I have had a good relaxing holiday so far, and as a result, I have not done much of anything besides watching DVDs and reading magazines. (Heaven!)

I thought I would showcase some of the things my parents have been making lately. I have put in an order from Mom for one of her pillows:

I love those. And in addition to making me a belt, Dad has been making coasters:

So cool! I love the little feet on the back. Mom has also been experimenting with ribbon embroidery on garment leather, which I think turned out fantastic:

Just beautiful. Ribbon embroidery has sort of gone out of fashion in the craft world I think. I remember going to a Joanns, or a Hobby Lobby and seeing a whole section of ribbon embroidery supplies with ribbons in all colors and widths, books, kits - everything. Now there is hardly anything at all. I think Mom gets most of her ribbon off of eBay. Kind of a bummer.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Cedar Wreath

After the wind storm last week I went around the yard and gathered up all of the cedar lashings that peppered the lawn. I decided to make a wreath out of them.

First step was to gather them up into bundles and wire them. Lulu acting as Quality Assurance.

Here are the bundles wired to the frame. I got the frame last year from a wreath our real estate agent gave us for Christmas.

Little Miss Helper.

Done! I was A LOT larger than I expected it to be once it was put together and I didn't really think about where I was going to hang it as I was making it. We have vinyl siding on our house and I didn't want to drive a nail into the siding, so we settled on one of the cedar trees. I think a darker background would really have made the wreath "pop" so to speak, but beggars can't be choosers, eh?

Finally....

Well I can pretty much say that we were NOT AT ALL prepared for the storm that came on Thursday. We did not heed the warnings and were left scrambling to get candles and water like a million other people. Thank God for our wood burning stove. I was going to post these pics on Friday, but alas....

Felted Snowmen are done! I may add a little more glitter to their bodies, but they are done for now. Don't worry Shelley, tutorial is forthcoming.

Stocking is done! Now all I need to do is to finish the other one....

If your name is Mrs. Hoover and do not want to see what I made for your boy for Christmas, then turn away! Close the window! If you don't care...then by all means, continue.

















My first softie:

It's a pull toy also! This is for my best friend's son. You see, the boy likes wheels. I wanted to make him something with a wheel on it and this was what I came up with. I am so thrilled that it turned out because I didn't really have a plan to work from and I wasn't sure it would work until the very end. I am so thrilled with it. Did I say that already?

Work in Progress

Felted snowmen inspired by booze. I was bored the other day and decided to try something new. I have been keeping the caps to Broker's Gin bottles for a couple of years now because they are so cute. Each bottle comes with a little plastic bowler cap. I can't throw them away....I can't help it. I decided to make a little army of snowmen wearing these caps which lead to the work in progress you see above. I combined two felting techniques, needle and "wet" felting. I need to update my tutorial because combining the two is so much more time efficient, less messy, and more precise than the wet felting alone. I have the carrot noses felted and some wee scarves knitted. I just need some twig arms and some button eyes. I ran out of the "base" or coarse roving also. I bought my roving from Halycon yarn a couple of years ago and I have finally used it all up. I think I bought the "Batting Fiber" (scroll down) but am not 100% sure. It was really bumpy and nubbly and not at all like the finer merino roving you can also buy.

Stocking WIP. Slowly but surely. I finally got the cuff right. It's not perfect, but I am NOT re-doing it. Now I have ran out of buttons because I thought that I would only use one button per side, like the Mary Engelbreight example, but when it came down to it, three per side seemed to look better. I hope Joann's has restocked this particular button.