Whoops.

Hi there! Thanks for stopping in!

So it probably looks like I took an inadvertent break from all things felt and DIY and creative. I didn't. Not really. I just fell off updating this blog because I've been... well... sort of cheating with another blog.

Don't judge me!

Back in January, in order to help me deal with some of the stress and anxiety of my joblessness and my uncertainty about the future, I started a project called One Hundred Changes. It's a list of things, big and small, that I have been meaning to change/do/try this year. Most of them are things I've just been putting them off, whether because I'm lazy or frightened or feeling grievously unprepared. So that's where I've been. On a blog called "One Hundred Changes: Adventures in Being (and Becoming) Myself." Here it is, for those of you who like to hear other people flailing around and attempting new things in life.

I'm already around 30 changes into this project. My life is already significantly different after only 9.5 weeks. I've started all manner of healthy habits that I could never seem to stick to before (flossing, anyone?) and I'm more rested, hydrated, and organized than I've been in a very long time. Possibly ever. And I'm just getting started.

One of my changes, though, has to do with this blog. Change #5 is a habit I wanted to start: "Do something creative every day."

It doesn't sound like a whole lot until you actually try it. Then you realize that it's a big goal.

Some of my creative pursuits involve other changes I'm making. Like Change #17: "Try knitting." It's not pretty, but I think I'm starting to get the concept. (Turns out for the first evening I was holding the needles wrong.) Someday, when my projects start looking less like a spaghetti monster, I will post pictures.

Here's another craft I discovered because of this project. I like to call it "Existential crisis cross-stitch" (Although technically it's probably more embroidery than cross-stitch. Oh well. I'm a sucker for a title with alliteration.)

Yes, this is a quote from Welcome to Night Vale. 

But my default creative pursuit, if nothing else is in the works, is working on my mobiles. Here's a recent one in a nice blue and yellow color scheme I've come to like very much.

So that's where I've been. I'm hoping to become more disciplined about my postings here and on etsy (becoming a better blogger is one of my One Hundred Changes!) so we'll see how that goes.

Thanks for stopping in! I hope you're doing well, and I appreciate you!
M

I Smell Christmas!

Hello there! Thanks for joining me! I have happy news: my house smells like oranges and cranberries!

It's Black Friday today, and you know what that means, right? Riiight? Yes. Holing up at home with a steady stream of coffee and Gilmore Girls, hiding from Black Friday. (I DID sneak out this morning to buy the aforementioned cranberries and oranges, but that's about as daring as I get.)

So you know that person who decides to fold socks and alphabetize their movie collection to avoid doing their taxes? That would be me. Productive procrastinator. In order to avoid working on one mobile, I've been working on different mobiles. It's a pretty handy system so far.

At this point, I'm avoiding working on my Wizard of Oz mobile.

The final product will have the strings cleaned up and knots finalized, of course, but I CANNOT figure out what to do with the frame. I think it looks all spare and wrong to leave it as it is, but I haven't the faintest idea what to change. Maybe if I glare at it long enough it'll come to me. Or maybe some lovely person out there has a suggestion on how to fix it. *gazes hopefully into vast interweb void*

Until then, I've been working on another project: Felt Bunny Mobile with Carrots and Cabbages!

This one was a blast to make. I made it while watching Good Mythical Morning with my family. I love the holidays. :)

If all goes according to plan, my next post should be something akin to a tutorial. We'll be working on a mobile featuring tiny felt kittens and balls of yarn. Can't wait!

Thanks for stopping in! I hope you're doing well and I appreciate you. 

Much love and holiday happiness,

Millie

November Status Update: Overload

Hullo, everybody! 

This has been a nutty month for me. (I'm working more hours at my new job. My etsy shop is picking up. And don't even get me STARTED on NaNoWriMo!) I'm juggling several large-ish and time-consuming things at once, and I'm not sure how good I am at juggling yet. Most of my attempts so far have ended with lots of dropped things and a few bruises. Hopefully, with practice, I'll get better.

Here are a couple of things I've been working on this last week:

This one is similar to an earlier piece, but I'm playing with different initials and color schemes. This is an especially fun one to make; it's snappier because there's no need to mess with balancing the frame.

                                                      

This one has been sitting dismembered next to my desk for a few weeks. I love making the pieces for the mobiles, but occasionally I just can't bring myself to go through the pain of prepping and balancing the frame (it's pretty time-consuming), so the poor thing just sits there. I'm hoping to get better about that. 

