Liquid Paper

let's face it

Every once in a while I disappear off the face of my blog. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never suffer any guilt over erratic blogging. Sure, I miss the conversation, creative outlet and the comments, oh how I love me some comments. But guilt over not posting is something which I give myself permission not to feel. Now, guilt over missing a birthday, that I gotta accept. (I owe two belated gifts already this year!) But I shall not feel it about not blogging -- it is not a good thing I say.

Do you think I doth protest too much? Perhaps. ;)

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, how about a little face time? These are a couple little wooden dolls that I picked up here or there:

The shy one

The coy one

all systems are go

Oh, what a wonderful week we've had! Good times with old friends, tree trimming, cooking, baking, eating and more. I did, however, manage to finish one important project. Unfortunately, it is not the bunny head that I showed you in my last post. It didn't make it. The proportions were all wrong and the fabrics didn't work well together. So... I decided to start over from scratch and came up with something that really does look like my original sketch. I'm so pleased! What do you think? Doesn't it look like the sketch!

EXTRA! EXTRA!
While I've been gone there's been so much going on:

My interview for Inspiration Boards is up! Thank you so much Lori for all your work in creating the Inspiration Boards website.

Kathreen over at Whip-up has been talking about a handmade Christmas. I'm seriously considering making a few of these elves again this year. (Just a few!) If you're interested, stop by the the Mod Dots shop and sign up on the mailing list so that you will be one of the first to know about it.

hand to the plow

The gift-making began in earnest today. Only a peek for now. It's still in the stages where I think, "If this turns out, it will be a miracle." Is that optimism or pessimism? I never can tell. Oh, and studio photography took a back seat to other duties today. A Thanksgiving dinner is being planned by yours truly. Please tell me that it's possible not to make ten times the amount of food necessary for a party of four. Or is that just an urban turkey day myth? Anyway, we have friends coming all the way from Tennessee to celebrate with us and I can't wait. I'm making a traditional dinner with all the fixings. If I told you how much butter I'd bought at the store today your arteries would clog up.

Choosing the fabrics is my favorite part. Everything is still perfect and no seams have been ripped out... yet. Good times indeed.

details

I messed up the first puppy I made -- big time. I guess it has been a while since I'd last made one. This time, I decided to switch to 100% hand stitching. I can't tell you how happy I am about it. I love how much more control I have over the shape. And there's the added benefit of not having to pin it together first. Oh, how I loathed pinning those tiny pattern pieces. Now that I've made the first one by hand, I can't believe I waited this long to do it. I'll probabaly only have a couple of them for the shop update tomorrow. I'm also considering the move to etsy. I don't know, I'm not even sure if I want to throw it out there. I tend to waffle a lot on decisions, details, everything. So I keep a lot of things to myself for fear that people will think I'm unreliable. It sounds silly when I say it now. But those are the kind of things I think about. I am weird -- I also like "quirky" -- in many ways and my internal monologue goes to some odd places. Like right now, I'm feeling a little paranoid talking about it. So I'm stopping. If you made it this far, thanks for listening. Again. ♥

Shop update tomorrow Friday, October 12th at Noon CST. This guy will be there + one or two friends!

gone and done it

I finally finished + photographed the pom pom bunny.

p.s. I ended up using a little hairspray to prevent the yarn from linting. It dried quickly and worked pretty good. I may add another coat now that it is finished too.

ornament idea #2

Here’s another ornament idea. I really love how it turned out! I'm definitely thinking that they'd make a great new item for the pre-Christmas shop update, which just happens to coincide with the deadline for the holiday ornament swap. Nothing like putting a little pressure on myself, right?

So, what do you think about every elf getting his own outfit, including dresses for some cute little girl elves. Here are a couple more photos to check out. I think you'll really like the one of him from the back!

p.s. I still plan on making idea #1 in red velvet . So the hunt for the perfect ornament for the swap continues!

p.s.s. The verdit seems to be in on organizing fabric by color -- a resounding yes, you should do it! Thanks everyone for your advice. Very soon I plan to be sitting down (on the floor) with that very task in front of me.

lime green if you please

"I want one in this color," said Georgia as she tugged at a sheet of lime green felt.

