I can’t believe it’s not broken!

Sewing machines and I have a long-standing feud.  I try to sew stuff, they break down almost immediately.  Usually it can be solved by the more knowledgeable owner but on at least one occasion I actually rendered the machine unusable.  Friends in the know have suggested that part of the issue is that pretty much all the machines I’ve used have been thrifted 70s and 80s ones.  While older machines, with their greater proportion of long-lasting metal parts, can be fantastic for a knowledgeable seamstress who has a good relationship with her local repair shop, they’re not great for a novice who has no information to troubleshoot with. 

Recently, though, I found out that my cousin owns a new-ish machine, one that had been in storage and that she was willing to lend me on condition that I learn the mysteries of its working and then share the knowledge.  And having taken a class at The Makehouse – a local organization that not only offers crafting workshops but also space and machines that folks can pay an hourly drop-in rate to use – I was high on craft fumes and totally primed to SEW ALL THE THINGS.

So check this out: I sewed a thing!

I started with the lined dice bag tutorial from Tally’s Treasury.  Since I specifically wanted a second sock-project-sized bag, I grabbed an already-wound cake of yarn and looked through my cupboards to find a round bowl about the right size.  I traced the bowl to make the bases, then measured its circumference to know how long to make the sides.

I added a special touch inspired by the project bag I bought from Emma of Emma Knits (formerly the dyer behind Everything Old – side note, you should totally check out her awesome new podcast, which focuses on fibrecrafts but touches on sewing and fashion as well).  One of my favourite things about that bag is its interior pockets – for spare stitch markers, my cellphone, notes on the stitch pattern I’m working, etc.  So I cut a piece of the material I used for the outside, as long as the sides and about 1/3 the height, hemmed it on one side, and sewed it to the inside piece with several vertical seams (I did pin one specifically so it would fit my phone, the rest I placed randomly) before putting the lining together. 

And the whole time, I didn’t destroy the machine, not even once!  I feel so buoyed by this success I am just itching to get started on the many half-finished or barely-started sewing projects I came across while deciding what fabric to use for this one.  Hope they all turn out this well!

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Hi Tumblr!

So I noticed a lot of folks coming in from my sister Insoulated’s Tumblr and I just wanted to give y’all a shout out and make a quick post about the Angel-Banishing Sigil I made for her to give Misha Collins in Rome (OH. EM. GEE.).  Check it out!

This is the third sigil I’ve felted.  The first was for my sister on her last birthday; the second was for the Desert Bus craft-along (have you seen my button up there at the top right?).  I learned a lot along the way – originally, I had needle-felted the base as well as the sigil from loose wool fibre.  For Desert Bus, I used a fine felting needle to needle-felt laceweight wool yarn (100% merino; not washable/superwash) onto some super-fancy, handmade wool felt that the local yarn store imports from the Netherlands, which allowed me to make the button flatter and more evenly round.  After Desert Bus, my friend Tally of Tally’s Treasury put up a tutorial for making banana birds and I realised that blanket stitching was perfect for a piece like this – why didn’t I think of it before?  The final product, with more of the same wool yarn for the edge stitching, is what you see above, a pin-backed Angel Banishing Sigil that you can take with you everywhere you go!

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This ain’t spinning!

Well, maybe there’s a little, but the first project I have to report on is a sewing project!

That right there is a duvet cover!  We received a couple of sheet sets for Christmas, and since we don’t use a top sheet, I thought it would be great to use them to make a coordinating cover.  I sewed it all by hand and it was an epic undertaking!  So much so that I didn’t have the heart to iron it (hence the close-up and no shot of it on the bed – actually, I don’t believe in ironing bedding unless it’s on display in a shop window!  But the sheets are so pretty I think it would almost be worth it…in a few weeks…).  I am starting to enjoy sewing more and more, and it’s great to be able to make things for the household.  As soon as I finish my monthly spinning goals, I have designs on sewing another dress from my Gracefaery pattern set!

