December Special Orders

Man oh man, do I have a lot to tell you! I'm a little miffed that my archives will only show 2 posts for December 2009 when that was my busiest making month yet. I'm tempted to fix the posting dates of these next few posts to put them where they belong, but that feels a little like cheating since it's taken me so long to post them. Maybe I'll do it retroactively when I'm not concerned about this post coming up on RSS feeds. Sneaky, huh? :o) [edit: done and done]

Anyway, on to the old news. In December, I had several special orders to complete. The first was a commission from the professor who asked me to participate in the North Shore Bazaar. She gave each of her kids a little stuffed animal mouse for Christmas. (They're big fans of Stuart Little.) She was making all sorts of accessories for the little mice, and she wanted me to make little felted teddy bears. So I felted two teddy bears, each 2 1/2 inches tall by 1 1/2 inches wide. I gave them each a little heart because I couldn't resist adding a little color. I realized when I finally finished them and brought them into work that I had forgotten to take a picture for you. So I took one with my phone. But I don't know how to get pictures from my phone to my

computer, so I took a picture of the picture on my phone.

It's probably good that this picture is a terrible quality because the bears came out a little on the scary-looking side. I'm not very good at felting eyes (and it probably doesn't help that the one on the right's eyes are yellow). There are just too many little detailed steps that annoy me. (Aside: it's difficult to get two things looking exactly the same when you're sculpting them out of fiber with a needle. I found this to be true for the eyes, the ears, the arms, and the legs, and I decided that I really don't enjoy felting as much as I feel like I should. I like making big shapes, but when it comes to things like faces and getting two legs to match, I'm just not a fan. End aside.) But after much hard work and questions to Jason like, "What kind of animal does this look like?" and "Will those eyes freak out the children?" I finally got the bears into respectable shape. And my client said they were perfect and paid me for them, so all is well.

My second special order came from the Christmas bazaar at the seminary. A friend of mine (Rachel) was trying to pick out an acorn ornament and didn't know what colors to choose. So I told her I could make her a red and green one. I made her a perfect little ornament from my grouped acorns, and I brought it to church, and somehow between the truck and the church, I stepped on it. Poor little acorn caps did not survive. So I went home and tried again. And in the process of felting or gluing or tying on ribbons, I somehow managed to break apart every single little acorn cap pairing that I had. Humph. So I specially designed this little number for Rachel:

This one is more durable than the grouped acorn ornaments, and there are more options for ways to display them, so I'm happy with how it turned out. I still haven't delivered it to her (which is ridiculous considering that we live in the same building), and she's probably already packed away all of her Christmas decorations. Sigh.

My third special order also came at the Christmas bazaar. One of the other vendors at the show (Amanda) saw my apron straps on my table from afar and asked it I could make headbands that looked like that. I told her that I never had but that I was sure I could figure it out. She sent me fabric that matched a dress she would be wearing on a Caribbean Christmas cruise, and I turned the fabric into headbands. I used the headscarf pattern from Weekend Sewing--which is a fabulous book, by the way--altering it slightly (of course) to be more headbandish. Here's how they turned out:

Pretty cute, huh? I think so. It's so hard to find a nicely fitting headband that doesn't give one a headache, but these work quite well. And I got to sew with elastic for the first time ever, so that was pretty exciting.

So...once I finished all of those little lovelies, I could finally get started on the handmade Christmas presents I've been so excited about. Luckily, Jason had 2 major papers to finish out his semester, so I had someone to stay up late with me while I worked into the wee hours of the morning making messes...and a few Christmas presents, too. More about those in my next post.

In the mean time, I thought I'd give you all a little update on the great jam giveaway. I have delivered 2 of my 5 strawberry jams! Woohoo! Only 3 to go, 2 of which also live in my building, so again, this shouldn't be too difficult. But for some reason it is. ::Facepalm:: My goal was to have these all delivered by Christmas. My new goal is before Valentine's Day. Wouldn't a little Valentine's Day Strawberry Jam make the world a better place? I think it would. Thankfully, the shelf-life of these little babies is pretty much forever. So never fear, giveaway winners. Your jam is still good, and I have not forgotten you.

So coming up we have:

1) Handmade Christmas Presents Galore

2) An announcement that all of the jam has been delivered

3) Some very exciting business announcements. Get pumped.

Grand things await us in the very near future.