I've got several other works-in-progress right now. 

 This one is going to be part of a poinsettia wreath. The centers of the flowers are going to be little gold jingle-bells. *furtively starts pulling out candy canes and twinkle lights* It's not too early to get into the holiday spirit, right?

I'm excited about this one. (I love all cloud- and sky-related decor.) All I need to do is finish the tails on the kites and we'll be ready to fly. I'll post pics when it's finished. 

There's also one in my head involving planets and flying saucers, but I figure I ought to finish the ones I'm working on first... right? Especially the Oz one. Guh. It's being such a PAIN right now! (I'll tell you about it next time.)

Well, I'm off to try to make some more progress. Thanks for stopping in! I hope you're doing well and I appreciate you.

All the best,

Millie

The One About Halloween

Hello again! Consider this post a brief pictorial ode to Halloween (and, as always, to felt). The following is what happens when I get into a holiday mood.

The Witch's Ride Mobile

I'm particularly proud of the purple lining of her cape.

Spooky Kitty Mobile

This one took three or four days to finish. I had endless trouble getting the hat right! That's the last time I hand-stitch tiny stars to anything! (That's a lie. I'll probably do it lots more times. I never learn.)

I had loads of fun with these two mobiles, and I look forward to making more next year. After today, I'm taking them off my etsy page (did I mention I run an etsy store?) and I'll pack them away until next October. Feel free to go visit them in the store before they're taken off!

Next stop? I probably shouldn't say. Not until around 3:00 on Thanksgiving day, anyway. I'll give you a hint, though: the words "Holly" and "Jolly" are involved.  :)

Thanks so much for stopping in. I appreciate you and I hope your day is magical.
Millie

Oz and Ends 2: Introducing a Very Teeny Tornado!

Hello, dearies!

While I was busy putting together a miniature storm out of felt, a giant thunderstorm decided to sweep through, rummage around the countryside, and take down our internet. This blog post is therefore beaming out from a particularly salted-caramel-scented corner of my local Starbucks.

I didn’t consider myself a particularly web-centric person until this week, but I’m realizing now just how dependent my craftiness is on internet access: Pinterest for inspiration, Youtube for something to listen to while I work, Google for referencing the sizes and shapes of things, etc. And of course there are the frequent surreptitious peeks at my etsy shop to see if any of my pieces have been favorited. (It always makes my day when I get favorites. I feel so validated.)

As promised, here's a snapshot of my most recent "To Make" list: 

My Oz mobile, the one I'm working on now, is about two thirds of the way down. I'm having loads of fun with it, but it's more time-consuming than I'd expected. 

Here’s the original framework for the tornado. I twisted a length of wire like a tomato cage and stitched felt blocks around it to form this base. 

Then I cut a bunch of strips of felt in different shades of gray and started applying them. It was fun fitting all these scraps together like fuzzy little puzzle pieces.

Since stitching so many strips of felt onto the frame would have taken about a THOUSAND YEARS, I opted for hot glue, which works beautifully with felt and keeps a very strong hold. I don’t know how many hot glue sticks I used. I actually lost count. That’s never happened before.

Of course, immediately after finishing the thing, I thought of about half a dozen faster and easier ways to make a pretend tornado. I could have bought a roll of gray wire-edged ribbon or tulle and twisted it around a wire frame, maybe with a few streaks of black for some dimension. Or I could have cut much thicker strips of fabric so it wouldn’t take such an almighty amount of time to get it all stuck together. But no. I couldn’t have thought of any of that BEFORE I sunk six Mythbusters episodes worth of time into it. But even so, it’s really not a big deal. It was fun and I learned a new technique that I’ll definitely use in the future! (Especially if I intend to do tree trunks or leaves with more texture to them!) It was worth trying once, anyhow. Always learning! That’s the key, right? :) 

The tree, cow, witch, and house are next. I’ve already got the tree and cow started, as you can see in the pic. I couldn’t think how to do a cartoony-yet recognizable uprooted tree, so I just winged it and it turned out looking a teensy bit like a weird little muppet hand, but I think it works. 

The cow seems to be working out too. I’m hoping to give her a politely perplexed expression as she spins through the void. I’m not even attempting the house until I can study exactly what Dorothy’s house looks like in the movie. Same with Ms. Witch. Looks like I’ve got some movie-watching to do! Yay research!

