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