In My Crafting Space ...

Oh, this lovely season! It's the most wonderful time of the year. And I've been sewing and felting up a storm, though nothing is complete. I work a little on each project when that specific child is not around, so everything is half-done. I might just send them all off to bed at 4 p.m. tonight and finish everything up. And can I say how surreal it is to watch "Terminator Salvation" while crafting cute little snowflake ornaments?

The sewing needle and I are relatively new friends, so seams are slightly crooked. But I love the freedom of being able to put any idea into fabric form. So, without further delay, here are my current (i.e., incomplete) projects.

ornaments in a little felted bag: I wanted to make little ornaments for all my friends, but I got ornamented-out. The template is a basic circle, and then you can do whatever you'd like. The snowflakes were fun to do. After I finished the first four, I thought of a better way to do them and the process went quicker. I still need to finish attaching little ribbons to the ornaments.


The prince: This gift is actually for my mother who likes dolls. I made her a girl a while ago, and she requested the prince for Christmas. And she wanted him to look like my father. "You should see him," I told my mother over the phone. "He doesn't have hair like Daddy won't soon." She then requested hair for him. Sigh. Now, he's incomplete. My kids call him Robin Hood and the boys keep hinting that they want one, too.

Shark: This great white was very specifically requested by my 7-year-old son. This son is a very specific boy. He has Solid Ideas With Specific Plans. When I asked, "Do you want me to make you anything this year?" he said, "A big great white shark with huge teeth and a pouch so I can make him eat fishes and then take them out again." He supplied me with shark books. He showed me all the sharks that fascinated him, but was specific that it is the great white that he wanted in felt form. And he had to be big. After staring at shark photos for a while, I managed a decent-enough template. I still need to get white felt for all those teeth and do the pouch. (The shark is bigger than he looks. He could easily chomp up Robin Hood up there in the previous picture.)

Flannel Board Playset: This is actually a long strip of brown felt. The idea is that I'll make some felt figures for my four-year-old boy and he'll have cool little things to do on this roll-up flannel board. The house below for example, is only sewn on the bottom, so it can be blown down by the big bad wolf. The house right now has no means of getting inside it nor do any pigs exist or big bad wolf, for that matter. This project is requiring the most thinking. I think about this board before going to bed. Really. Like, what sort of curtains to give the house. And how to make the sign outside of the house. The only input that I received from the boy was that he wanted "blue pigs because blue is mine favorite color." It frees up my imagination ... It'll look fabulous. Eventually.

I am also working on a gift for my daughter, but I cannot post that. The girl loves to look through Paper Dali and read the going-ons here as well as offer ideas. She is the one who is encouraging me to draw some new stuff but, if you see this post, you'll realize why the drawing has slowed down just a tad. But I'll be in full force soon enough.

In about, you know, 8 days.
~Vee

HT to Amy Caroline for the idea of sharing what's in my craft basket. (I'll link, Amy Caroline, when you get that post up. *grin*)