Today I Make Puppets

Today I make puppets. And tomorrow, and Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday…

I have three puppets to make for an upcoming school play. While two of them are going to be using my basic puppet pattern I have for sale on Etsy, the third is a four-tentacled Id monster that I will have to make from scratch. While this seems like it might be a challenge, I have a feeling that it will be fun as well. Hopefully. 

To clarify Id, it is the unorganized part of the brain where contrary impulses can exist together without canceling each other out. Think dreams. It is also playable in Scrabble. So basically the limit is only my imagination. This can be difficult to navigate since I have a pretty colorful imagination. I will probably end up doing something similar to one of the previous large puppets I have made in which instead of creating the “skin” first I will create the “skull” and make a “skin” template from that. More than likely the Id monster will be made up of a combination of fleece, upholstery fabric, fake leather and possibly feathers. We will see.

My plan is to get the two easy ones out of the way so I can focus on the big one. Of course, with the return of the rain it might make the parts that all have to be glued together with contact cement more difficult since I don’t want to do that in the house. Hmm… I wonder if my husband’s work bench is cleared off enough to do it out in the garage?

Desperate Housewife's Quilt: Block Twenty Five

Okay, so I did a little skipping around. You’ll see why.

After church and lunch with my husband’s dad and stepmom who were in town from Idaho, I was in the mood to sew something. The daunting task of cutting into my prized Alexander Henry fabrics was unbearable even though it is equally as painful to simply see them sitting on the shelf folded and unused. The same goes for everything on the top shelf of the bookcase I keep my fabric that already has a purpose for a quilt or project.

The only problem was that I was also feeling rather lazy, meaning I wanted to accomplish something that would take a matter of minutes rather than hours. What can I say, I’m a guy. This is about the time I remembered a Desperate Housewife’s Quilt block using an embroidered center image. I just happened to have one of those I let expire from my Etsy shop laying around.

So I took the little bug out of the embroidery hoop, ironed out the wrinkles, and cut it down to a workable size to not leave too much white space. After figuring out the measurements (since I cut it down to a different size than the instructions call for) I sewed the strips around the image, pressing my seams open as I went. Within just a few minutes I had an adorable framed block! Of course, if I hadn’t already had the embroidered center it would have taken much longer.

Etsy Shop

I haven’t talked much about my Etsy Shop lately. Must be because I haven’t been adding anything new to my shop.

In a perfect world you’d create something people will want to buy. In the case of my shop, I’ve found that people really want to buy patterns to make stuff themselves. I get that. While I like to scour the internet for as many free patterns as I can find to create stuff, sometimes it is better to have the pattern and a clear, concise, step-by-step explanation of the process complete with pictures to help guide you along the way. Hence, the reason I made my Puppet Oddity PDF Instruction eBook and Patterns. Twenty-four pages and over one-hundred-twenty color pictures with tips and hints to either Challenge you or make it Simple.

When I set out to make the patterns and instructions, I didn’t intend for it to become so involved, I just decided to make it in a way that was accessible to the beginner and the novice alike. Beginning crafters or people new to making puppets may appreciate the Simple Tips, sometimes shortcuts and sometimes just easier ways to create, while people who’ve been crafting for quite some time would like the Challenge Tips added along the way for ways to add more character and depth to their puppets. Otherwise, the eBook was written for the inbetween crafter with some sewing, cutting and gluing experience.

Why am I writing about this particular pattern? Because it has been a year since I put the pattern up for sale in my shop and has proven to be the most popular item by far. Actually, of the physical items in my shop I’ve only sold a few old thread spools I was getting rid of while the rest of my sales have been this pattern. So for the next week I am offering a special to the readers of this blog… 25% off your purchase in my Etsy Shop! Just enter the Coupon Code PATTERNS during Checkout to take advantage of this sale.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ModernMaleHomemaker

Leftover Quilting

While I wait for inspiration to arrive on The Uninspired Quilt I’ve been working on for several weeks now, I decided to raid my stash of leftover fabrics from other projects. So far I’ve gotten two baby quilts out of it and enough for a third project.

The first stash I came upon was from a baby blanket I made for my second cousin Stella. The fabrics are adorable, featuring ladybugs and daisies, and I felt completely ready to make another blanket using these fabrics. This wasn’t just because there was so much leftover, but because the simplicity in the color scheme, the cuteness of the patterns, and the type of blanket I was going to make all seemed to come together effortlessly. My first project was going to be a small baby blanket or wall hanging, or as many of the recipients have done, both… in that order.

Now, these projects were from the beginning going to be put into my Etsy shop for sale, so why I was able to work on them so quickly is beyond me, unless, of course, The Uninspired Quilt just doesn’t have the same pull. I don’t know, maybe I need to not worry about trying to finish that one for sale and possibly make it for one of my sisters. That might just be what I need to get it done and out of the house. For the wall hanging I made a stencil, cut out the pieces for the front appliqué and started piecing the quilt together. I’ve made quite a few baby blankets in this manner, so it went together rather quickly. I’m sure if I would’ve worked on it continuously it would have been done faster. These wall hangings are super cute and I’m sure if I put my mind to it could get at least two finished every day.

