: make some sort of packaging for the little suckers (heeehee… that was totally on purpose) and sell them. Well, now that I’m going to be at Crafty Wonderland in a few weeks I decided to take that idea super seriously and now (TAH DAH!) I’ve made a little envelope to hold two leeches. I’m going to stick one in the shop to see what happens and I’ve already got about six ready to go with me to the sale.
This is the front, there’s more cool things on the back and flaps, but I’m going to be all secretive and keep that to myself. It’s worth picking one up to find out though! I still have to decide how much monies I want for them…
Handmade Wonderful
The purlbee is featuring one of Mimi Kirchner’s felt doll patterns on their site… for free! I’ve loved her tattoo man-doll forever and now I can make one of her pretty ladies… for free!? Can you tell that I think this is insanely awesome!? You can download the pattern too, plus everything is handsewn so no need for you to have one of them fancy ma-chines to do the sewing for you.
The way she is constructed is lovely and simple… now I just have to get my hands on felt for her.
In other DIY/Handmade news, I found this Altoids tin candle tutorial that I think I might have a go at, over at Design Sponge. I like those tins so much but I’ve only ever been able to brainstorm up a collage to put in one. Candles are much better, I think. Plus this means that they’re portable… portable romance! Or Christmas. But that’s not as interesting.
Go over and check out the tutorial. It’s fairly simple and straightforward… I think the most complicated part might be making the fancy paper cover for the tin, but I’ve leave it as it is, skip all the fuss.
Colin
I made this little guy at mom’s request. One of her old students is having a boy baby and she wanted to give them something. Thus, Colin was born. Here’s the story that goes with him:
“Colin loves to make pudding. Chocolate, pistachio, lavender… he loves to experiment with all of those flavors. Sometimes they’re good, most times they’re better left as experiments. More often than naught you can find Colin cradling his big mixing bowl, licking off the last bits of pudding from his wooden spoon as he dreams of the next batch of utterly, fantastic and amazing pudding.”