Edit: I’ve noticed a number of folks arriving here after searching for how to make a duvet cover from sheets.  How did I do it?  I pinned 2 double flat sheets with wrong sides together, sewed a straight seam around 3 sides and a little ways around the bottom corners, and turned it right side out.  It fits my queen duvet pretty well, although it’s slightly narrower than a storebought queen duvet cover.  Yes, it was that simple! 

Speaking of the monthly spinning goals, here’s where “My Preciousss” stood as of yesterday.

It’s looking gorgeous, just taking a bit longer than I hoped.  I’ve spun up all 2.5 oz for this month, but I still have a lot of plying to do and only 4 days to do it in…!

I’ve also finished J’s wedding socks, and I think they look fantastic!  I’m anxious to find out if they fit, though – it’s my first time knitting socks for someone I couldn’t try them on as I went, and he & my sister have been busy honeymooning and then loving on their new kitten…ah, wedded bliss!

Incidentally, I wore a second pair of socks to take this photo – it just seemed wrong to put bare feet in someone else’s socks, but I hate how socks look without feet in them!

And finally, I took on a big project yesterday – tidying up my knitting basket that lives in the living room!  Check it out!

Current WIP, project bag, design notebook, I even went through all my notions canisters and organized them.  My favourite is this little box which contains my fancy stitch markers:

I had help, though – while I was going through my knitting basket, winding up little ends of yarn and piling up ball bands and scraps of paper to be recycled, Killira was leaning out of the cat tree trying to play with the yarn…or, since it was out of reach, my hair!

Yeah, she looks innocent, doesn’t she?  But we know better!

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Fluffy!

One of the best things about spending my workday catering to a toddler’s wishes is that I get to spend an inordinate amount of time just sitting at the window, looking at things.  Birds are a big hit – there’s a seagull who hangs out on a streetlight out front, and we often watch crows flying by.  And then when it snowed, I noticed the flock of robins that seem to visit the back yard quite regularly.  This is maybe half the group; it seems to be about 15-20 birds that visit the little ash tree daily.

Sadly, these fat, sassy birds are very shy and every time I tried to actually get outside and photograph them, they flew away.  In fact, as I took these photos from behind the glass, there were a few times when I felt they flew away because they noticed me looking away from my viewscreen and right at them.  Well, I do have eyes on the front of my head like a predator, so I suppose I can’t entirely blame them.

These guys aren’t even the fattest ones, but Big Fatty Robin was the most skittish, so you’ll just have to take my word that ze’s out there, looking rather as though a normal robin had put on a big fluff suit.  Kind of like this sweetie that somebody else photographed.

Speaking of fluffy, wonderful things, here’s another bit of fibrey goodness I just brought home.

That right there is a gorgeous braid of Blue-Faced Leicester/Silk top from, yes, my recent favourite, Everything Old!  It’s also proof that I am going to learn to spin!  Because I can’t let something that pretty sit in a drawer forever!

I’ll be learning to spindle spin, as I mentioned when I bought my starter spindles, partly because of the space issue, partly because I can buy a lot of drop spindles and fibre to spin them on for the price of even an inexpensive second-hand wheel, and partly (maybe the largest part) because I see drop spindling as a connection to a long line of fibre crafters stretching back through song and folktale into the dim mists of history.  In particular, my mother sings one Quebecois French Canadian turlute (a kind of folksong with mouth-music refrains, often sung at breakneck tongue-twister speeds) collected in Saskatchewan, featuring a woman with a distaff:

Dans mon chemin, j’ai fait rencontre d’une vieille… turlututu
D’une vieille… turluron, turlurette
D’une vieille… turluron, turluré
D’une vieille… rare beauté.

Je lui ai dit, ma bonne vielle, voudrais-tu faire… turlututu
Voudrais-tu faire… turluron, turlurette
Voudrais-tu faire… turluron, turluré
Voudrais-tu… m’embrasser ?

