Making Time

hand-bag

Originally uploaded by feather.

a handbag goes on your hand. it does not weigh down your shoulder. this is a smart tool for carrying only the essentials. and not for bunging in just about everything (as i do with my burdening shoulder bag).

i really REALLY like the goldilocks fabric, and took pains to position it right. i wish i had not top stitched the handle, now, looking back. thing is, i’m not sure if i should top-stitch the red pleats according to my original plan.

so it’s kinda not really finished. i will maybe try just pressing the pleats the other way, and blind-stitching to the black. i dunno!

Myorei-san posing with her new hat

Originally uploaded by feather.

I’m back from my holiday, with my visiting bestest friend from highschool. She really enjoys challenging me in many ways- one of these was to go stay in a Zen Center. I was quite adamant that I was not going to like this at all… and how wrong I was.

We stayed at the Hosen-ji Zen Center in Kyoto, Japan. It was a great introduction to Zen buddhism and mediation. As well as that, the people there are so remarkable. There was such a pleasant, peaceful atmosphere there. It was down-to-earth, unprentious, unassuming, and somehow, playful. Up at 5 in the morning, cleaning, working in the gardens, eating brekkies and dinner in silence, and long moments of mediation, reading sutras and chanting and lights out at 10 sharp. I would go back and stay alot longer than 3 nights.

Myorei-san, a nun, saw me crocheting and asked was I making a hat. I said it was going to be a bag, but maybe it could be a hat. When I asked her if she would like a hat, she got postively giddy. I offered to make it for her, and she gushed, and was patting her cheeks saying how happy she was. I am taking this mannerism into my own usage. She was so happy happy like a kid when I presented the hat to her. She loves purple, as you can tell from her stylish outfit.

~AND all of our exchanges were completely in Japanese, so I felt especially proud.

I had my first swapping experiences last month. I realize now that I’m a total jerk for not having put up pictures! All of my packages have now been received on both ends. But I must remember that posting photos is an important last step. And I’m very late in it!

One of the most important things I learned is *timing*. One week, I was able to send off three swap packages, but then I had to hold one back because I needed to get feedback on some fabric i posted photos of using Flickr. The timing was crucial because then it literally took me weeks to get back to the post office. I carried it around with me in my bag. Of course, now I have found there is a tiny post office closer to my job, so it should all be smoother now!

This was the lovely pile of fabrics I received from OhBara. Last week I finally washed them, and started using them!

Flickr is a great tool for swapping. I didn’t understand how it was done, until Michelle from Green Kitchen advised me that i should buy fabrics, and post pictures of them online and say they were available for swapping. seems obvious now, but i didn’t know if anyone would even find my pictures. sure enough they did!

These are the pretty fabrics I received from CTeresa.

i was just writing to a current swap partner that swapping is a mix of guilt, fear, anticipation and joy. it’s certainly not as simple or easy as it looks! i think from now on, i won’t jump into too many swaps at once, and i will be very careful about choosing which ones i do join. i’d like to make sure that my partners and i include hand-made things in each swap, rather than just plain materials swaps from now on.

but having said that, lookie at this cool bunch of trim i got from trevo azul. i love what she did with pompoms when she made this mobile.

Yarn for Feather - with flash!

Originally uploaded by whizzme.

i can’t pick favorites since i enjoyed receiving all the packages, but this pile of crewel wool was the most inspiring. a big THANKS to Samantha from Whizzme. i even started a whole other blog: “How can you be so crewel?” for the yarn. The reality is tho, that my first attempts at crewel with out a book or pattern (or even the right kind of fabric) look pretty lame… It’s not so easy. But i like to paw this wool every once in a while. I did use some on a bunny nose.

Next: a group swap

I’d like to join a group swap next, I was sad when I missed the BackTack… but I now see fate’s wisdom is making me set my alarm clock wrong. I would not have had the time this month. And timing is CRUCIAL. I’m resisting the temptation to join the Open Yours Too, but in june I am excited to do the purplepinkandorange.com Stuffed Toy swap which is managed at swapbot.

What i sent

I kinda went overboard, not knowing it was reallly just a material swap, and added in probably WAY TOO MANY things. I can tell I went overboard because at least two swappers mentioned to me that feel bad that there was an uneven swap. Alas. I knew something was wrong when the goodies were going over the price of some of the fabric pieces.

These were some of the packages i sent:

my little mochi posted: “An experiment of sorts”:

Draw 7 of something, anything, it doesn’t matter what, they can all be the same or all different. Take as much or as little time as you like and then leave a comment of what you drew. I’ll explain later.

(click to see bigger)
I drew 7 flip flops, because I saw a friend of mine wearing flip flops for the first time this year. Summer weather is coming quickly!

I was reminded of the fun of pompoms after seeing this tutorial at Bella Dia. so were others!And it gave me a great idea for an arts and crafts activity for the ‘easter party’ at the school I started english teaching at. I’m in the midst of a whole week of pompom-chick-making! The best yarn was a slim acrylic mohair. the best glue was actually a glue stick, as there is less mess.

Crafting with kids is a bit of a challenge. I’ve been working in a children’s art organisation for five years, and we do more open-ended projects to give children arts experiences… but this requires good verbal communication and much of our projects we spend talking and thinking, and surprisingly, less ‘doing’. But now, with my new job, teaching english, i was at a loss of how to approach doing a creative activity with kids in a wide age range with minimal verbal communication.

