Category: Sewing & Crafting

Rearview Fridays: rug hooking

On Fridays I dig up an old project, craft or choreography or costume, and feature it here. However I am not the star of today’s Rearview Friday. My Nana is. But my humble contribution is pictured, circa 1989. Hers is just a “hare” younger than I am because she made it for my toddler self. Read on …

I love rug hooking. And I don’t mean that awful, fluffy polyester latch hooking stuff from the 80s, though that has it’s place I’m sure, I mean traditional hooked rugs. Practical art made from wool on a burlap backing. My grandmother spent her retired years rug hooking and I knew implicitly that she loved it. As I write this post I realize I have no idea how she found rug hooking [note to self: check with auntie about that]. She and her group of “hooker” friends (my 6 year old self did not get the joke) made the most lovely, textured pieces. I think they even had lacquered, handmade wood name badges that said “happy hookers” on them. I remember watching her cut wool on her cutting tool, dust motes swirling, she leaning back and looking down her nose through bifocals then leaning back into her work. And I would hang about near her work table fingering the stripes of dyed wool, loving the texture, the variation in the dye and contrast in colours.

My Nana taught me how to hook rugs when I was a tween. She was both smart and kind enough to have me work on coloured burlap so that I didn’t have to fill in the background. The hoop still has my name written on it in her handwriting.

Thinking about Nana and her rugs has me waxing nostalgic. I feel a deep yearning for her and Edmonton, my home city of big sky and crisp cold. Thinking about this post also made me curious, prompted me to look for Ontario hookers — and it seems there’s a lot of action up North (that sounds so wrong, I’ll give you a moment to collect yourself, but I really am taking burlap and wool here ladies and gents) and I am sure that at some point, even if it takes me umpteen years, I’ll find my way into this art. It’s a meeting of painting and craft. I won’t be able to resist. But for now I should really stay on sewing and parenting task, plenty at hand. So many things to do with my hands and so little time.

My Nana bunnies:

I am so happy that I carry a piece by Nan. She made this one as a chair back cushion and my tiny self did sit against this lovely rug on my tiny rocking chair. As you can see, she wielded wool like paint. She also used a very fine grade or cut of wool that yielded finely detailed rugs. Her initials sit in the bottom right, RK, Ruth Kendal. My father’s mother. For her I am thankful in ways impossible to articulate in words, but I know her art and vivaciousness permeate my life and work inextricably. Happy, inspired Friday folks!

Monday delight

Monday morning and we’ve started right with giant pancakes – Rudi elected to have his formed into a train. I sported Saskatoon Berry syrup. Amazing. And I grated 2 apples into the pancake batter so he’s also eaten some fruit already, unbeknownst to his lovely, picky self.

Next thing that happened is that my new Fluevogs — *ahem*  NEW FLUEVOGS — (new Fluevogs deserve caps) arrived in the mail! Oh delight! I am going to be a bridesmaid this summer (awesome) and that obviously called for new Fluevogs (also awesome). Oh, and they were on serious sale (top-it-off awesome). If you don’t know Vogs, you should. Canadian designer, so comfortable, last for ages, unique, I could go on … been wearing them since high school. I’ll share the joy:

Now I should tackle the work at hand … the fabric pile for the new quilt design awaits. Hopefully I’ll have it to share by Wednesday! Happy week folks.

Rearview Fridays: laundry line card

I was going through some old patterns and came upon these 2 little dresses along with a paper pattern. I’m so glad I made a pattern for them so that they’re easy to replicate. I had also made and saved little shirt and pant patterns (sometimes I love myself and my packrat ways)! The small clothes pegs are worth picking up whenever you see them so you can make charming, tiny things whenever the mood strikes! I think I got these ones years ago at The Paper Place in Toronto (awesome store, worth a field trip if you haven’t been!).

For this card I stitch a line across a piece of card stock, I don’t even finish the ends, hot glue a couple of tiny clothes pegs on, cut out the wee dresses from a desirable fabric, clip ’em on and presto, charming card alert! I made a bunch of them a couple of years ago, didn’t retain one for posterity and forgot about them. I’ve recreated this one so I don’t forget that it’s a keeper. Great for babies, housewarmings, weddings, birthdays, just adjust what’s hanging on the line. I’ll do some more examples and a how-to one day soon.

Fulcrum Wednesday

Oh Wednesday, tipping point of the week, here we be. Today Gene is 5 months old and I just received news that a dear friend had her baby this morning, so I’m feeling extra gooey and snuggly about wee ones with furry shoulders.