Georgia is the daughter of my contractor. A few weeks ago she felt sick so her school called and asked her mom to come and get her. Jane (my contractor) was working on my bathroom that day and she brought Georgia by the house to look at my studio. After quietly looking around at everything without too much comment, she asked me if she could buy a puppy. How sweet! I showed her all of my felt in all different colors and said she could choose the color for her puppy. She knew just what she wanted - lime green.

Over the past few weeks I’ve had plenty of time to finish her puppy, but I forgot about it. Then the inevitable happened. Last week Jane called to say that she was doing more work on the bathroom and she was going to bring Georgia by the house. She also asked the dreaded question, “Did I have the puppy for her?” Ack! I told her that I'd forgotten and that I would get it ready for next time. I got off the phone and started thinking. How could I live with myself when Georgia walked in and there was no puppy? So... I hopped around cutting and pinning and sewing that dog together super fast. Phew! By the time they showed up I had it turned inside out and it was all stuffed and ready to sew. Fortunately, Jane had some work to do and Georgia came in and sat next to me while I finished sewing on the tail, eyes, ears and nose. She was very talkative this time – as opposed to last time when she was so sick. She even wanted to know if I gave art lessons. Aww! If that isn't just about the cutest thing anyone's ever said to me I don't know what is. I told her that I didn’t give lessons but that I had shown my niece how to sew and do some other crafts. I promised her that if she came back again I'd show her how to make something fun.

a recipe of sorts

recipe to melt an aunt's heart
1 5-year-old boy (who is almost 6)
1 blue shirt with the sleeves rolled way up
1 half-sized monochromatic tie
1 adorable smile
1 blue puppy stuffed into pocket of blue shirt

Mix thoroughly and photograph to perfection.

If you happen to have one around, place the puppy in a dog kennel for extra flavor. (Is it too big? Maybe he'll grown into it.)

The is my nephew Jonathan. For his brother's birthday I made puppies for all of the boys. (You can see a picture of all the puppies in this post.) The other day I was talking to my sister on the phone when she told me that they play with their puppies all of the time. She said that she’d walked over to the dog’s kennel and found that Jonathan had put his puppy inside right next to one of those huge dog bones. Too funny! I’m so glad she took pictures for me.

Do you want to know something? I'm pretty sure that I've given those children dozens of toys over the years and to know that the ones I made by hand are the ones they really enjoy and love is so rewarding. It’s also one of the best reasons to make the gifts you give rather than buying something. Like I said, it’s a recipe to warm an aunt’s heart.

p.s. The girls weren't left out - they'd already received puppies at Christmas. In fact, it was after seeing his sister's puppies and all the different colored ones on my website that David (Jonathan's twin) asked for a light blue one and suggested colors for the other boys too. How could I resist?

Want a puppy for your nephew? There are still a few Puppies left in the shop.

fuzzy was a puppy

Sometimes I need to mix things up a bit or I'll go crazy making the same-ish softies all of the time. This little puppy is made from a faux furry fabric I picked up a while back. I'd originally hoped to make horses and this stuff was going to be the tail and mane. The horse pattern, and the unfortunate softie that emerged from it, just didn't turn out the way I'd hoped so I gave up. Now that I've re-purposed the fabric I'm much happier. I don't know that I'll make any more fuzzy puppies. For now, I just like having something new around.

for the boys

This past Christmas my nephew David asked me to make him a blue puppy like the one he saw in my shop. Gee, it only took me three months! Of course, I couldn't send a puppy to David without making one for each of his brothers. So I've made four puppies - one for each boy. I put little collars on these instead of the usual neck scarf and used Velcro so they can easily take them off and put them on. Plus I added a little thrifted button for a tag.

To close out the week and kick-off the weekend... here's a picture of something that I see everyday: my bookshelves. I've always admired it when people's magazines were organized into holders. For my birthday last year Mark helped me assemble this shelf from IKEA and I put all of my magazines and books onto it. The lower shelves (which you can't see) have baskets full of fabric and notions. It's a great shelving unit because it's two-sided. The other side holds books too! The other side faces my sewing corner and holds some of Mark's books like his Penguin paperbacks. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you all have a great weekend! See you Monday.