Thanks so much for stopping in! I hope you're doing well, and I appreciate you. Have a splendiforous day! :) 

Millie

Oz and Ends: In Which Felt Continues To Be Delightful

Discovering felt has been good for me.

As I've outlined in previous posts, felt is a forgiving material. And when I say "forgiving" I mean that I can forgive myself for making mistakes and wasting whole sheets of the stuff. I can therefore be free to trial-and-error it up for hours on end, and the only damage done is what I inflict on myself with my mean-spirited orange-handled scissors. (Seriously, how do you get cut by CLOSED SCISSORS?)

The simpler mobiles I make (namely the floral ones featured in my last post) take an average of a day to complete. That's because I know every step of the process inside and out and the only roadblock is finger-fatigue. But with the new designs, mobiles can take anywhere from two days to a week to get everything just right. And since felt is so low-pressure, it's no big deal to pull your mistakes to bits and start over until you find something that works. I did that this morning with a piece I've been working on for two days. I'm shockingly un-devastated. It's a nice change!

I'm making a Wizard of Oz mobile. It's a tiny little tornado with Dorothy's house, a tree, a cow, and a broom-riding witch flying around it.

Now, I like the idea of this mobile since it's a scene from one of my favorite stories. HOWEVER, I'm still trying to figure out if it's insensitive of me to make a mobile with a tornado in it. I know tornadoes are nothing to laugh at or trivialize. (I've lived in tornado alley for most of my life. My childhood house was badly damaged by one many years ago. The neighbor's couch is still at the bottom of our pond.) But this particular twister is essentially a character in the Wizard of Oz story, and an important one at that. So I'm going to tentatively proceed with it. If I'm lucky, it'll be interpreted as a scene from a classic story and not an affront to tornado victims. Very much not my intention.

I'm planning a second Oz mobile either way. This one is going to feature poppies and rainbows and glittery ruby slippers (with an option of silver slippers for the literary purists) and possibly Professor Marvel's hot air balloon at the top. I've already got the poppies started!

Stay tuned for more literary-themed mobiles in the future! I've got a long, loooonnnng list of mobiles to make. Running tally is somewhere over 30 different designs to try. I'll post a pic of the list next time so you can see what I've gotten myself into, and I'll also be posting pics on my progress as I muddle my way through it. Should be loads of fun.

Thanks so much for stopping in! I hope you're doing well, and I appreciate you. Have a gorgeous day! :) 

Millie

DIY Felt Lotus Flower

Hello there! Here's my brief tutorial on how to make the felt lotus flower pictured below. ("Brief" because it's so stunningly simple.)

And, yes, I know it's aqua. It looked bluer in the shop. :)

Step 1: Start with a small felt square. Mine run anywhere from 3/4 of an inch to 2 1/2 inches. You'll be varying sizes throughout the project to get the flower's layers right, larger squares on the bottom and smaller on top.

Step 2: Make a small cut in the center of each side of the square. (Make sure the cuts don't meet in the middle!)

Step 3: Round out the edges of the cuts to get that pointed petal shape.

Step 4: Repeat this process at varying sizes until you have three or four petal layers.

Step 5: Stack the layers, largest on bottom, smallest on top, and secure them. (Most of the time I use a dot of hot glue in the center of each square. Sometimes I use strong thread. It's up to you.)

Step 6: Create the flower's center.

This is where you can go a couple of different ways. You can cut out a circle of yellow felt and try blanket-stitching it on for a cutesy little touch.

Personally, I take a small strip of leftover felt, roll it up, and secure it with hot glue. Then I glue it to the center of the flower so that when I fold the top layer of petals up, they have something to hold onto.

(If you look closely, you can see the top petals folded over the tiny felt roll. It blends in nicely, though, doesn't it?)

Step 7: Add leaf backing. Simply repeat steps 1 through 3 with a slightly larger square of green felt, then glue or sew it to the back of the flower.  And you're done!

This is one of my favorite felt flowers to make. You can attach them to headbands or give them wire stems for a bouquet, I think they look especially great hanging from a mobile, as pictured below.

And there you have it. Have fun, my felt-frenzied friends! If you end up trying it for yourself, feel free to share! I'd love to see!

Thanks for stopping by! More posts coming soon!

Millie