Rose's Birthday #2.

Cupcake gnome. Would you like some of my lovely cupcakes?

Rose turned 2 yesterday. My goodness, she seems so grown up. Well, as you may know, I planned a food theme for her birthday this year. As you may also know, my husband, son and I made gifts for her ourselves. Well, in addition to the whole market bag full of wool veggies, she got a few other things.

The cupcakes here are from my mom, and are HABA toys from Germany. My mom also found her a kid's apron with cupcakes from Williams-Sonoma. A half-hour of hemming and it was short enough for Rose. My dad got her a wood sandwich playset, also some other lovely wood toys. Her Grammie and Grandpa Bob are 1440 or so miles away and had us get some toys for her - wood trains, a LEGO, and some stuffed animals (characters from favorite story books.) Her great-grandparents sent a cute cat card and some birthday money - she picked out more LEGOs. She is a very happy kid to have so many people who love her.

Her brother Badger made her some lovely rice-filled bean bags and a bag to keep them in. I found some fruit fabric and some coordinating leafy fabric. Badger helped design the bag and bean bags, Mama sewed, Badger filled them. Badger also picked out the really bright ribbons and threaded them through for drawstrings.

One last minute gift was a green gnome hat. I figured that she might also like something special to wear for her birthday, seeing as her brother got a full suit of chain mail and some armor. I adapted the pattern from an adult size witch's hat pattern I found on sale for less than a dollar. Like the helmet, I sandwiched a layer of heavy interfacing between two layers of wool felt (only one layer, not two like the helmet.)

I thought she might like some flowers on it, but might want to change flowers or add other decorations; so I made the flowers removeable. I found the pattern for wool felt rose hair clips at the Purl Soho blog: purlbee. I made Rose one at the same time I made two rose buttons for her hat. The leaf is my pattern, though.

A nice simple button on the back - securely stitched on.

Buttonholes cut and stitched in matching pearl cotton embroidery thread. Now she can put on whatever she wants. Her comment was "It's so nice." Balm to my sleepy heart.

Her dad and I conferred on his gift. He was originally going to carve her a bowl and spoon out of wood. However, Rose as a tendency (being 2) of hurling her toys around the house with glee. For her brother's sake especially we decided to make her a bowl and spoon out of wool felt. Dad did some of the design work, Mama made the pattern and did the stitching. I think I will put this up as a tutorial in the next few days.

Here is my next project this morning. Rose currently really likes pink. She had her own piece of the pink fabric on the right and she likes it so much that she takes it to bed, and wears it folded around her wrist as a bracelet. I got some more yesterday to make her a skirt that she can twirl in. The fabric on the left will be gathered pockets. I will be sewing a lot in the next 2 weeks. I designed some knitting needle cases, and a local store will display them during a yarn crawl. I will show off the fabric next week (It is full of birds and trees.) I am also thinking of doing more with some lovely dressmaker themed fabric I saw the other day - hmm.

And because 11 veggies seemed like an odd number (literally and figuratively), I made Rose a chili pepper. Also, because it was funny. Again, I am easily amused.

Why I will never rule the world.

I will never rule the world because I put WAY too many things on my to-do list and then fret about getting them all done in the time frame that I have allotted myself. That, and because I think that wool food is funny. Not just amusing, but knees-collapsing falling on the floor funny. Why? I am clueless as to why, but I will note that perhaps I am just very easily amused. Here is the corn that escaped having it's picture taken.

Here is the bag that all of those lovely wool veg got to wear.

Here is the pile of pattern pieces and cut fabric and interfacing for my son's present. NINETEEN pattern pieces for this bad boy, some of which had to be cut out 8 times. All of which were cut at least twice. This is why it took 3 mornings to cut all of them out. Another whole morning was spent just ironing on the interfacing or fusible fleece. I'm unsure whether or not I like the fusible fleece; it gives a nice layer of batting to quilt but it also makes the texture of the fabric that it was fused to a bit rough.


Here's what I did yesterday. The body took a whole bag of poly-fill to stuff it. The wings are almost done, and not attached yet. There is an awful lot of hand-finishing that this pattern requires, but that is the part I enjoy.

The head of the dragon, missing needle sculpting, eyes, tongue, and horns.

Matt was helping my dad pick something up from a church yard sale and found an interesting pile of craft things. These are the two embroidery hoops he found. Yes, that is a 12" ruler on the smaller one.

Three little girl sewing patterns - in sizes to fit Rose.

A huge box of acrylic (mostly) yarn and a few crocheted items.

A 13 gallon trash bag full of plastic canvas yarn - very crunchy stuff.

