Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts

Merry Christmas! I bought the Woodland Animals Ornament kit by Heidi Boyd Crafts just for the fox, but I wound up stitching them all....all the animals and the fungus (the mushroom) too.  :)  If you follow me on Instagram, you saw I started the fox right before Thanksgiving and finished the last ornament this week.

The kit came with the felt, twine, beads, pins, a needle, floss, and pre-cut flowers and 2 circles for the owl's eyes (you have to cut out the rest of the felt pieces yourself, using a separate PDF pattern).  I did wind up switching up some of the background colors for felt I bought at Stitch Lab in Austin earlier this month.   And there's not enough felt with the kit if you want to cut a second background layer to hide your stitching--which the perfectionist in me totally wants.

I got into a rhythm with them--cut out the pieces, arrange and stitch.  By the fourth ornament, I decided to stitch directly onto a rough cut piece of felt, and then cut around it, instead of cutting the background out before stitching.  That way if my animal shifted, I could cut it to still have a nice border around the animal.


stitch onto rough cut felt

Cut around it with pinking shears (I hadn't used pinking shears in forever!)

Layer it on a second layer of felt.
I used tape to temporarily join the two layers so they wouldn't shift too much as I cut the second layer, trying to get the pinking to be in exactly the same location as the front.

Then I removed the tape and used the running stitch to stitch the two layers together along the perimeter, stitching the twine hanger to the ornament at the appropriate position. This second layer hides the stitching on the first layer (except for the running stitches of course!)

Close-up pic of the 7 ornaments in the kit, but the sewing machine is from a Betz White PDF (stitched/glued this year), a handstitched Mollie Makes "deer head on bauble" from last year, and an A. Paulson red coat ornament, also handstitched this year.

The full effect, after I opened presents this morning...should have taken this long range view before opening presents!

The Betz White Christmas cactus ornament, stitched/glued this weekend, hanging from my Christmas cactus. My note to self is that craft glue only dries clear in the places where it wasn't overly used. If I used a lot of it, it dried white and then I spent a lot of time trying to peel it off, ultimately taking part of the felt with it.

Red berries

Holly!
Merry Christmas y'all!
And a reminder, if you'd like to win a Vacuuming the Lawn 2017 bag calendar, enter here.  You have until Tuesday morning at 7am EST to enter.

Be well!

Vacuuming the Lawn Calendar Giveaway!

Introducing the Vacuuming the Lawn 2017 Bag Calendar

Would you like to win this 5" x 10" desk calendar?  Every month features a different bag that I've stitched.

Miss February

Miss March

The quality of my photos degrades as the year goes on, but it's still fun!


Mr. December

So if you want to win this calendar, please leave a comment on this post by 7am EST on 12/27/16 that:

• Makes me laugh
• -or- makes me smile
• -or- describes why you need this calendar in your life 

Sometime after 7am EST on 12/27/16, I will select 5 winners from the comments on this blog post and 5 different winners from the comments on the related post on Instagram.  I will announce the winners here on my blog and on IG by 11:59pm EST that day.  If you win on the blog, you'll have til 7am EST on 12/30/16 to email me your mailing address, otherwise another winner will be selected.  Calendars will be shipped by USPS First Class mail.  This giveaway is open world-wide, though please note the weeks on these calendars start on Sunday, not Monday.

Thank you for all of your support and kind comments over the years!!

Good luck and be well!

Jalie 3461 Eleonores in stretch velveteen

I made the Jalie 3461 Eleonores (stretch pull on jeans with faux front pockets and faux fly) back in May, in red.  Now that the temps have dropped, I wanted to make a pair in stretch velveteen.  I went into the stash last weekend, and emerged with this dark midnight blue fabric.  Purchased during that brief period of time when I actually labeled my fabric, it's 3 yards from Chic Fabrics, circa Nov 2013, for $3 a yard.  This fabric was more on the order of 45" wide, so unlike my Jalies in May, 1.5 yards would not be enough.   3 yards was plenty.  I had 3 other velveteen pieces in stash, but two pieces were not stretch and the other piece that was stretch was not long enough to make pants.

I wrote extensively about making the red Jalies in May.  All the gory details are in this post.  If you are a pear shape and want to make these pants, I highly recommend reading that post  (I have a 10" difference between my waist and hips).  If you are a rectangle, don't bother.  The pants will most likely fit you right out of the envelope with little tweaking.

This shot makes me laugh but there you go--functional back pockets!

Since I already had the curved yoke that I made last time, I forged right ahead.  I had to make the waistband 3x to get it just right.  My advice to myself for next time is when I try on the pants before putting the waistband on, make sure the fabric of the top of the pants is against my body, all the way around my body...ultimately I did take out a 3/4" pinch from the top at the CB seam grading to nothing where the yoke meets the rest of the pants.  When I tried pinching out some of the excess at the side seam, it created a really ugly lumpy effect.


I really should fix the pattern to add more width to the fabric below the knee on the front and subtract an equal amt from the back...but I didn't!

It is really hard to photograph dark fabric.  Some of these photos have a filter applied, and some do not.


This fabric does relax a bit during wearing, but it's not overly relaxed.

Back pockets during construction

Faux front pocket during construction.


Above I'm wearing them with my "Muppets" shirt--a Sewaholic Renfrew from a few years back.

So, they were comfy enough that I wore them twice this week and I will enjoy wearing them all winter.  It is really nice to wear "complete" me-made outfits and by making pants I have expanded my winter options.    I still have a hankering to make the Eleonores in stretch floral, but that is kind of a tall order, especially when I am really picky about florals--I want a small scale floral.  (ETA: I want to make them in teal stretch velveteen with excellent recovery too--if I can ever find it).



I really wanted to get a picture of me and my Eleonores in front of this holly bush on campus but I didn't have my tripod and there was no one around to take pix...

The full moon after the gym on Tuesday night.

This was on Thursday.  After last winter's freezy bits, I decided to buy a "real" cold weather coat for when it's under 40F, and this totally fit the bill.  I look like I'm wearing a comforter, but it is warm and has features that make a difference, like cuffs inside the sleeves to keep the cold air from creeping in and a ginormous hood.

Last night there was snow and ice...which formed these mini-icicles outside.

I brought my hibiscus in a few months back to see if I can coax it to live through the winter.  It is dropping its leaves pretty fast, but decided to bloom today, awesome!

One more week til I'm on vacation for 11 days--I can't wait!

I'm going to have a special giveaway starting on Tuesday--please check back then!
Be well!