La bonne vieille avec sa quenouillette, a voulu faire… turlututu
A voulu faire… turluron, turlurette
A voulu faire… turluron, turluré
A voulu me… frapper.

C’est les jeunes filles de notre village, ils ont des beaux…turlututu
Ils ont des beaux… turluron, turlurette
Ils ont des beaux… turluron, turluré
Ils ont des beaux…jupons picquets!

C’est les garçons de notre village, ils ont des beaux…turlututu
Ils ont des beaux… turluron, turlurette
Ils ont des beaux… turluron, turluré
Ils ont des beaux… caleçons barrés!

Which is to say:

In my street I met an old…
an old…
an old…rare beauty!

I said to her, “my dear, would you like to…?
would you…
would you like to…give me a kiss?”

The old woman with her distaff wanted to…
wanted to…
wanted to…beat me!

“It’s the young girls in our town, they have the pretty…
They have the pretty…
They have the pretty…lace petticoats!

And it’s the young men in our town, they have the handsome…
They have the handsome…
They have the handsome…striped undershirts!”

(Apologies if my translation is inaccurate…I think it’s close enough to convey the idea, but French 12 was a long time ago now)

I want to be a sassy spindle-wielding Woman Of A Certain Age, and beat men who get fresh with me with my fibre transportation system!  Plus, the word quenouillette is just so fun to say!  And so I snuggle my fluffy fibre and pet my pretty spindles and plan to register for a drop-spindling class early next week!

 

edited to add and correct a few points after singing this through with my mother and getting lightly schooled

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Desert Bus for Hope

You might have noticed the shiny new button up in the right-hand corner there, the one that says Desert Bus Crafter, and you might be wondering what that’s about.  Well, Desert Bus for Hope is a charity gaming marathon, where a team of awesome people formed around the folks from Loading Ready Run play the world’s most boring videogame (Desert Bus, a real-time cross-country coach-driving experience) for as long as the money (ultimately donated to Child’s Play) keeps rolling in.  As the drivers try to stay awake during their 24-hour shifts at the wheel, everybody else participates in live chat, wacky challenges, auctions, and giveaways – with perhaps a few celebrity cameos and call-ins as well!  If you’re a geek and/or you like to support charity and/or you like to see people engage in ridiculousness for a good cause, you have to check them out, starting tomorrow (as I write this, the countdown is at 20 hours and change) and continuing for at least 94 hours…more as new donations come in!

Some of the auctions and giveaways are sponsored corporately.  There’s some amazing-looking stuff from Wizards of the Coast if you like Magic: The Gathering or D&D.  There are video game sets, including some that have been signed by Big Names or are phenomenally hard to find.  But in my opinion the coolest stuff that comes out of Desert Bus is the craft-along!  For months now, crafters around the world have been working on geeky videogame- and fandom-related projects large and small.  Some will be auctioned off, others will be given away.  A crochet Dalek!  A skirt with tetris blocks on it!  A gorgeous glass plate with the Minecraft Creeper on it (best snack server ever)!  TWO THREE COOKING MAMA APRONS OMG!  IT’S OKAY, MAMA WILL HELP YOU SUPPORT CHARITY!

And, well, there’s this:

That right there is the slightly more finessed sibling of the Angel-Banishing Sigil I made for my sister’s birthday.  I bought pre-made felt for the button itself, then needle-felted the sigil on with yarn again.  This one has a proper pin back and everything, not just a safety pin sewn on with silk yarn!  And it was photographed by someone with a modicum of skill!

I’m really happy to be even such a small part of this epic charity event.  I know I’ll be tuning in to support the Desert Bus folks, and I hope you will too!