I’m patterning and cutting a new quilt design today, one for the new baby girl who arrived just hours ago and a couple for my forthcoming Etsy shop:

Before January bowed out, I managed to make my quilt square for The Great 2012 Quilt Challenge. This is my little challenge-to-self: create 12 different quilting patterns for my products, 1 in every month of 2012:

I also zipped up my big-girl pants and am getting caught up on budgeting. I’ve always been good with dance project budgets and we’ve had fits and starts of good budget tracking in our family life, but it often falls off when things get busy or complicated, which they inevitably do. Then it becomes complicated and terrifying to think about and I avoid it like the plague. So hubby Adam and I have committed to ourselves that this year, we’re gonna do it, really form a habit of staying on top of it. Thus the big girl pants. we’ve got spreadsheets and envelopes and files, it’s all happening folks!

The envelopes to help manage the incoming receipts, I do love envelopes:

Go Go Gadget week; lots of arms in lots of pies! Cheers til next time.

Quilting challenge to myself

On Friday I talked about how the last week had been an intense, straight-up mothering week and a gong-show as far as anything beyond the needs of the kids went. It’s a new week and I’m hopeful, always hopeful, that I’ll get a bit of my own artist work done.

I’ve given myself a manageable challenge for the year (I think?!), to develop 12 different quilting patterns this year, 1 per month. I’m cheating a bit for January as I designed this one in the fall, but this gets me going! I need a few go-to designs for the quilts and burp pads I’ll be making and think this will be a fun way to tie the projects and the year together. I’m going to make each one on a 6″ x 6″ square and maybe they’ll become a garland for the boys room by December!

Here’s my signature leaf design, gonna try to make the square tomorrow:

If you have a favourite quilt or quilting design, old or new, tell me about it and link an image in the comments, I looooves me quilts and quilting of any kind!

Rearview Fridays: A Felted Marcel!

Here we are at Rearview Friday already! Today I present a recent project, my needle-felted Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Do you know Marcel? If not, you should check him out immediately as he’s charming beyond words! There’s also a sequel, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Two, and a book Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Things About Me.

Rudi’s dance teacher is also a good friend of mine and in December at the end of his first term as a dance student, I made her a felt Marcel as a  thank you present (I’m a big believer in teacher gifting). I got a needle felting kit from a friend a while ago and I just love it! Needle felting is like painting and sculpting at the same time and it pays off quickly. Plus it’s fun to jam a barbed needle into a hunk of wool over and over til it’s felt, great for letting off frustrations.

This week kicked my behind a bit, strange weather, a family trip to the dentist (Rudi yelled so long and loud they decided to try again in 6 months!) and epic bodily function marathons that went something like this: baby Gene poops through his diaper, then vomits copiously across the space I sleep while I’m getting a wet cloth and a new diaper, now Rudi needs to poop in the toilet but he can’t get his pants undone, okay, Rudi’s pants are off, he’s taking care of business, Gene is now diapered, vomit wiped up, Gene poops again, I wipe him and leave him for 3 minutes of naked bum time thinking, “how much more poop could there be?” (error), Rudi, bless his heart, has peed on the seat and left the water running but at least that means he washed his hands, wipe up pee, turn off tap, back to Gene, he’s peed right over the waterproof mat onto the space where I sleep and pooped on the mat, soak up pee, toss mat in laundry, Gene is diapered again, Rudi is hollering from downstairs about a granola bar, Gene poops again, violently, straight out the back of the new diaper then immediately rolls (his new trick that I don’t yet anticipate) leaving baby-poo streaks where I sleep, now I need to pee, dream of a nap for a moment, remember I need to pump milk so I can teach dance on Saturday morning, open the granola bar, now I’ve forgotten to change the sheets, by the time it’s bed time I really don’t care, so I sleep in the traces of poop and pee and vomit. I probably need a shower.

Now that’s not a complaint, it’s a share that hopefully reminds me and maybe helps someone else to remember about the sometimes-madness of parenthood. There was a lot of laughing and sighing involved, I  just had to surrender to the ridiculousness of the moments and pretty much walked away from all blogging, business planning and actual sewing for the week. That’s part of being where I am right now, and so I laugh, sigh, occasionally cry (though not very often, there’s no time for drama folks!), lie on my back to stretch or “sleep” for 5 minutes when I can and am grateful that other people are honest in conversation and books and on blogs about the merciless pace that comes with young children. Plans, as well laid and measured and modest though they may be, often just go sideways. So I’m side-stepping, doing the grape vine through it all, and a plate or two may break, just sayin’.

Happy weekend, here’s to a cozy, calm weekend. Ha ha (about the calm part anyways).

Rain Day

It’s January and yet the Toronto weather has covered almost ALL of the currently available seasons, from relatively balmy to pouring freezing rain to snowing and back around. Rudi (who is 3) is deeply confused about what footwear to use as there is a smorgasbord of shoes and both snow and rain boots. Today it is a rain day, serious enough that we buckled down for a crafty, cozy, thoughtful day in.

