Back in the Saddle

Life seems to have transitioned back to normal. The house is back in order. My back has mostly healed (I didn't mention it but I pulled something in my back and it's taken a good 2 weeks to recover). We're very close to resuming our homeschooling schedule. And I'm getting back to crafting.



I don't have much to show for my return to crafting just yet. I dyed 5 yards of felt over the weekend though. And I have a pile of wrapped bendy doll bodies whom I will be working on finishing over the next few days.

I've also been on a mission to shrink up any of the new felt yardage that's made it way into my stash recently. And then I did something stupid. I forgot what led to the last time I had to make a new cover for my ironing board. Red felt. And since I forgot, I did it again.



You see, when I shrink felt (which makes it much thicker and nicer!) I wet it and toss it into the dryer. I don't dry it all the way. I take it out when it's still damp and then iron it smooth again, which dries it almost completely. Wet red felt = a big red stain on the pretty ironing board cover. As soon as I did it I remembered that I had done this before!

On another note, I think I've mentioned my odd little book collection here before. I love books that have dolls who are alive as the main characters. Not creepy, spooky dolls-more along the lines of Raggedy Ann, Hitty, etc.

About a week ago Isabelle and I went to the bookstore. We were browsing the children's books and this book caught my attention. It was on the shelf with its cover facing out and I suspected it might just be my kind of book. Well I read it last night and absolutely loved it!! So much that I actually cried more than once while reading it. If you get a chance, I highly recommend The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. I plan to start reading it to the children tonight.

Fall fever and a WIP

Fall fever: I've got it bad! I was planning to force myself to wait until it's officially autumn but I gave up. I just couldn't do it. I'm hoping my potpourri ingredients arrive today so I can make it smell like fall as well.

And onto the WIP (work in progress)... Last night I was overcome with an undeniable urge to make a doll. If she turns out as planned she'll be a big autumn angel to hang on the front door.

So I drew up a pattern, stitched up some parts, and stuffed them. Then I took them to the kitchen to dye and distress them with walnut ink. Here they are just after applying the walnut ink. They look so awesome now that they've dried. But you're just going to have to wait to see. :-)

Sneaking in a cutie picture

I finished up one of those little pincushion ring cakes so I snapped a picture really quickly before packing it up to mail. Stinkin' cute, huh? :-) Now if I can just get my husband to remember to save his soda bottle caps...

Isabelle and I are going to watch 3 hours of Anne of Green Gables right now. I'll definitely have something to take a picture of at the end of the movie.

Oh! I almost forgot. Here's the end result of the floss and pearle cotton dyeing. I packed up some of the floss to send off to someone so some is missing from the picture. But I made extra spools so I expect I'll be doing some more dyeing before long.

The results of yesterday's dyefest

Well, the threads turned out great, I think. I can't wait to try a bit of embroidery with them and see how they look.

The velour came out a lovely shade of celedon. I really like it. But it's not sage. So I have another piece of velour soaking in dye right now. When I mixed up the dye yesterday I couldn't remember if I added ecru to the light mixture of olive dye to get sage. It would seem I did. So now I know if I want celedon I only need to use a little olive dye alone.

I'm quite pleased with the silks.

The felt looks great too. The green isn't as dark as I'd hoped but it's a really pretty color. The yellow isn't nearly as dark as it appears in the picture. In reality it's about the color of corn.


On today's agenda: sage velour, label making for bendy doll packaging, and back to the bendy doll assembly line :-)

Prognosis: I'm dyeing

My children get great pleasure out of proclaiming, "Momma's dyeing!!" whenever I pull out the dyes. Oh, the drama!

There's wool felt and a silk going blue, wool felt and a silk going pink, a rosy silk with a touch of blue, felt going yellow, velour going sage, and some felt I mixed different greens, yellow, and blue. I'm hoping for good dragon skin there. The floss and pearle cotton are soaking in soda ash. I'll dye them later on tonight.