P.S.
I was just looking at it on their site thinking about the grey backing (I wanted black but it was out of stock) and I had this awful facepalm moment where I realised I could have done both layers in the same red as the front.  Oh well, live and learn…

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Happy Halloween

By the time this post goes live I expect it will be November already, but as I start to write it, it’s still Halloween and I’m squeaking my costume post in under the wire.

This year felt a bit like Talloween, since both my costume and G’s were based around Tally’s tutorials from I Could Make That.  First off, my costume:

I used this tutorial on making a lined hood as a jumping-off point for a Little Red Riding Hood.  The cape I modelled off a raglan sweater I like the fit of…turns out that wasn’t absolutely the best choice as the trapezoid-on-a-rectangle-shaped sections that work so well in hand knitting make for strange corners in a woven fabric, so if I were to make another cape, I’d take the same measurements from a sweater that fits me well, but I’d smooth the pieces out into straight trapezoids.  Got it?  Well, I whipped up a schematic to help a bit.  I’m sure if you’re smart about sewing you already know this (maybe there are even better names for these shapes than the ones I’ve come up with!) but it was news to me.

The whole thing is lined, and it’s all sewn by hand.  I was working on it on the heels of my epic dolly dress, and if ever an experience made me want to own a (non-broken) sewing machine, it was 3 days of hand-sewing pleats and gathers in miniature followed immediately by 3 more days of sewing what felt like miles of straight seams.  Usually my fingers feel pretty tough, what with all the small-gauge knitting I do, but I sure was ruing my lack of thimble by the time I debuted this costume.

Cape shaping notwithstanding, the hood itself turned out great (thanks, Tally!) although following her pattern did make it fairly shallow, so if you want one with a little more depth I suggest adding maybe an inch along the front, especially if you are using a woven fabric, such as for example a red fitted sheet you picked up at the second hand store for $3, instead of t-shirt jersey material or other knits as in the original tutorial.  This is because the woven material tends to have a little more body/less drape, so my hood doesn’t quite have the same soft fall as Tally’s awesome tiger costume.

Speaking of $3, I made G’s costume for the same low price!  Well, not counting any of the stuff that came out of my stash…

What are you looking at?  Only the most dastardly serial killer of the panda persuasion!  The sad panda serial killer kills other pandas and then wears their skin for clothes.  He’s sad because he realizes it’s wrong but he knows he won’t stop until he’s caught.  Poor sad panda.  Someone should make a movie.  The sad panda mask was also made from a pattern of Tally’s, although I completely omitted her awesome heat-bond appliqué method.  I can tell you, though, that if you have the supplies on hand, her method would make certain parts of the process a lot easier.  For example, I get the impression that heat-bonded fleece would be able to stand up on its own in the ear department, unlike this faux-fur coat collar I picked up at the Sally Ann which is heavier and less stiff.  But the biggest thing is, you wouldn’t have to finish the eye holes.  I did my best with no-sew glue and ribbon, but by the end of my crafting I very much understood why the heat-bond technique would be a major advantage.

Incidentally, the panda is holding his weapon of choice there.  Yup, it’s a fondue fork.

Happy Halloween…now this salamander needs to crawl into a mud bed before she turns into a pumpkin!

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Fairytale Halloween

Monday was the local doll collectors’ group monthly meetup – with a Halloween theme!  We met at a restaurant, so I just brought Rada and didn’t get any good photos in the low light.  Today I got out into the glorious, almost unseasonably warm sun to immortalize this year’s costumes.

Suzuha is a jellyfish!  I riffed off a toy pattern for a Juvenile Sea Nettle to make a fun hat.

Rada is Snow White (you can tell by her needle-felted apple), and Posy is one of her dwarven friends.

Posy’s beard is also gently needle-felted onto her felt mask.  Yes, I like using new skills!

My hard work sewing definitely paid off, although if I were to make the pinafore again (for mini) I would cut the skirt parts a bit narrower so you could see the dress underneath a bit better.  But I think the overall effect is adorable!

