Fabulous Felted Pillows

Look at all these fabulous pillows that folks made last week at the Panopolie Slumber Party. They used the felt sheets that we have in a million colors and patterns and felted their own adornments onto them. This is fun and easy-peasy. I can see many, many folks on my holiday list getting felt pillows!The rabbit below was made using a big, rabbit-shaped cookie cutter as a form. Just pile the roving inside the cookie cutter and use a felting needle to felt it to the wool sheet. The pine and the hand were made the same way, I am pretty sure. They used the three needle dry felting tool for the images and the Japanese five needle tool for finishing the pillow itself. That is quick, too, just felt around three sides to make a pocket, fill it with fiberfill and then felt it closed!

I wasn't able to come to this slumber party and I think I may have missed the best one yet. Don't worry, I will be at the next one..


NOTE: as of 12/20/2008 we no longer sell these felt sheets. Sorry, they were swell but we had to import them in giant quantities from the Kingdom of Nepal and they just didn't sell very well. We no longer have any in stock. Try sheet felt from high-quality upholstery stores.

make your life nicer...

You want to do that, right? Well, I have a tip for you. About two or so years ago some friends invited us to join them in a supper club of sorts and it has made our lives richer, more fun and (really) easier. We have dinner together, our four families, one night a week. One family hosts each week. The hosts cook, set up and clean up for a group of eight adults and nine children under the age of seven. Now, hold on there. It's really nice. Yeah, I know you are thinking 'cripes, seventeen people for dinner? how is that making your life easier?' Well, once a month you do host and that can be crazy (but it really is fun!) but the other three weeks you go to dinner with friends, sit and chat with the adults while your child plays with good friends. The children all know each other's homes and back yards and pets and look forward to the night. The parents get to have adult conversation, eat delicious food, share new beers or a recipe for vegan cupcakes that is amazing or just vent about a current political situation. It is divine.

My house is tiny. We can't seat seven, much less seventeen, but folks sit where they can and we all enjoy the time together. I clean up beforehand or don't. I make home made everything or I hit the farmer's market and make frozen biscuits. I don't dress up. I don't polish the silver. I don't worry about anything. It is sooo nice.

So call your bestest friend and invite two other families you might like to get to know better. Decide on a format (we do Tuesdays at 5:30, vegetarian, byob) and get cooking.

shh, it's a secret!

This is a detail of a project that may make it into the book. It doesn't fit, visually, probably, maybe. But I do love it. I have worn it and may even make an extra to enjoy while the original languishes in my editor's office. I hope the necklace doesn't take it personally if it doesn't make the cut.

I am teaching a class on Friday with a project that will most likely be in the book. I am going to use the poor folks in the class as guinea pigs. They will hopefully have fun. I will be serving them wine and snacks, too, to help make up for the inevitable mistakes. Although I am generally pretty confident as a teacher, I get kinda weirded out when I write down the directions. I should confess that I generally NEVER read directions. I do look a pictures and diagrams. I will carefully study a piece of jewelry to replicate it if I am interested. But I don't read the directions. Somehow they make my brain shut down. Oops. I hope Valerie from Lark isn't reading this. Valerie, if you are reading this please note that while my brain shuts down READING directions, it doesn't totally shut down while WRITING them. Really.

Crowns!

Ha ha! I had so much fun on Saturday. I made a crown with my friends Laurel and Denita. We hung out in the back room at the store and just went nuts with the glitter, velvet leaves, wire, birds, feathers, charms, tiny hands and everything else. We took up the whole giant table that we usually have 8-10 people use for classes. It was a tremendous mess...
Here is Nora looking like a little wood pixie in Laurel's Autumn Queen crown. She loved it. Denita made a Glittery Queen crown with a bird and velvet leaves-and a glittery chicken wire armature! I made a Queen of Dreams crown that is a bit, um, dark. It does have tiny disembodied hands...but I liked it!
We are going to have a crown making slumber party at Panopolie. I am so excited thinking about all the other types of crowns we can make...oh, we were inspired by this book and it will be in at both stores really soon...