How to make a hugging pillow

This Valentine's Day, I thought it would be fun to use up some of my softest felted sweaters on a pair of hugging pillows.

It would have taken maybe 4 hours tops including photography time if I hadn't gotten distracted by a pair of cats, but more on that later.

In addition to thread and a sewing machine you will need:

A set of nesting mixing bowls you are comfortable running a rotary cutter around
A rotary cutting mat and cutters
Scissors
Castoff cloth dinner napkins a little larger than the largest bowl, or other lining fabric
Stuffing
Soft felted wool sweaters, enough to provide at least four circles cut around the largest bowl
Yarn for blanket stitching the pillow covers over the pillow

First up, use the biggest bowl to cut out circles for the front and back of your stuffed pillow, plus the front and back of your pillow cover.  I found it easiest to cut up the sides of the sweaters so I'd get the flattest possible  fabric.  If you're layering a smaller circle over one or both of the covers, cut that with the next-smallest bowl.

(I did that because the super soft sweater I wanted to use for Side B features a delicate eyelet lace pattern not entirely lost in the felting.  Bit of a visual waste of the stripey underlayer but it wasn't really soft enough for a pillow on its own, and it does provide a lot of extra squish factor.  I put the wrong side up for nicely blurred stripes, a different sort of soft.)

Then cut out any embellishments, like a heart or a pocket.

You have to be opportunistic with felted wool sweaters. When I bought this orangey red cap-sleeved mock turtleneck sweater I couldn't figure out why anybody would design such a thing in superhot alpaca, but when I noticed how nicely the cap sleeves would work for pockets on my pillows, I gave that designer mental thanks and snipped them right off.

Doesn't it all look pretty when you stack it up?

This is where the cats come in.  While I pressed everything and stitched the embellishments down (layer by layer so as not to accidentally stitch your pocket down in the middle without thinking, as has happened to me but not, thankfully, this time) I plotted what I could possibly make to tuck into the pockets.  A small stuffed animal made sense, and what can I say? I like cats.  Probably should have gone for a long skinny shape to fit into the pocket better, but hey.

Yes, I embroidered the face with the sewing machine.  With regular stitch and backstitch, because it's a 1940s Singer without a single bell or whistle.

They are too big to fit into the pockets.  If you make a hugging pillow, you can learn from my mistake.

Back to the pillows. Stitch around most of the circle about as far in as you expect to do your blanket stitching later, leaving a gap big enough to push through stuffing,

 Then turn inside out, press if compulsive, and stuff:

 After that, it's all over but the blanket stitching.  I ended up using leftover sock yarn with a gradual colour change (Noro Silk Garden, if you're a knitter) to get a good match for the stripes on the pocket side.  And I stitched a little more than half of the circle before tucking in the pillow, to make it easier to get the sides to line up well.

I think all I need to make these a perfect gift is chocolate and a good book, don't you?

Hope your Valentine's Day has hugs in it!

Stealth crafting and other updates

Hello, I'm Mary!  You may remember me from such blog entries as Where Is The Nearest Chocolate? and No, I'm Still Not Writing.

I've actually been up to a lot of interesting stuff lately in addition to eating chocolate and not writing, including some successful crafty items I want to tell you about.  Unfortunately I've also been out sick or helping other sickies for a couple of weeks so none of the pictures made their way to the blog. Some teasers, while I sort through photographs for tutorial posts:

If you drop by here on any sort of regular basis you'll know where the materials for these projects came from, but I will admit I'd be entertained by guesses in comment form.

In other news...

My desk, which was beautiful and tidy on January 1, is disorganized again, the sorting baskets full of odds and ends that are cascading down.

I have a mix for chocolate brownies in the pantry, purchased after I tasted some baked from said mix at a friend's house.  It's for emergencies, and since I seem to be out of chocolate again today might be one.

I can breathe again following 4 days of a killer cold.

I have new knit socks to wear out to an Important Meeting today.

I have the kind of life where I can get away with wearing outfits involving handknit socks to Important Meetings.

There is another stealth craft underway that I'm especially excited about.

It looks like I'm going to be able to swing by my favourite gourmet shop today for my super most favourite chicken pies, of which I ran out about a month ago.

It just snowed enough to cast a clean blanket over the stuff that's been stomped over by any number of living things of all ages, and pee'd upon by what appears to be roving packs of neighbourhood dogs - seriously, there's nothing like snow to tell you when the dog population is going up in your area - and now the sun is shining, so it's pretty out.

and:

I have the fixings for a super fabulous grilled cheese sandwich for lunch.

It's going to be a  great weekend.

How 'bout for you?

How to make felted wool pins

I've been making so many of these pins this week, I thought I'd better take some photographs and do a tutorial... even though they are so easy, really, as to not need much instruction.

You will need:

Two felted shapes (in this case hearts) that are cut exactly the same

A darning needle and length of yarn that's even longer than you think you're going to need

A backing pin.

Run the darning needle through the wrong side (which will become the inside) of the shape you'll be using for the back, at the point where you want the pin to sit.

Don't make a knot at the end or pull the yarn all the way through - if you leave a tiny tail, you'll be able to secure it and the pin at the same time.

Now start sewing on the pin on the right side (aka outside), catching the original run of yarn as you tighten each stitch so it's held in place.

Once the pin is on, bring the yarn back to the wrong side (inside) and catch just enough of the fabric to run the yarn to the edge of the shape without anything showing on the right side (outside.)