Sadly, I didn’t have time to make costumes for anybody else this year.  Sewing those long pleats took a lot of time, and of course I’m working on my own costume as well, and hopefully I’ll have pictures of that by the weekend.  Next year I’m starting my Halloween prep in June…

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You get what you pay for

And so we meet again, Sewing, my old nemesis!  But be warned, this time you cannot prevent me from creating something beautiful from woven fabric, no matter how vilely you struggle!

A while ago I started to suspect that at least some of my sewing misadventures were due, not to my incompetence, but to the imperfection of the free patterns I was using (of course, no pattern can take the blame for my ability to break sewing machines just by looking at them).  For whatever reason, I don’t feel like this is a problem where knitting patterns are concerned – I’ve encountered a few disappointments that were barely worth the zero dollars I paid for them, to be sure, but I’ve known way more patterns that were actually excellent.  Maybe it’s because, especially since the Ravelry-, Etsy-, and Patternfish-supported boom in indie designers, a lot of people who design for yarn think of free patterns as a fantastic advertising tool that lets people try out your design skills and style of pattern writing before they shell out for your pay patterns.  Maybe it’s just because I understand how knitted fabric works in a way I don’t understand woven fabric, so I am both able to evaluate a free pattern before I start knitting it and nix any real stinkers, and also capable of adjusting it as I go if I think something’s not working.  Either way, it was a bit of a revelation to find that, yes, I may have been shooting myself in the foot by sticking only to free sewing patterns (at least for dolls – I think there are some great patterns and recipes out there for people clothes that don’t cost anything, like Tally’s recent tutorials on making a dress from a t-shirt and making a hood for a Halloween costume over at I Could Make That).

See, I had this great idea for a Halloween costume for Rada & Posy.  But it required a dress.  And yeah, I could knit a Box-Opening Day Dress in a suitable colour, but I did that last year!  And anyway, I really wanted more of a Mori Girl feel for this outfit, a feel which is supported by woven-fabric garments.  And I looked around at some of the free patterns I have bookmarked, and the best choice was something I’ve sewn before with so-so results.  So I started looking at pay patterns and ended up on the Gracefaery site.  I shelled out for Seasons For Seola, which is actually designed for the DollsTown Elf body, but comes much closer to the measurements of the DT 7year body than most garments designed for minis (I had been looking at Adams-Harris as well, but all the dresses that looked right were only available for slim mature minis and I knew they would be tough to adjust for my chunky immature girl).  Anyway, it took me two arduous days (torturous, even, when it came to sewing the pleats along the bottom, because, remember, I’m doing this all by hand) but I came up with this amazing piece of work.  Sure, it’s imperfect, but I am in no way embarrassed to show it, unlike many of my other sewing escapades.

Like I said, there are a few issues (mostly at least kind of hidden) because I did some of the adjustments by guesswork rather than by measurement.  If & when I sew up other patterns from the collection, I will definitely be pulling out my tape measure.  But so many things went really well – the way the neckline and sleeves were made in particular really awed me; they turned out so neat and tidy!

There’s at least one more piece coming (if you’re following along at home, this is the Spring pattern from the Seasons set, so I have a pinafore to make; I am also planning to make up an apron, and if I have time I may put together a petticoat as well) as well as one or more props, but even if I had to take her to the local Halloween meetup just as she is I’d be super proud of myself.  Have to get that fancy wig out and give the bangs a trim, though, because as cute as she is in this wig my vision for the costume includes cascading ringlets.  Ooh, I’m so excited!

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The Wicked Sweet Triathlon

Voting is over, the winners have been announced (no, I was not among them, not even close), and I’m finally at liberty to post what I’ve been crafting this month, that’s been taking all my energy!  I’m really proud of all the things I made, even though they obviously didn’t please the crowd as much as they pleased me (I was tied for about 34th place out of 37 or 38 different scores, with I think 54 entrants who completed all three challenges…yeah…congrats to everyone who made top 25 anyway!).  I foresee them making plenty of further appearances in my doll photography.

