Forest Animals (A non-mobile mobile)

More baby presents! When you're in your thirties it's pretty much non-stop baby season.

Next month my friends Megan & Trevor will become parents for the first time to a baby boy. I first thought that I'd make them a mobile, but I wanted to do a forest theme and I had already created that in a mobile in various ways (Forest Friends, Festive Forest, Mushroom Mobile), so I decided to interpret it as a wall hanging instead. 

This approach allowed me to be creative and not feel like I was making the same thing twice.
Most of the piece is handsewn flat felt, stuffed with wool for a little dimension. The animal tails, bird eggs and owl body are needle-felted directly to the blue felt background. The whole piece is framed in a purchased bamboo frame without the glass.

You can see that I adapted my raccoon pattern to be a bit more two-dimensional.

In general this piece came out how I imagined, though I thought I'd get more animals into the scene. Alas, I ran out of time. So while I think it's generally well-composed, it does feel a bit "empty" to me. On the plus side, it is for a baby, so I think he'll enjoy looking at the shapes and colors regardless.

I gifted this to Megan at her baby shower last week, and the invite requested that in lieu of cards the guests bring children's books. So I paired this with the book Forest Bright, Forest Night.

Share the Love: Canine Companions for Independence

Last week my company held our fourth annual "share the love" party/fundraiser. This year it was to benefit the Canine Companions for Independence. We had a great turnout - which included 7 dogs!

CCI raises and trains dogs to provide a variety of services (pretty much everything except seeing-eye dogs). Check out their website for lots of information and ways to get involved. At the party we had puppy raisers and program graduates (the people who get the dogs after they are trained). One dog helped assist a man in a wheelchair, another assisted a deaf woman, and a third worked with young children in a school. Seeing the dogs and hearing the stories had me considering raising a puppy!

My colleague Mike and I

We had all sorts of decorations to represent both valentines day and the organization. My personal contribution this year was to needle-felt three dogs.

Since CCI uses labradors, it made my life a little easier. The first animal I ever needlefelted was the brown dog above, so at least I already had one done. I did change his eyes to black beads since I think the beads give them a little more "life". The other two dogs came together very quickly since I didn't give them moveable limbs.

My favorite is the yellow lab below - patiently sitting and awaiting instruction.

This dog was the most like the CCI program graduates. All seven dogs just sat so patiently at the party.

I also love the little black puppy, but it's just impossible for me to photograph it well and show off any detail. In real life, it does indeed have detail, and very much looks like an eager puppy.

For scale: about 2" high

Fluffy Bunny Mobile

My cousin Brendan and his wife Katrina just welcomed a baby girl into the world; Riley joins her big brother Coen (and Captain Cat)!

When Coen was born I welcomed him with a needle-felted Fish Mobile, so for Riley I decided to make a similar size mobile of the same material (can't play favorites) but to move away from the sea and into the garden.

Three little frolicking bunnies...

One is lolling on it's back staring longingly at those carrots.

Another is rubbing his paws together scheming on how to get those carrots into his belly.

 And the third is going for a run, completely oblivious to the carrots above.

 For a little extra interest I added hearts to the back, bum and soles of the rabbits. 

Lots of love to you, Riley!

Craft Weekend

Last weekend I spent three lovely days at my sister Susanna's house participating in a "craft weekend". She extended her dining room table to it's full length, plopped down a few trash baskets and opened her doors.

Alyssa and Amy needle-felting and beading

 
Over Friday - Sunday various friends and family members dropped by to work on craft projects - some came prepared with something in mind and others showed up looking for a new creative outlet.

Adrianne, Savannah and Nessie even brought a "food craft" and set up in the kitchen to make Lumpia (similar to eggrolls).

Aidan kept all the ladies company, including being a great babysitter to 3-week old baby girl.

Aidan multi-tasking: holding a baby and playing the Xbox

Mom and I were working on making presents for other people so I can't post them on the blog yet.

Following are some items made by others!

  

Amy made two needle-felted flowers to pin on scarves and hats.

 

Susanna needle-felted bird ornaments to sell this Christmas (the photos don't do them justice since I only had my camera phone). She used Laurie & Kevin Sharp's latest book for reference.

 

Susanna also picked up this awesome Halloween craft magazine that I snapped a few photos of below (can't remember the name of the magazine). I don't decorate or craft for Halloween, but I thought some of these ideas were excellent inspiration for other projects.

I might carve my pumpkin like this...

Man in the Moon Pizza!

Pumpkin cookies

Barbapapa Mobile

Do you know the Barbapapa Family?

It's a French cartoon family, where each member changes shape to become whatever is needed in the situation. They are a peaceful and friendly family of seven; colorful and blob-like. My toddler friend, Lilly, introduced me to the cartoon dubbed in German (her mother's native language). Since Lilly just became a big sister, I made a Barbapapa mobile to introduce baby Dylan to his sister's obsession.

Imagine, if you will, that five members of the family decide to take flight among the clouds, becoming a balloon, airplane, bird, kite and butterfly.

Barbabright, the high-flying kite

Barbapapa, the big Balloon

Barbazoo the Bird and Barbalala the Butterfly

Barbabelle, the Aeroplane

Fluffy felt clouds under the rainbow ribbon

Each of the Barbapapas is needle felted from wool roving, while the clouds are handsewn flat felt around a ring.

Handmade Christmas: Moose Head

My brother-in-law is a very hard person to get a gift for. He has what he wants, and he doesn't want much. However, he didn't have a miniature moose head. He does now.

For scale, the wooden plaque is about 4" high. The rest is all wool roving; there are pipe cleaners in the antlers to give them some stability and the eyes are black beads.

In case this seems like a random gift, here's a little background context:
 

This is about 1/10 of his collection, so as you can imagine, the moose head fits right in.

Meoww... grrr... Meow

While we work on painting the house, poor Roople has been relegated to the basement and yard. The paint is almost dry, so in no time at all he'll be back roaming the house and tearing things up.
 

Needle-felted Roople in Maneki Neko form.

Roople probably doesn't mind the basement too much, as he only has two objectives in life: to annoy me, and to eat. Since his food is in the basement, he really only misses out on annoying me.

Game Time!

A few months ago Sara commissioned me to make a baby mobile for her college roommate, Missy, who recently gave birth to a baby girl. She didn't put any parameters on the theme of the mobile and let me do whatever I wanted. As Missy is very into basketball (player and coach) I decided to combine the age-old barnyard animal theme with a basketball theme.



Since it was a gift from Sara, I also wanted to include an element that spoke to Sara's style, hence the colored converse. Sara is a big fan of the ol' chucks (even wearing a pair for her wedding). I found a pattern for converse on a cake decorating website, adapted it and scaled it down until they fit my animals. They are cut, sewn and fabric-glued out of flat felt.


Instead of crocheting this mobile, as I did here, here, here, here, and here, I decided to make another needle-felted one. I added a little bit of crochet in the net, just for ol' times sake.



The center basketball is also needle-felted, and the black lines are embroidery thread, soaked in clear glue and then carefully laid on the orange ball. This was the hardest part - if any glue got on the ball, it left a mark that looked horrible. I had to do this a couple of times before it looked okay.



All of the animals, ball, and hoop are suspended with white ribbon. This is a new approach for me, as I've always used yarn in the past. I liked the look of it, so I think I'll use this for future projects as well.


Missy is a particular fan of Duke basketball, so I added a little Duke blue in the pennants around the hoop, and the "D" logo to the top of the mobile. Mike was a particular help on this mobile, as he offered great advice on how to apply the finishing blue touches.

Congratulations Missy - game on!