Looking back I regret not having done something more open-ended, to get the kids to respond to the idea of spring… I fell into the teachery-trap of ‘prepare it ahead, know the exact results’… Alas, i pre-cut the paper beaks and the eyes (with hole punch). But there’s still loads of variety, and they really enjoyed making something so cute, and it took only about 10 minutes.
I also like this kid-friendly craft activity that Kathreen shows on her site: peg dolls. It’s got a clear end-result, which is guaranteed satisfaction, but there’s more room to allow for variety. I plan to do more crafts activities with the kids, and I’m going to keep open-ended in mind!

I finished this guy as we were watching Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. perfect timing, and it had nothing to do with Easter, as I started this in February. April is my ‘finish what I started’ month. The month of May might be my ‘finish what i started month’ too!

He moves so nice. His head flops like a baby (or a drunk, depending on how you look at it) and his arms are heavy and floppy too. As soon as I had put on the final leg, I spontaneously scooped him up, hugged him and kissed him. I paused and shook my head thinking: “that was weird”… i had a surrealistic moment of “why do humans make images of animals and figures to hold? why do we make images of the universe?” Later on, I kept on putting him in the boyfriend’s arms. I liked to see him holding the bunny (started having domestic fantasies).

oh this rabbit is so lovely. he’s so ANIMATED. you pick him up and he’s moving all over the place. he’s of a nice heavy thick wool, and has a super soft mohair bunny tail. i’m trying to find the right color rose wool felt to line his ears with! I want his inner ears to match his nose.

He has a great shape, which I am proud of since it was so hard. There was alot of frogging on this one (rip it, rip it, rip it!). I took some photos along the way.

michelle at green kitchen shows off a “racoon” she made recently… yes, it was meant to be a bear… but i have to agree it does look more like a racoon!

i keep on trying to make bears, and fail. what makes a bear a bear? i have to figure out face proportions, and ear placement. i put the ears a little too close to the top of the head… and it didn’t look right. so instead…
look at the cute mouse it became! you can see i went over the ears with two single crochet rows, so i could make the ears bigger. (still not sure if this mouse would like his ears even bigger?)

then, i used the wool to ’shape’ the face, bringing in the eye socket area (and anchoring it to the nape of the neck, so it made cheeks. and i put the nose where the bear’s chin was going to be.

whenever i start a new animal, i begin with the belly, then do the head. then one arm and one leg. the ears are last. it’s not until the ears that i know exactly what it might be. i think i need to start with sketches, and see if i can plan ahead to actually make a bear!

EDIT: Newsflash… I was just surfing around (up early, hoping to sign up for backtack) and found that another mouse appeared when Fiona from Hop Skip Jump was trying to make a cat! Mouse is the new ‘one size fits all’ animal.

“Somewhere around 10pm panic set in when I realised my fat cat looked more like a bear of some sort. Cursing the (far too ample) glass of wine I’d had earlier, I forged ahead. Then I mucked up the arms and had to make some more changes to her body… and suddenly around about 11pm, a mouse appeared. A skinny kind of mouse at that, too. Thankfully, a happy accident.”

*And* it was posted on the same day as mine was!

Last year, my friend Orla and I made a peice for a show in Sligo at The Model (gallery) called Solo: Do your own thing . The brief was simple: make a site-specific work involving ’sheep’. We took this loosely.

Here you can see a close-up. We made a green crocheted landscape in the Bar Bazaar cafe shop window; these were meant to look like field lines from above. And we had a basket of wound up wool in the cafe and invited passersby and people sitting in the cafe to make their own pom-pom sheep and hang it! We put up two or three to start, and were so happy to see people making their own ’sheep’ as the weeks went on. (see more pictures of other works in solo05)

When we were preparing the work, Orla and I spent an afternoon trying to figure out the best way to prepare it so people would be able to make their own pom-poms. I tend to over-think most things, I’m more concerned with “What is the RIGHT way to get this done?” I had started cutting out individual pom-pom templates out of cardboard. Orla has a more relaxed: “What is the EASIEST way to get this done?” It was our first time ‘collaborating’ and it was an eye opener for me.

After some more research we stumbled upon the most obvious, simple and effective way! Just wrap it around your fingers, tie around the middle and snip! I just saw some more clear instructions online at Bella Dia. She has photos there. (Orla and I had made line drawings and photocopied them).
I think it was a reminder for me that effective does not always mean perfect. Yes it would have been great to send everyone home with their own pom-pom template, but really this would have been a pain in the butt. And I think the final result is more charming; some are big or small depending on who made it.

I needed a break from sewing, so the first item of clothing (after her red shoes) is this blue cardigan, it looks nice with her hair. This was not from the book, but then again, I hate following patterns, don’t I?

I tried making a wave design, but it’s so small it doesn’t really show! I think I should do some more open work next time.

I’m going to try and make another Nina doll before venturing out on my own design. There were a few things I’d like to try again, and see if I can improve the results.

This is Nina!

The B on her heart is for a special little girl who is going to get Nina as a gift. As soon as I make her some clothes!

I’d like to design my own dolls, so this is good practice. I think I should make one more for good measure. The design for her is pretty simple. She’s a great size too. I’ve posed her on the mac so you can see…

Shockingly, it was not until I started sewing that I noticed the eyes I copied from the pattern were lopsided. So I had to adjust them. I thought it was my error in tracing, but IN FACT the pattern is not symmetrical. I’m not sure if this is some wabi-sabi thing done on purpose, but it is clearly not symmetrical. Weird!