CHICKPEA SEWING STUDIO

Felt Ogee in the making

This post is inspired by a tutorial posted by Betz White on her blog. You can find it here. She is fortunate to have very thick felt on hand. I on the other hand only could find regular old wool felt in my stash and local suppliers. Scarcity really is the mother of invention as I realized that I could fuse two squares using fusible web (and lots of heat and patience) and get a color block effect. I hope you like the resulting woodland mobiles. The green one is travelling to Germany, as a 'thank you' for the Herrnut stars while the red one is staying home with me for once!

 

They are impossible to photograph when hanging as they are long, skinny and won't stop twirling. I use sewing invisible thread doubled and for the hanging loop a bit of raffia from MayArts ribbons.

Most of the felt balls were sourced from Amazon (look for felt beads). But the tiny mushroom were the result of my very first etsy purchase from a woman whose blog I cannot find anymore. tI was called Paper Scissors Glue (she's thinking).

The little leaves were cut out of the excess fused felt and then embroidered with a strait stitch using embroidery thread on the Bernina 580. I picked foot 20 for this job as it is very open and lets you see what you are doing. Setting the needle down and pivoting instead of the just using the backstitch button was a tremendous help. For too small a leaf, I  have no trick, the feed dogs will simply have nothing to grab... still working on it...

Can you tell it's terribly late and Thomas is out of town? I feel like a zombie blogger, after a wonderfully full day of single mothering with the help of great friends. I always pack too much in the days when the woolf(daddy) is away and cannot let the evening alone end.

Advent Elf: will travel.

When on the move, the good elf always considers safety. He buckles up without fail and listens patiently to the child sited next to him. In return, during the day we often hear: "I love you Elf" and "I am going to give the elf a hug".

 

When traveling, the savvy elf remembers to bring a long nail with him. This guaranties he can be displayed to his full advantage on arrival, not too high is best for the purpose of receiving more hugs.

 

From a carefully chosen spot he can also supervise the assembly of the Herrnhut stars, a tricky business in paper (right) or plastic (left). 

 

During the move a present was lost (cue terrible anguish), but tonight the good elf drove to the post office at 10 pm to send a letter to 'his' child (see card above) and put things right. He also requested a scarf... his workshop is drafty apparently.

 

The Return of The Nisse

Remember the nisse? He was my first pattern for this blog and so popular too for a little while until Maileg shut us down with not so subtle threats. I must admit to have been saddened and rather turned off from their the company adorable image ever since (except of course for the brief lapse during which I purchased a 5 ft tall elf advent calendar...). But it's time to put all this brooding behind and maybe sew up some new friends. After all they cannot prevent me from using my own pattern at home... Cue the helicopters with tiny elves wearing camo descending on the house!

The first order of business was giving this long fellow some clothes. He is destined to travel back to the European north and settle in Köln, Germany where I hope he will delight and watch over a little boy. After taking him out of storage quickly came the realisation that he was naked, very much so, and his long limbs made him appear more insect  than pixie.

First the entirely improvised sweater, knit in Noro Retro, a blend of wool/angora/silk. I took lots of mental notes and wrote an easy pattern for it on Ravelry. You can find it here.

Wearing a sweater only made the bum more bare and I had to sew up some linen pantaloons, trim them up... and finally knit a scarf (cascade ecological). Finn is completely enamored with him so I am off to start the sequence again with my last prototype.

The pattern for the wreath behind the elf should be available on We All Sew very soon.

for us Holladay locals...

Some of you may remember the nifty easter gourd bunny shown here half a year ago? See it below once again. I simply love it!

Well, Jeni is having another seasonal show soon and many many vendors of handmade goods will be there. Go check it out if you are around, it's well worth it, I am hoping that Ann Made jams will be there again, yum (spicy!)

Layered Bow

   The current issue of Better Homes and Gardens features about four pages of know how on gift bows. Admittedly I  never read this magazine very closely but those few pages really were worth the pause. Like almost everyone, I am suddenly wondering why oh why I waited so long to start looking/making/knitting Christmas presents, but now at least I know what their boxes will look like. I call that progress!

 

The layered bow, perfect for using scraps of ribbons too good to throw away.

Here is a link to a How-to video, after the dreadful ads.

Camp Moose Mountain

I cannot imagine a better campground than Tanner's Flats in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Then again I haven't really camped anywhere else around here. Each site is surrounded by woods and when you want a shower you just go home for a bit (!).

Finn has an habit of waking up at the crack of dawn and on his morning stroll he and his dad encountered a young moose and got charged; quite the adventure which we memorialized in a banner.

It's been decided that we will make a banner at every camp now, they are so festive and Finn likes to learn his letters that way. I will have to pre-print a bunch of triangles in advance or use stencils on site.

On a smaller scale, I was given a few hours of solitude to do as I wished; they were spent practicing for the calligraphy class. Knees are not a good place to write with the pointed pen but still I persisted. Good times.

crafty repurposing

Every year I think and think about what I should use to wrap our presents. It seems so pointless to wrap everything in brand new paper only to see it ripped apart in mere moments. Plus I ran out of the seemingly endless roll purchased many years ago.

Two months ago I was under the illusion that all the unused Christmas fabrics in my drawers would assemble themselves into adorable/reusable present bags. ah! ah! ah!

So here I am re-purposing a J Crew bag into a gift bag and just making tags for the presents that come alone.

Then, when cleaning out I find these left over rectangles that won't let me toss them. They become 'even more tags'. I keep all the ribbon pieces that come our way, none too small, for just this reason.

Christmas wreath, Oh I love thou!

I am in a wreath making mood lately, that and the last one was promptly given away to one of my little 4 year old friends. This one above I made with what I had on hand to complement the Advent elf. I am liking this color way so much though that I think I will shelf our regular Christmas decor and make some flag garlands to adorn a little tree in a basket such as this one from a Christmas Tilda book.

It would be a more subdued holiday, but I always get very stressed by the clutter created by the many many "Noel" ornaments and trinkets I have collected in about ten years of marriage and home making. So instead of decking the halls this Thanksgiving we just repainted our front door, not that it was without stress!

In the end I still want my home to look like itself, not transform into a store display. I fully realize of course that many families have a blast decorating every inch of their house but you see I live with a grown man, a toddler boy who thinks he is spider man and two male cats. Nobody cares here, at all!

(unless it's eatable or scratch-able of course)

The Camp-out

We went camping this weekend for the first time.The three of us in a brand new tent, brand new everything in fact since this was our inaugural voyage into the woods, making it the costliest two nights out ever! But surely it will pay off in the future.

I really loved it and would have stayed there at least two more days if I could. The river in little cottonwood canyon roars all day and all night and it's all the background noise one needs to fall asleep. It's nice to be dirty and lazy for a while, no expectations but a cold drink or a book.

The first night was a bit cold, and having a kettle really helped. I'll soon be looking for old wool blankets from our local savers to add to our arsenal of goods. Lucky for us, our good friends came to join us with lots of food, fire wood and blankets. It's hard to wrap your head around the fact that you could be chilly less than 30 minutes from home where it seems to be almost 100 degrees this afternoon.

Almost there

This wreath, is made up of the branches at the bottom of our tree. I love that it was all there for us to use, it's like a gift the tree gave our front door.

they are so many things to make, do, buy, clean before the 24th. I suspect many of us feel this pressure building right now. While doing some mad sewing I have been listening to the podcast of Russian Tales from Toast. You can find them here.

 

I had those exact books as a child, and looking back at the illustrations it's no wonder I love mushrooms. Almost every page sports a spud or two or twelve.