The Wicked Sweet Triathlon had three events.  The first, Risqué Business, was to make an outfit for a doll out of nothing but 2 pairs of women’s underwear.  I think this was the challenge in which my (lack of) photography skills hurt me the most – there were some entries where the garments looked less interestingly designed (okay, I’m biased) and less well-executed (and that’s a little more objective position) than mine that still got quite a few more votes, presumably in part because the photos were better.  I have improved a lot, even compared to looking back at my photography from Japan (2008-9), but under pressure I still have trouble.  But then that’s part of why I started this blog, to learn and grow.

My outfit was made from a couple of pairs of drapey hipster undies (hipster cut, not hipster type person) with light, nearly see-through material that I thought would drape really well on Suzuha.  Turns out even very light material gets a bit stiff on 1/6 scale bodies…but I think you can still get the flowy sort of style I was trying for.  The outfit was inspired by Mori Girl fashion, although the colours are very bright for a Mori outfit, which should strictly speaking be made up of neutrals, faded pastels, and low-saturation darker tones.  But I was working with what I had…unfortunately, Mori Girl Panties are not the sort of thing one can pick up on the cheap at Zellers, heh.

Originally, I was going to crochet a sun hat to go with this outfit, but it wasn’t working and it wasn’t working and I was running out of time…but crocheting flowers worked just dandy, hence the sakura-inspired headdress.

Every part of the outfit features some sort of braid.  This was sadly the best picture I had of the trousers…see what I mean by my photography being a major handicap?

The dress is designed to be worn with her wings, although I didn’t end up bringing them out for the photoshoot.  I am very into this kind of “racerback” style of dress right now – I have been wearing the one I own all summer!  Braided fabric is really interesting.  For this outfit I also learned how to do a four-strand braid, which was pretty interesting.

Then came part 2: Shadowcasters!  The challenge was to make a doll-scale light source and photograph it both in action generally and then with your doll casting a shadow using your light source’s light.  I wanted to make one of those shadow lamps that kids have, with aquariums and stuff on them…somehow a carousel seemed like the right thing for Rada.  I basically built a lantern out of vellum paper and cardstock to go around a dollar store emergency puck light, decorated it with some glitter glue, and dropped it on top of a couple of tea tins posing as a bedside table.  On the whole, I think it turned out awesome…but that’s just when I look at the photos, and not when I think about how much time I spent fighting with the damn lid, which is completely unsecured and loved to pop off just as I was about to snap a picture.  ARGH.

I had a tonne of fun setting up this photo shoot!  I got to bring out all of Rada’s toys (and there are getting to be a lot of them…!) and I set up the corner shelf which formerly supported our Christmas tree to look a little like a child’s bedroom.  I imagined that Rada was home sick with the ‘flu, and Vasya had bought Yukata!Bunny to make her feel better.  Rada, feeling a little less tired today, is introducing Yukata!Bunny to her other toys, but she’s still got the chills, which is why she’s wrapped up in a snuggly blanket (knit from SophiaRowan’s handspun that I won back in the days of the ResinCast podcast).

Later (and for the shadowcasting shot), she’s staying up past bedtime drawing by the light of her merry-go-round.

In these photos, you might also notice how upright Rada is able to get and stay…just want to give a shout out to the lovely Linzabeth, who recently sueded and wired my bratty baby (that’s her in the “wiring the legs” photo!  I feel famous!).  Rada now stands like a fucking rock and can hold some awesome poses…the only thing I didn’t anticipate is that since she’s been wired she’s a lot harder to dress, since I can’t bonelessly fold her arms in on themselves as I used to.  Who knew?  So happy with Linzabeth’s services, though, and she’s so sweet that she even fixed the chip in Rada’s eye makeup and fixed/improved my terrible blushing job (not that anyone but me will ever see it, regardless).

