Playing With Stuffed Animal Design - Ribbit!

Curiosity got the best of me with this experiment!  I was wondering how/if it's possible to crochet a stuffed animal, stuff it with polyester filling and THEN full/felt it.  Fulling is the "technically correct" name for turning a crochet or knit wool project into a tightly woven "fabric".  You use 100% wool which has not been treated to keep it from felting and through a process of agitating the wool, using hot and cold water, soap, and some elbow grease, you can create a fabric out of your original crochet!  You use this felting process when making my Flopsy the bunny felted crochet pattern. 

So lessons learned...
1.  It's important to use a tight stitch so that the polyester filling doesn't poke through the crochet.  If the filling pokes through, you'll end up with a hold in your project...ugh...I had several small holes which I was able to patch by needle felting yarn fibers to the neighboring felt.  In my experience, using a tight stitch hasn't been necessary for felting since projects will shrink in the process.  This could also be solved by wrapping the fill in some fabric before stuffing...
2.  Remember that different stitches will shrink in different proportions when felting.  My frogs eyes ended up a different shape from the original design since they felted differently from how I expected them to.
3.  Sewing 100% wool felt onto a crocheted felted "form" is super fun!  I really enjoyed seeing personality develop in this frog as I worked on his features.  All those lessons learned and I had a fun gift made for my nephew who inspired me to try this!

Hope to play around more with these ideas in the not too distant future...

Felted Slippers = Toasty Toes

This year was a very handmade Christmas since hubby is in law school and our income is significantly in the negative.  My Mom's always looking for ways to stay warm since (like me) she's always cold!  So this year I decided to make her a pair of felted slippers.  I so wish I had known how to do this when our son was little!  Seemed like I could never find comfortable slippers with slip proof soles...any who...

I chose a felted slipper pattern by knotsewcute since I liked the ankle flap which could keep you extra toasty on cold days (and yes, they do have kid slipper patterns!).  As I was making them, I realized that Mom would probably need them to have a good sole and ideally one which could walk outside to let her dog out in the yard.  Thankfully, I recently came across this great waterproof and sew-able sole material on Etsy over at Shoeology.  It was use-able to hand sew but I'd recommend using it for machine sewing.  I only moderately felted the slippers as you can see because I wanted to make sure they didn't get too tight...who likes a pair of tight slippers? 

And, because I was enjoying my new book on embroidery  Doodle Stitching by Aimee Ray, I decided to embroider different peacock feathers on each foot.  Would I ever make these to sell?...uh...no way...they took forever!  But thought I'd pass on the resources in case any of you are interested in making some.  Happy crafting!

Striped Crochet Toddler Legwarmers

 Time for some winter cozies!  My friend Jenn asked me if I could make some striped legwarmers for her 3 girls.  I played around with the ideas in my head and came up with this pattern!  Legwarmers are a great first step for teaching little ones how to pull their own socks on.  My sweet pea is super proud that she can do it herself!  Think about it...no fumbling with the toes but you still have to use the hand-eye and gross motor coordination to get them on to your legs.  For sensory kids this pattern means you can make legwarmers in a texture that they like.  Yeah for coziness!

Hats, hats, and more hats!

I finally bought a "tree" to display all my hats for the Waldorf craft fair.  I made newborn sized "bug" hats, a toddler viking hat, and children's sized slouchy hats, bear hats, and cute pixie hats!  Yep, I've been working up a storm of hats the last few weeks!  Good thing I'm a multi-craft crafter or else I might end up with some repetitive injuries.  There is definitely a limit to what one can do with a one person craft business!

So hats were my surprise at the craft fair.  I sold a few, but not nearly as many as I made, or had hoped to sell. Guess it goes to show you never know what people will buy!  I thought they were a "safe" item to make since everyone needs winter hats and cute hats for kids aren't always easy to find. Still deciding if I'll list them on Etsy or will try to sell them through a local retailer.  I don't want to list too many items which are outside of my shop focus on special needs toys and products.  I've never approached a store owner about carrying my products so it might be a good opportunity to learn about that side of having a craft business.  Who knows?  I might really like it!  

Christmas Lights Abound

Do you remember those really big colored Christmas bulbs for the tree from when you were young?  Do they still exist somewhere?  I found a string with some small ones to use as my muse in designing these.  I confess that I'm a white light kind of girl.  My son begs each year for colored bulbs and I tell him each year that he'll have to wait until he's old enough for his own tree LOL!  However these...I LOVE!  After lots of fun and play with colors, styles, and size, here's what I came up with for a crocheted strand of Christmas lights for the Waldorf School craft fair.  I have 2 strands left now.  They have 5 bulbs each and the strands are 6 feet long.  They would look super cute decorating just about any room of the home for the holidays...or even your tree!

Basement Flood Adventure

Three boxes of our wedding china were totally destroyed but not one piece of china broke!

