house wren studio

early spring, little things

Made my annual visit to the farm to see the baby lambs. They were doing this when I got to the barn and it's really true that they skip, kick up their little feet and bounce when they play just like the storybook illustrations!

Here at home, I enjoyed a bunch of pink ranunculus - right to the very end of their run. 

Mr. America had a nice splash on Feeling Stitchy. I was unfortunately out of stock in the shop, but then set up a preorder for those to come. (Thanks, Julie, for letting me know!)

One of my own lambs came home for a visit.

Sweet friends - the same adorables that inspired Josie Bunny - joined us for the day at the farm. They have grown up so!

Have been stitching and finishing a new sampler almost ready to share. I think you'll like it.

And lastly, I upcycled my mandarin orange bag into a thread keeper. Works perfectly with a little clip at the end and the threads spool out through the mesh without tangling. Pretty darned clever, if I do say so myself!

little wreath

It was a lovely holiday and I spent the morning tidying up. Every year, all that beautiful trash inspires me to make something. This is what I did with the afternoon, the crumpled paper and other bits from the wrappings.

Trace a jar onto a box. And then a smaller jar for the center.

Cut it out.

Pad it with rumpled paper and masking tape.

Wrap it with leftover ribbon from a gift.

Add more textiles or ribbons.

Gather up some pretty trims and decorate the top. 

So much more fun than putting everything away or throwing it all out. One more ornament for the tree, a window or a cupboard latch.

paper ornaments

A last minute, late night giftwrap started a streak of papercuttings. One of my favorite crafts, I always have an old book ready to cut up. The book was apparently closer than the papercutting scissors. Snip, snip, I cut out the giftwrap tree with the kitchen shears. 

And just kept going, threading the cut-outs and suspending them over the table. 

I made some floating birds with folded wings on sewing thread hangers. 

With two pieces of book paper stacked, I cut out 2 birds at once. I knotted a long length of sewing thread and set it aside. Added a swoop of gluestick along the lower part of the bird from the beak to the beginning of the tail. Not on the wings or the tip of the tail.

I placed the knotted thread on the gluey paper close to the middle. 

Layer the second bird on top of the first, pinching it gently right around the thread knot to be sure it's secure. Fold the unglued wings very slightly, adjust the way it hangs and make a hanging loop at the top of the thread. You will have to fiddle with the thread to be sure it hangs correctly. Suspend it over a heat source like a radiator (but not a flame). The rising heat makes it flutter and fly.

You could do the same with an angel cut-out. 

 

And they do look so pretty on a simple brown paper gift.

raggedy wreath

Just a bit ago, my copy of this darling book arrived. Mollie Makes Christmas is full of pretty little projects to make for the holidays. Happily, I have a few inspiration projects inside too.

This is one of my true favorites. Almost everything I needed was right here in the studio (or closet). I used a styro ring, but it could even be made from a ring of cardboard, traced off a dinner plate, padded with bubble wrap or quilt batting and then wrapped in whatever you have. You could make the little bird or use a purchased one. Then just rummage through the junk box for little things to decorate it with. Here are the simple instructions.

(Loved making the decorated page too!) You might remember that there is another version here.

Time to begin thinking about the holidays and making for gifts and home. I'll have some new things in my Etsy shop soon too. It all happens so fast!

chateau getaway :: day six :: woading

I guess I should start with the dress story. The excitement of my impending trip to France inspired me to make a dress. Not really a dress, it's the Schoolhouse Tunic. It was beautiful, made from a natural linen and I loved wearing it. The first time ... and most of the second time.

The night of the wine and cheese pairing, we stayed out on the terrace, well primed for talking. I was telling some story, gesturing with my hands as I do and well, you know. Pffftttt! (which rhymes with what I really said.) There went my glass of wine, red wine, all over the bottom of my beautiful dress. Kind Laura from the kitchen brought out a bottle of Wine Away and I excused myself to get to work. It was nearly midnight. I did what I could but it didn't seem to be working. (Actually it was doing just fine.) I applied the magic formula again. Still there. Impatient and a little panicked, I got out my travel bottle of detergent and decided to assist with stain treatment. Finally, I went to sleep and got up two hours later panicked (again) and remembering that the detergent is probably too harsh for that unbleached linen. Sure is. So at 2 a.m. I was washing my dress in the sink. The wine was indeed gone, but so was the color. Pffftttt.

At breakfast, I could laugh about it. 

All was not lost, I did have the option of cutting it to a shorter length (view 2 on the pattern), but I thought I might as well bring it with me to the woad field where we were going to dye all our prewashed linens. You never know. Wow, you would not have believed the volume of linens, cottons, wools, silks that we had accumulated for the day! There must not have been a single linen sheet left in all of southern France.