The third and final event of the triathlon was my favourite, both in terms of my own entry and in terms of what everyone came up with.  The challenge of The Doppelgänger was to create a “double” of your doll and photograph them together.  Any material.  Any craft.  If you are a member of DoA I highly recommend wandering over to the Anniversary subforum to have a look at the entries; they are amazing.

I actually set out to make an amigurumi doppelganger.  I was going to needle-felt ball joints along the lines of the plushies Tally makes, but I didn’t have time to consult her on how her joints work and as I started stuffing the limbs I realised that I’d been using too big a crochet hook for the yarn meaning that the fabric was gappy and showed the stuffing.  I’m also just not very good at stuffing things evenly, and what with the needle-felted balls and then the unevenly applied stuffing everything looked horribly lumpy and misshapen.  So I said “the heck with this!” tossed it in the bottom of my craft basket, and started on a totally new tack: needle felting the whole thing!  I made the joints with jewelry findings as I was finding that thread was just too flexible and let the limbs fall out of their joints a little.

I need you to know that I broke all two of my felting needles right at the end of the project, at a time when there was absolutely no way I could get to the store and pick up more before the deadline to submit photos.  You can imagine me sitting there with the 1.25cm broken-off point of one needle trying my hardest to get the doppelgänger’s hair attached to his head with pretty mediocre results…in the end, I got out to take photos and his hair started flying away and I had to stick it on with the sticky-tack I’d brought out to help Posy stand up!  But hair notwithstanding, I’m super proud of how he turned out.  My concept was that he’s a skinwalker type creature, hence the red-white outside that’s meant to be reminiscent of raw meat or anatomical drawings of musculature.  Here’s the photo I submitted for the contest, with text.  He actually does stand on his own if you get him balanced just right, but there was a tiny breeze the day I was taking pictures so I had to improvise with the landscape.

And if you want to see a larger version you can click through on the original photo here.

So that’s what I’ve been up to all August.  I had a lot of fun, but it’s been great to get back to my regular knitting projects as well.  My test knit of Ur-Bun is hopping along, and I’m hoping to be able to release the pattern sometime this month or next.  Also, isn’t it time for a Rhodion update?  My water lilies are now 8 repeats long (out of a total of 26 repeats of the main pattern, 13 for each side, and then the border).  Nearly a quarter of the way through!  And I’ve amazingly managed to complete two of those repeats THIS WEEKEND!

Doesn’t look like that much, does it? 8 repeats? This little crumpled thing?

But it’s going to be unbelievable when it’s done!

Phew.  Well that was an update and a half!  No more secret projects for a while; they’re too challenging to catch up on!

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Last-minute birthday gift

It was my sister’s birthday yesterday.

On Wednesday, I’d had a fabulous idea for a present.  I just got some basic needle-felting equipment last weekend – so far, I’ve used it to make mushroom decorations for my terrariums (which I will post about eventually, I promise).  I was trying to think if I could needle-felt something related to the fandom she, I, and another friend have been geeking out over hardcore lately: Supernatural.  Well.  I present for your enjoyment the one, the only Angel Banishing Badge!

This is an Enochian sigil that’s used several times in the last few seasons of the show.  It’s frequently rendered in blood, which is part of the reason I used the colours I did (also, I only bought five colours of roving to start with).  There’s a safety-pin sewn to the back so it can be pinned to clothing or a bag (next to her IDJIT and ASSBUTT pins, which also reference the show) or used as a tie clip.  Of course, I was sewing the pin on as she walked in the door for her party, so excuse me for not showcasing the back…I assure you, it’s totally professionally, carefully, perfectly sewn, no half-assedness at all!

I expect I have a lot to learn about needle-felted applique like this – I totally winged this project because I had so little time I didn’t want to go searching out tutorials – but I enjoyed it a lot and I think I will be making more like this.  Only, you know, next time I’ll sew the pin on the right way around.  :headdesk:

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