click here to see all the amazing owl artists.

We’re on Thanksgiving vacation in these parts, so I’m going to keep going with theme and post about some plush trends for the next couple of days. And there is no trend bigger than the stuffed owl. Why is everyone who tries their hand at toy making compelled to make an owl? Hell, I even made a couple myself. What is it about an owl that makes people want to immortalize it with fabric and polyfil? It’s cool looking, but so are plenty of other animals and it’s not particularly soft and cuddly unlike others. Why do we find ourselves cutting out big googly eyes and little top hats to go on this beautiful bird? Who knows, but somehow every owl ends up looking completely different from the rest. Abby Glassenberg has recently added to this enormous owl family. Her owl is majestic and beautiful, just like the real bird, and somehow different from every other stuffed owl that came before it.

Just onne more bird. Happy Thanksgiving!

gobble, gobble.

such strange trends in the softie making world. please click on the picture to find out whose demented imaginations came up with all these wonderful dolls.

These all are (or will be) pockets for Denyse Schmidt’s shimy, shake, and bake apron. The first and the fourth ones I made with the pattern in her book, but I feel a little funny using a pattern for something that is made specifically to look unplanned and a little wonky. I can do wonky just fine on my own. So I just winged (wung? wang?) it with the other two and they came out just fine. The grey fabric was very thin and puckered quite a bit–can anyone explain to me why and how to remedy it? I don’t know if I’ll do it over, or leave it and just consider it extra homemade.

I do love me some egg fabric. I have reams of this stuff. why?

Today is Monday, so my daughter and I had a little crafty time together.  I wanted to try making a collage with contact paper for a while now.  She’s only just 2 and she hasn’t quite mastered the glue stick yet. We gathered our supplies: contact paper, tissue paper, leaves and twigs we picked up on a walk, and fabric scraps.  We slapped everything down –well, I arranged mine–on the sticky side and then put another piece of contact paper (sticky side down) on top of it all. It looked like this:

Then I cut out leaves and taped them to the window.  I think this is a good craft for the toddler set.  Tearing paper and sticky things are pretty exciting to my daughter so this project actually held her interest for a while.  Contact paper isn’t all that sticky, so the tissue paper worked best.  But if you are crazy like me and save the tiniest scrap, well they work too and I think thread would look nice.  Leaves work if they’re pressed (ours weren’t) and you get leaves in leaves at the end, which is exciting only to me.  You could, of course, cut any shape out: turkeys, christmas trees, vacuum cleaners, whatever.  When it came time for cutting, my daughter was already on to other things, but 10 quiet minutes is pretty huge.

just a little pincushion (from this tutorial) and a needlebook: christmas presents for a crafty friend.  Have you started making for christmas?  I pulled out all my old martha stewarts for ideas and some unfinished christmas projects from last year as well.  I started making stockings for my family, but never finished.   And though I don’t know much about sewing now, I really didn’t know much then–so there is a lot of ripping and rethinking before they can hang on our mantle.   I’m sure you have all seen the daily gift tutorials on Sew Mama Sew (if not, go look), but did you know Jane (from janeandtheducks) is posting christmas gifts she has made everyday.  Makes me feel like I’m sitting on my ass just a little too much.  So I’m going to get up.      right        now.