Did you know that Amoco made yarn? Me neither. (Amoco is a gas/petrochem company here in the U.S. for those who didn't know.)

I've got two. Lucky me. I guess I will crochet funkiness from all of this stuff. Mind you, there was a nifty baby cardigan kit from 1971, complete with a finished back and one of the fronts. There were even British size 10 metal needles still in it. Crunchy blue acrylic yarn, but still a nifty find. Also some ultra funky Nottingham lace panels for applique. Had never seen these before either.

There you have it. I will never rule the world because I give myself lots more to do than I think, I am too easily amused, and I am clearly not omniscient - see Amoco yarn comment.

The Value of Our Handmade Stuff

Here are most of the crocheted and knitted veggies for my daughter's 2nd birthday present. For some reason, the corn didn't make the shot. So we have (total) 11 veggies: corn, tomato, squash, lettuce, asparagus, garlic, beet, radish, carrot, and 2 mushrooms. I made 2 mushrooms because one just seemed lonely somehow.

As I have been making all of the veg for my daughter's present, I have been thinking of how we value handmade stuff. If you are reading this blog, you probably dig handmade already, but how much do you value it?

Do you buy local handmade in support of local artisans? Do you pale at the prices charged for it? I know we can all get a pair of nifty cabled gloves at discount stores for under $20, so paying $60 or better for what could be seen as the same thing seems exorbitant. Consider that the raw materials at retail prices can cost $20 by themselves. Consider that it can take 20 hours or so to knit a pair of gloves with a complex cable pattern. If we paid ourselves fairly for our time, those gloves would cost $220. Now that $60 doesn't seem so bad, does it? Besides which, the workmanship and materials used in the handmade pair mean that those gloves will last you longer than a month or so of fairly constant use. With care, you could pass them down to your kids. Over their lifetime, handmade goods cost far less than the mass-produced equivalent due to their better workmanship. You could pay $60 for one pair of gloves every 5 years (with hard wear) or $10 twice a year or more for store-bought - so $100 for 2 pairs of $10 gloves a year for 5 years.

Do we as makers value our goods as much as we should? Do we consider that when we do our best work, we should charge accordingly? We pay retail prices for our materials (most of us.) We spend HOURS making each individual item. Why do we then devalue our work when we gift it? We say "well, I made this, so if you don't like it, I understand" or some such nonsense (of which I am guilty as well.) Why are we hesitant to charge a fair price when we sell it? Are we really trying to compete with discount store pricing?

I spent HOURS on my daughter's present. I am spending HOURS on the market bag to hold her present. I will be spending HOURS on my son's birthday present - the fabric cutting alone is in it's third day. The materials mostly came from my stash, but I paid retail for all of them. Why do I feel a little guilty for giving them only handmade for their birthdays? No idea. Even though this was a planned thing, I feel like I need to do more. Do more than 50 hours of work for each one? Spend more than I already have, even if lots of stuff came from stash? Doesn't that sound ridiculous? Even as a dedicated handmade consumer and maker, I tend to devalue my own work. How silly. I put love into every stitch, love into every cut of fabric and moment at the sewing machine, love into choosing the materials and patterns.

If you make stuff, value your time, effort, care, and work. It is more than good enough.

Wool Veg Continued

Well, I've been hard at the veggie-makin'. In addition to the lettuce, we have this large knit garlic from Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh. She has some really brilliant shaping techniques in this little item. She has some really brilliant techniques in general. Her patterns are less toy instructions than fiber sculpture instructions. I love this little garlic and may have to make every single thing in her book.
The pattern for this lovely beet was found on Ravelry. It comes out more like an heirloom variety - just perfect for what I am doing. The leaf structure was interesting to do.
The latest one that I have completed is a crocheted carrot from the book Tasty Crochet by Rose Langlitz. There are some interestingly placed decreases that make for a slightly irregular - and more realistic carrot. The carrot tops were also crocheted, but were an improvisation based on the knitted tops from the carrot in Amigurumi Knits. I only made 2, as Rose is going to be 2, and 2 demands slightly more simplified veg.

Next up, a Tomato.

Fuzzy Lettuce

I have started early on Rose's birthday presents: 10 kinds of veggies in a market bag. The first one is a lettuce from crochetsal.com . It was originally intended to be a fridge magnet using crochet thread. I used worsted weight Lamb's Pride in limeade green. I am using wool, or alpaca/wool blends, for all of the veg - the bag will be cotton. I am improvising the bag so that it is scaled for a 2 year-old. When I'm done, I'll put up the pattern.