Sock it to me

A very belated update. I've frankly been so busy with historic sewing that I just haven't had the time to do any modern projects, much less update this blog.

Every March Midway Villiage, home of the orignial red heel sock knitting machine, holds a Sock Monkey Festival. L loves this day at the museum, doing crafts, looking at the displays & talking with other sock monkey fans.

This year Harold got a new friend, Helen.

In an effort to earn the "greatest mom of the year" award, I made both Harold & Helen matching leopard prints clothes to wear. Of course the rechargeable batteries were drained in L's new RC car & I can't get a photo.

Sorry to be brief, but I've got more historic sewing to do & a fast approaching deadline. Yikes!

Bitty Kitty Wallet

J beat me to the punch in getting L a Starbucks gift card for the holiday. Instead I made her a little wallet to hold her card, her library card and where she can collect the business cards that she likes so much.

This is nothing fancy. Two layers of wool felt, with a third piece for the pocket. Both appliques are wool felt as well. All the sewing is done with scrap bits of embroidery thread.



It's a little wonky though. To start with it's not very square. I fixed that with a heavy dose of steam from the iron and a few trims with my rotary cutter. I'm really giving that tool a workout lately. I don't know what I used to do without it.

Second the female half of the magnetic snap isn't all that secure. When it eventually comes loose I'll have to replace it with a ribbon since it's one of those item that can't easily be removed without leaving behind damage. I should have been more careful with it but again, late at night and with L hovering over my shoulder I wasn't.

Third it closes backwards. I wanted the cat on the front but I wasn't thinking when I did the appliqué. I forget to reverse the design before tracing it onto the wonder under so when I ironed it on, it was reversed. At least I also forgot to reverse the bird too. to reverse the bird, so it ended up on the opposite side, which is what I wanted (only backwards).



I slipped the card into it before wrapping with a scrap of fabric. Hopefully she'll like it, not loose it & oh yeah, treat her mom to a coffee once and a while!

A Day for Lecherli

In honor of being featured on Sew Mama Sew's Handcrafters Holiday Meme today, tonight I made this years batch of lecherli.

I've already had three pieces! Everyone wonders why I wait until the last moment to cook this stuff! If I don't, I eat it all before Christmas Eve.

It's particularly orange and gingerly this year. I think because I was out of allspice and just skipped it instead of running out to get more. With the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger, plus the lemon and orange peel, it's not like the all spice will be missed. The flour is a mix of the last of the whole wheat and all purpose white that happened to be in the pantry. Also the glaze is a combination of rum mixed and water mixed. Honestly it's because I used the rest of the rum in my Silk Nog. It's my one indulgence of the season.

This also marks L's first year trying lecherli. She nagged me "what's in it?" "candied what?" "Cant I try some?". She just wandered in here with a piece muttering yumm! and telling J that he *has* to try some. Great, now I'm going to have to share!

This year Christmas Eve marks my Great grandmother Oma's 104th birthday. She's old enough now that she doesn't need or want a full batch of lecherli. Instead I've packed away 4 pieces, just enough for her to enjoy with her tea, in a small mason jar. I hope she enjoys it as much as I've always enjoyed being her successor in the yearly lecherli making.

Rice, Rice, Baby

Just a few quick presents for my friend Hippie Girl on her birthday last night. We had a fantastic adult "girls only" slumber party. Plenty of organic beer, silly games, vegan chocolate cake & laughter, oh the laughter. Definitely one of the best birthday parties I've been to in a while.

Both of these are stash buster patterns. I whipped these out along with a pair of lounge pants & matching headband for myself to wear in about 4 hours. That's not counting the time to futz around with a few random other things in the sewing room that I decided to half start yesterday as well.

The top is a weighted eye pillow. Filled with rice & lavender. The front side is some of the last hand dyed fabric in the blue & purple color-way. The back was L's idea, blue fleece. It makes that side very soft and comforting when you are meditating with it on your eyes.

Below that is a rice heat pack. Originally I was going to fill it with rice & sage, since sage is a female herb. However, the sage I have is fresh, not dried. So that too was filled with lavender. There is an inner filled pillow and an outer case that can be laundered. Especailly nice after you've passed it around to all your friends and everyone has rubbed their noses & cheeks into it because it smells so nice.

To make it a little more "gifty", even though she asked for no gifts, I made a little card. It's about 1/2 of a small note card, cut in half to about 2"x3". I really quickly cut out a seated cardinal and free motion stitched a branch below him. He's attached to the card with my new favorite secret weapon, Wonder Under. I love how you can cut & stick anything with it, yet its not nearly as messy as spray mount.

I like these two little projects. I'm thinking I'll make a few more of the rice heat packs for people like my mother, who uses a cherry pit heat pack frequently. I also might like to make a few more for around our own house. we only have 1 and when it's in use or not to be found, we usually resort to heating up one of the bean bags that I made L for her silks! Not exactly the picture of luxury.

A visit with my crafty friend

Yesterday, in between performances of "Mother Goose Lost her Marbles", we had the good fortune of hanging out with a wonderful crafty reenactor friend of mine & her DD. Sadly her hubby, also a crafty reenactor friend, had to work late so we didn't get to see him. I guess that just means we'll have to all get together again another time.

L was really looking forward to giving her friend a gift but I just didn't have the time. It will have to go out in the mail, which gives me a little while to make my friends something fabulous for them as well.

Anyway, she gave L & I the most wonderful little collection of goodies for the holiday. I felt bad that we haven't gotten much progress on the box as well. And considering how super generous they have always been both with opening their home to us and making things for us, it's going to have to be something truely fantastic!

Just look at the wonderful things she gave us! Both of Mara Riely's 18th century knitting patterns (although I need a lot more practice before tackling size 1 needles!), a wool monmouth cap, beautifully bright yellow yarn, the most wonderful smelling soap that is already making my sewing studio smell fantastic and a really huge half of an oyster shell they found in the river behind their house. L got the tiny knitted kitty, whom she has been carrying around since of course! Oh no, looks like Knitty Kitty ate my Pocky! (actually I did, but it made a cute prop).

I have to say, while the holidays totally stress me out, having creative & generous friends like these to spend the time with is really a pleasure. I can only hope to have more get togethers like this in the future.