 Would you like some muddy water with your tea sir?  Yep, while I was trying to get the house back in order after the craft fair, the heavy rains discovered a clog in our sump pump line and we ended up with 34" of water in our basement.  What a mess!  Wet basements are somewhat expected in a 1920's farmhouse, but we had everything packed and elevated for up to 10ish inches of water, not 34!  Thankfully, we just lost some wooden puzzles and even the owner's hot water heater and oil furnace survived.  Oh...and our dehumidifier seems like it's toast...ouch... Crazy, huh?!  The air handler was entirely under water!  Super thankful for the wonderful plumber and his assistant who worked hard to find the plug and drain out the basement.  They even put in some extra time helping me get out the wet stuff since they knew my husband is barely home these days with law school exams the next two weeks. 

Here' the water line mark on the exterior entrance to the basement!

And...my husband and I must be bitten by the country bug because we still love this place even after all the crazy things we've had happen in the last few weeks (water heater died, pipe broke in the well house causing our own personal water fountain of sorts, water leaking from an overhead light fixture, then this flood)!  We are of course super thankful we are renting and feel very sorry for our poor property owners.  I think next time I want to live in the country in a newer house... or maybe just one that has had all these crazy old house problems renovated!  So, I do have some cute craft projects to share with you this week, but I had to show you this chaos first!

Craft fair: Lessons Learned

So...I survived...and my family did too!  I promise you, I really did take several pre-craft show photos of my creations, but when push came to shove, I just didn't have time to be a "law school widow" Mom, craft, and blog... arg...limited resources... the bane of humanity!  So my first craft show (vs. special needs conference or event) was an interesting experience and I thought I'd share it with those of you who are interested.  It was a good experience and I plan to do some more craft venues in the future.  But that being said, I have some lingering questions in my mind about how to better explain my designs and how to help others see the worth of homemade... 

Lesson #1:
Most people don't crochet.  So perhaps this should have been obvious since I don't have many friends who crochet, but I was surprised!  I took several samples of items I have patterned with me to the craft show.  And... in 9 hours of relating to people I talked to ONE person who crocheted.  So lesson learned...keep the patterns to online crochet communities! 

Lesson #2:
Don't spend lots of time making one thing you think people with love but don't have real world experience to back it up.  I made several items just for this craft show and was surprised they didn't sell.  People commented, appreciated, and complimented but they didn't purchase them.  Not a huge deal since I am sure they will sell and I have other venues to sell them but it was still surprising what I thought would sell big...

Lesson #3:
As a handmade artist, I need to find a way to communicate my creation costs in time and resources to buyers.  Since I was selling at a Waldorf function, I probably had an audience which was significantly more friendly to handmade than most.  Even still, I did have a few people comment on my "high" prices.  Unfortunately, when all is said and done, I pay myself close to minimum wage.  I am a legit business so I pay sales tax, I pay self-employment taxes, and I buy most of my materials locally.  I did raise my prices recently in light of the fact that I am now crafting in order to help financially support our family in this season of my husband attending law school.  I priced items for this craft fair with the question, "what do I need to make on this item in order to make it again and not resent what I earned for the item?"  While I sold fewer items at this fair than I had hoped, I felt good about my prices and would price them the same in the future.

Lesson #4:
People like to hear the story behind the product.  It wasn't until the end of the craft fair that I realized this.  In the future, I guess I should share the stories more.  Every item I create has a story and in my opinion, several of them are quite fascinating since the design process was usually inspired by meeting the needs of kids with special needs.  This is a challenge though for me and I'm sure other artists who lean towards being introverts.  Putting myself "out there" in a public place where I am talking to large numbers of strangers is really hard for me... but I realize it's an area I need to continue to grow in.

Lesson #5:
Find out what other types of vendors will be at a craft fair with you, what other events will be taking place, and count the cost of vending.  I paid a pretty penny to be a vendor and 10 % of my sales. This is one of the hardest parts for me selling locally.  I have a very slim profit margin to begin with so it's often cost prohibitive for me to pay to be a vendor at events.  Also, this holiday bazaar had many activities, food, and events happening on the second day. I was really surprised to have some downtown Charlottesville stores represented at this craft fair.  The stores next to me had some lovely items.  But the cost of living in the US in order for me to make items by hand is significantly different than fair-trade products made overseas.  I'm still working my brain around this one.  I think it's an opportunity for me to challenge my design skills to decrease the time it takes to make items but there is a limit to how much this is possible and I'm already pretty close!

Lesson #6:
It is super fun to meet cool people who live in your community.  I had some really great conversations with some local folks and also got to see some amazing local crafters.  I just love seeing the creativity of others come out in crafts!  Even when they aren't my "style" it's just such an amazing picture of the diversity that exists in the world.  Thanks to the organizers of the Waldorf Bazaar.  I can't imagine how many hours it took to prepare everything!

And thanks to all of you who asked how the show went and the Gills for watching my kids!  For all of my non-local friends, I'll be listing several items in my Etsy shop over the next week once the sun comes out again so I can take photos!  And...I'll be sure to blog here about the stories behind some more of my designs to let you know where they came from! 

I thought I'd include a link to this interesting blog article The True Cost of Homemade I stumbled on yesterday.  She does a great job describing all the financial pieces that are part of selling handmade products...and she's a crochet artist!  So her comments on limited resources due to achy hands are very true for me as well!