Position the front piece with its right side facing away from the back piece, perfectly placed to match every curve, and begin a border of blanket stitch (instructions here, compliments of the awesome Stitch School.)

... and that's about it.

You may find they're rather addictive.

This isn't the only thing I've been up to with my felted wool hearts, but that's a tutorial for another day!

Colour love

I had a surprising call this morning asking, would I be home for a delivery of flowers?

For flowers? Absolutely.

Aren't they gorgeous? They are from my cousin, a little celebration for making it through an uppy downy week. And such perfect timing, because they arrived while I was sitting down with a bowl of felted wool hearts and bucket of enthusiasm for blanket stitching them. In fact, just moments before I had cut a length of orange wool/silk blend to work on a navy houndstooth one.

So matchy, in that love it! kind of way.

Even better timing - we're due for a big snowfall tonight and tomorrow, so big I've heard talk of school closures.

I'm having visions of the deep snows of past winters that feature staying home to dig out the driveway and overly optimistic drivers, then coming in to thaw out over a steaming cup of hot chocolate. All in midweek - totally stolen time - with lots of blanket-stitched hearts for company and lovely flowers to scent the room and rest my eyes after acres of brilliant white snow.

hope hope hope...

A skirt from just one sweater

Check out this 'After' shot!

I've been wearing my original felted wool skirt so much, I decided I needed another. I found this sweater at the local thrift store:

It's your basic merino wool turtleneck, in size XL. Even felted, it was still super long, which is where I got the idea to make a whole skirt from this and nothing else.

First, I cut the sweater across the back and chest, at the armpits. It fit my hips all right, and it would have made a great miniskirt as it was, but I wanted to go as close to knee length as I could. So I cut a piece as wide as the front would allow...

...and then across the base of the turtleneck with my pinking shears, since I wasn't going to have the nice tailored hem I got last time. I did the same with the back, matching the length of what I got from the front.

Sewing those two pieces together wasn't going to give me enough coverage, so I cut open the sleeves and got two more, much narrower, pieces of the same length from each of them.

I made a long strip of those pieces, the pinked edges all on one end, and then I sewed them into a tube. Pinning right side to right side, I fit that wide frill onto the raw edge of the sweater's body and improvised pleats as I'd done with the original skirt. Only this time I had so much fabric I had to put pleats right across the back after making the little kick pleat I like on the right of center in front.

Once I'd sewn the frill in place and rather sloppily topstitched the seam from above (I tried it just below the seam first, but the pleats were too much for my machine) I took a look for moth holes.

Yep, front and center - the last place you want to put any sort of applique. So I improvised this geometric design to draw the eye over to the side. The hole is at the top left edge of it.

It still needs work. I've been eying the sleeve cuff for a possible pocket, and if you thought it looked a little wide in that top shot you weren't wrong - even though felted wool tends not to slip down over leggings, this baby could stand to be taken in a lot at the waist. But when I pressed the pleats under a wet cloth they looked downright professional, and at this length, it's so warm.

Plus, it matches the handspun cuff of my boot socks! Gotta love that.

Instant cowl

This winter, which has my house more full of freezingness than I remember in previous years, I finally get the point of a cowl. And now I have one:

Here's how it started, as a partially-felted Banana Republic sweater (90% merino, 10% cashmere, and boy can you feel that 10%):

I cut off the body just below the arms, not even very neatly:

and then I turned it wrong side out, folded the cuff up, and folded the cut edge down far enough to tuck into the cuff.

This sweater felted down to 34" around, with 11" from cuff to armholes; folded, it's about 4" deep.

I'll try this approach again with a sweater that felts narrower, because I think this one's gap is about as big as I'd want. In a floppier wool I'd only fold it once or maybe not at all, and blanket stitch the raw edge since it would show. This sweater was heavy even before it felted and doesn't drape enough to be tall for indoor use. (outdoor, folded into a coat, definitely.)

Even at this size though it's still deep enough to tuck my chin into and go all Veronica Lake-y,

so between that and the cashmere I'm happy!

Vehicles for blanket stitch

I find embroidery enticing but difficult, which doubtless feeds my supreme love for blanket stitch. I can do blanket stitch. And it's so. peaceful.

As a result I am always open to projects that can use a little blanket stitch in the finish. So while looking for stress relief last weekend I cut out some circles.

I used my rotary cutter and a bowl with a stainless steel rim for the job. It went really well and made me wonder why I hadn't used my rotary cutter before.

Seriously: last winter I became obsessed with putting together every possible tool for working with felted wool or needle felting fiber, and even after scoring the bigger pieces like that mat in some sale or other, I just kept sitting down with scissors to cut freehand. Rotary cutters are just very sharp and scary-looking.

In the event though, the cutter gave me much better edges for showing off future blanket stitchings, so I guess I can live with it.

This reminded me of another tool I bought in that particular frenzy and never used:

Must think about making a felted wool skirt with a pretty scalloped edge some time.

The circles are destined to be doubled up and used for tea trivets, or I guess pads for any hot bowl or pot that could damage another surface. I'll embellish them in some way since that will give me an excuse to cut out more felted wool with my scissors.

To give you an idea of what I mean, here are some rejects I started last year:

I didn't finish them in trivet form because the circles came out so bumpy. Perhaps they will be happier if I re-trim them with the rotary cutter? Or perhaps they will find themselves some other use.

Meanwhile, my basket of blanket-stitchable things is full again

and I am very happy.