So. To the woad. So, so awesome! Woad is not indigo, but is a natural dye derived from organic woad plant material. The process and formula dates back to the 15th century and is particularly important to Toulouse and its history. Originally woad blue was reserved for the Royals and the color blue has special meaning throughout French history and language (sacre bleu!). Indeed, Napoleon's troops wore uniforms dyed roughly the same way as our pieces. Minus the male urine collected outside taverns. There's a work-around for that now. But they probably didn't have as much crazy fun as we did. 

Susan showed us some shibori techniques which inspired a creative flurry of wrapping, tying and stitching before dipping our pieces into the dye bath. 

Here's what happens. Denise and Annette prepared woad vats in advance. There's some feeding and fermenting that reminded me of sourdough bread-making formulas. It's complicated and I'm pretty sure I'll never do this again unless Denise is there.

A clean textile made of natural material is placed into the woad bath for a few minutes.

When it's lifted out, it's yellow then greenish. But as soon as the sunlight and air reach the fiber, the color changes to blue.

And then the process is repeated again and again (sometimes up to 7 times) until it is truly, madly, deeply blue. Forever.

We dyed everything we had. All day long.

I finally consulted with Denise about my dress. Given the damaged fiber, the fabric would take the dye unevenly and the bleach flaws might still show, so I decided to experiment with some rubber bands and pleats before dipping it. Good old fashioned tie-dye, also known as shibori.

Ta-da! So pretty, right? I love it even more than the first incarnation. And the story it tells is my favorite part.

A few of us stayed out there until the last minute of sunlight.

And finally left the woad-wide web ....

To go off into the exquisitely woaded night. 

easter crafts

I'm a wee bit late on this and meant to direct you to last spring's bunny lumps post earlier. Maybe there is still some time at the kitchen table to try these. Wouldn't they be cute as little placecards for the table? Make a dent in the soft form before drying/baking to hold a card or tack the bunny onto a cardstock base with a name on it.

Also wanted to let you know I made a pattern PDF for the bunny toy in the last post and it's in my Etsy shop. If there's not time for Easter, it would be cute for a baby gift or as a handmade friend any old time. 

I looked through my archives for other simple Easter crafts. An egg diorama is here and if you have some felted sweaters, look here. And I still love this little quick frame from a few years ago. 

Wishing you all a lovely Easter weekend! Such a beautiful spring!

scrap love ornaments and tags

I have a shopping bag under my ironing board where I put every single scrap of fabric from my collection. After waiting so long to have it, it is very precious here. Recently, I pulled some of those bits together to make a few small ornaments. A template sketched and cut from an index card, a few scraps of fabrics, some felt and tiny embellishments from the dish on the work table. I stitched parts and glued pieces then snipped some letters (and a few page numbers) from an old book. 

Wondering why these very small projects give so much pleasure in the making, I remembered that my first book proposal in 1986 was titled Use It Up, Wear It Out. A little ahead of its time, but very much the words I still live by. Make it do or do without.

Old sheet music, gussied up shipping tags, a little stitching. Red ribbons.

Happy Christmas. xoxo

silver and gold

In my studio, I'm surrounded by things I have made or collected and then cherished for a very long time. No matter how I shift the stacks and piles in this little room, they surface and stay close by. I guess there's always an inch or two of shelfspace somewhere. This little paperweight is one of those pieces I made that finds a new perch every time. But as I assembled another set of color boxes for my Etsy shop, I decided to tuck it into the Silver Box.

I made a Gold Box too. It includes this little gold ceramic baby shoe.

It was originally on the wreath I made for my book, Mothers and Daughters at Home (2000). Since then it has wandered about the house, holding needles and pins at the sewing table and tiny sprigs of snow-drops in spring. I considered making it into a little pincushion, but someone else can have a go at that.

Would be sweet on the tree with a little wire or ribbon hanger wrapped around.

a sweater jacket for robin

As soon as I heard that this beautiful baby girl was almost here, I started making this sweater jacket for her. It was already finished when I found out that her name is Robin. Of course, I like to put birds on almost everything I make, but this time ..... !

Made from two superfinely knit cashmere sweaters in my stash and the scraps from another, it's a kimono style pattern that I created when our Mo was a baby (24 next month!). I wish you could feel how incredibly soft it is. 

One of the sweaters even had a tiny turtleneck!

the repurposed library :: lisa occhipinti

Have you seen this book yet? I have a copy here because I was invited to contribute a project. My lampshade is featured inside this amazing collection of makeable projects using old books. It's beautifully done and I'm thrilled for Lisa, her team and all the project designers. 

There's an ounce of room left in my bag and I'm taking my copy along with me to The Creative Connection. One of my classes repurposes an old book into a clutch handbag and if everyone finishes in time, maybe some students will be inspired to try a project from Lisa's book as well. Plenty of inspiration here!