I tend towards melancholy and sentimentality (in an Anne of Green Gables sort of a way) so a rainy day really cranks up my dramatic misty-eyed side! Lots of contemplating change and what my work means to me and how I do/will define myself as a crafter and/or business woman with my sewing, what I’ll choose to make for business and what I’ll reserve for simple creative pleasure, and so on. It’s all good thinking inspired by a conversation with a new friend made last week — a friend of a friend who’s a long-time, self-employed creative type.

Alongside the contemplating, there’s some good old fashioned Hotwheels and Cars 2 games going on throughout the house, just to balance things out!

Rudi agreed to help me create my first ever how-to for the blog while we made some rainy day juggling balls! So here we go, for a quick and easy craft, just follow along!

How to Make Balloon Juggling Balls:

THE CRAFT: layered balloon juggling balls
TO START: You'll need: lots of balloons (3 per juggling ball), scissors, lentils (or rice), thin plastic bags (we cut ours from the corners of kitchen garbage bags)
STEP 1: Pour 1/2-3/4 a cup of lentils (or rice) into your plastic bag
STEP 2: Tie a tight knot in the bag (or you can use a tiny elastic)
STEP 3: Cut off the excess bag above your knot
STEP 4: How your bag of lentils should look (pause for dramatic effect) yes, correct, sort of like drugs found in a suspected mule's esophagus or butt on a bad TV show. No need to read this step out to the kids in the house. And now continue on to step 5!
STEP 5: Cut the narrow bits off your balloons
STEP 6: Wrap 2 of the balloons around the bag of "lentils", one over the other, so that there is no plastic bag showing. I used the same colour for a consistent base (but you can get wild and go with 3 or more colours of course!)
STEP 7: Cut some extra holes in your 3rd balloon, 2 or 3 should do the trick
STEP 8: Wrap your 3rd, holey balloon over the first 2 balloons and you're there, 1 lovely, multi-coloured juggling ball done!
FINISHED! Ta-da! A variety of well weighted yet not too dangerous juggling balls.

Rearview Fridays: The Grey Slippers

On Fridays I’m going to dig up an old project, craft or dance or costume, and feature it here. I hereby start this inaugural Rearview Friday post with: The Grey Slippers (aka booties)!

When my 3-and-a-half-year-old Rudi was born I rediscovered my love of knitting and found so many wonderful patterns and tutorials on the internet. I don’t remember exactly where this pattern came from, too bad because I want to make more … will keep looking in places patterns might have been tucked …

Feb. 27, 2012: Glory Be! I had a flash of memory and found the pattern – only change I made was to add elastic rather than a tie and they stay on like a charm!

2008: Rudi models his new slippers. You can easily fold up the top bit towards his knees for extra warmth, which I love. And oh how I adore the delicious kankles!

Anyways, I made these as I was having a hard time finding something that stayed on tiny feet and also kept ankles warm. After experimenting with patters, these did the trick. You can see in the first shot I was initially using a twisted-yarn tie on Rudi’s little legs, but I quickly changed it out to elastic and that made them almost unkickable-offable! And they fit him for about year, love the stretch. In the following shot you can see my second son Gene’s 4-month-old feet are now big enough to walk (er, kick) in his brothers slippers!

2012: Gene steps into the grey slippers. Shown here with the fashion forward fold over with denim pants, all the babies are doin' it, dontcha know?!! By the time he got 'em, I replaced the tie with elastic and they never fall off! Plus very fast to put on kicking feet.

So that’s me finished for week one of the blog, I planned for three posts and I did them all (pause to pat back). Follow me on Twitter if you’re into that sort of thing and I’ll be here next week. Happy weekend!

Cutting, tweeting, pinning

After a lot of days spent reading about business models for crafters while nursing my now 4-month-old and stolen moments with the computer working on my website and familiarizing with wordpress, my challenge to myself this week is to actually get some production started. I need to feel the balance rebalancing — the admin matching the actual making, and admin’s been winning for a while. So I’ve been cutting …

CUTTING: … that’s right, I’ve been cutting out burping pads — next the linings, then the sewing, last the quilting, but due to small boys at home, I’m setting modest goals, and this week it’s to simply cut!

TWEETING: And I’m on Twitter at last at last – I popped my tweet cherry yesterday! It’s sort of wonderful and awful all at the same time to have joined yet another form of social media, but I can see how it’ll be useful and I admit it’s addictively fun — that’s partly why I resisted! Follow me for goodness’ sake! [Truth: I actually caved and joined for Dane Joseph McKellen, but that’s a story for another day …]

PINNING: As for the pinning, my friend, the lovely and stylish Ray Hogg told me about Pinterest, and I’m in love. It’s a bulletin board of things you find online, plus you can follow other cool people’s boards thus increasing your knowledge of awesome on the internet. I’ve said goodbye to sending emails to myself of great url’s that I don’t want to forget. I highly recommend. Here’s one of my pages!