it's not warm but it looks pretty

I've been really into creating little mini quilts lately.  I have all these ideas for future quilts floating around in my mind.  There is so much inspiration out there for these.  I like that they are small (much more manageable that a bed quilt), I love how they look up on the wall, and I like how detailed you can get with them.  I've only made a couple but I see many more in my future.

This is the little quilt I made this week and it's actually for us.  I didn't think much about it in advance - it just came together.  I did actually have an image of it in my mind before I started but it's completely different...the one I was envisioning didn't even have a bird on it!  One of my favorite parts about making art quilts is knowing that when I get interrupted while creating one, it changes the final product.  Here are some close ups:

warm feet

I just finished up this pair of felted wool slippers and boy, are they fantastic.  Warm, soft, quiet, cozy and a perfect fit.  The pattern is from French Press Knits and is fairly simple.  I have to say, these were not my favorite thing to make.  I didn't enjoy using the big metal needles - clink, clank, clink, clank.  Nor did I like how you really had to keep track of which row you were on.  It made it so I actually had to pay attention rather than just zoning out.  Luckily, it was a fairly quick knit because it wasn't quite as relaxing for me as knitting typically is.


Here is what they looked like before felting.  It's not obvious in the photo, but they were HUGE!  It was hard to believe that they would actually get small enough to fit my feet - though, it did take 4 runs through the top loader washer before they got to the right size.

And here they are keeping my feet cozy warm.  The pattern calls for buttons on the sides but since I didn't have any and didn't want to go to the store, I decided to use felted wool pieces. 

the year to come

The past few months, Rowan has really been into counting days and months.  She loves to talk about what day it is, what month her birthday is in, when Charlie will be one, how many days there are until Saturday, what months are winter months, and so on.  It is so fun watching her learn about the days of the week, counting to 20 (and beyond) and discovering the seasons.  So, this Christmas, I decided to make her a calendar to help her further explore numbers, days of the weeks, seasons, and months.

The calendar is made of wool felt, fabric scraps, buttons, and velcro.  The construction was fairly simple though it did take a bit of time to get it all together.  In fact, I still have some work to do.  The snowflakes will get replaced with hearts in February and an umbrella in March.  The rest of the months have yet to be made.  The decorative panel is attached to the body of the calendar by buttons.  The number squares are made of wool felt (I just wrote on top with a fabric marker for the letters & numbers) and the days of the week are embroidered.  If I had had the time and energy, perhaps I would have embroidered the numbers and month names.  But, honestly, I thought that was going a bit too far especially when I am not skilled at embroidery. 

Together we invite the year to come.  So far, she loves putting her new number up every day.  It's the first thing she does in the morning...and it seems to start the day off right!