For the second project from the ladybugs and daisies fabrics, I wanted to make a crib blanket, and I knew I wanted it to be blocks, with every other one in the blue background fabric. This took longer than anticipated, not for ease of simply strip piecing and cutting the blocks down to size, but because I decided to hand tie the corners of every square to give it a wonderfully puckered look after it is washed. It’s not that I don’t trust my machine to do quilting stitches on it, I just really like the look of hand tied baby blankets. It gives this crib quilt character and a genuine handmade touch.

I know I can squeeze one more project out of the leftover fabrics and I’m thinking of making a tagalong blanket for a toddler, which will probably be machine quilted for extra durability. I’ve also been toying with the idea of making a mobile or puffy ladybugs and daisies, but haven’t really gotten to the planning stages for that yet.

So what is my goal from this endeavor? To go through my leftover fabric stashes and make new projects from them. And hopefully sell them. I’m pretty sure I know which fabric stash I’m raiding next and can’t wait to get started on a set of baby boy stuff too. Of course, ladybugs are bugs and daisies are arguably one of the most masculine flowers, and the color scheme or blues, red, yellow and green are quite gender neutral, so there is no reason this couldn’t be for a little boy too.


http://www.etsy.com/shop/ModernMaleHomemaker

Uninspired Quilting

It is time to get back to working on this quilt project I started last month. I just wish I had some motivation.

Thinking I needed to do something with all the excess fabric in my stashes, I pulled out the fabric for a quilt I intended to make four years ago but, well, never got around to actually doing anything other than cutting squares. Anyway, so I created a pattern that worked and cut the pieces further to fit said pattern and sewed up all the squares and most of the rows. That should recap nicely for my not-so-daily readers. Now I’m thinking I have got to get the top at least put together as I’m tired of looking at this project lying in my dining room.

I know that part of my reason for delay is that it I’m not keeping it or giving it away, but plan on selling it. I guess the Profit Motive isn’t such a motivating factor as the government would lead us to believe… at least not with me. Perhaps I’m not the best business person, but when I feel a personal connection with something it works, and when I begin a project with a disconnect it doesn’t so much. I know when I make cakes I feel personally vested in the project because I know what it will mean to the recipient. Methinks I need to rethink my rethunk.

While my partner and our friend were running a garage sale this last Saturday, I kept looking through the garage and house finding stuff to sell. I remembered we had a bunch of old wooden thread spools from textile mills in a box we had used as candle holders and priced them and put them out. Right after doing so I went inside to check what they were going for online and quickly gathered them all up, cleaned them of any wax residue and posted them on my Etsy shop. Funny, that was definitely motivated by profit, so what is my issue with this quilt?

Perhaps the underlying issue is that I originally intended this to be for a very good friend of mine, but some of the colors she dislikes and the patterns really aren’t her style. The more I look at them the more this becomes obvious, but four years ago I thought it would be perfect. Maybe after I get over that it’ll be fine and I’ll be able to finish the project. Or perhaps rethinking its purpose from a regular quilt to maybe a picnic blanket would help. Then again, maybe it could be a multipurpose quilt and I will just have to figure out how best to advertise that. I guess this will be a good learning experience in the future, but during the present it is just damned annoying.

Starting Another Quilt

Last night I decided to dig out some old fabric I’ve had lying around for years and finally do something with it. While I like the patterns and colors, they aren’t my style, so it’ll be an Etsy shop quilt.

Don’t berate me just yet for not having pictures up, I promise I’ll have them on the next post about this particular topic. Now, I originally bought these fabrics four years ago with the intention of making a quilt for a friend, but me being me, never got around to actually making it. Besides, turns out the friend doesn’t like the color pink anyway and there’s a hellalotta pink!

And so trying to figure out what next to put into my sad little Etsy shop, I decided to make a quilt. I didn’t want to make anything involved or incredulously time consuming like my previous framed 9-patch quilt that I worked on for over a month and a half, just a simple design that worked well with the prints. After researching various patterns, it appears I’m stuck between Buckeyes, Windmills or a couple of random styles, all utilizing triangles. When I first bought the fabric I started cutting it into 8½ inch squares, so I figured I’d use these squares to make triangles and figure out what to do with the remainder of the fabric.

To make the triangles, I first took each dark and placed it facing a light and made two identical pairings, which would make a total of four triangles. Stacking the squares onto my cutting mat and using rotary scissors I cut them in half diagonally. I then chain stitched all 36 of my triangles together before separating them and ironing the seams all toward the dark fabric.

I then played around with various patterns once the blocks were done to see what looked best. So far, nothing is catching my attention as being, well, all that interesting. I’m thinking I may want to either make 36 more blocks of smaller triangles or go ahead and make them 4-patches for the Buckeye pattern. Perhaps I should start with a couple and see how it looks in case I don’t like either.