On Kanga and Roo!

Kanga and Roo have hopped their way into the 100 Acre Wood and are the latest creatures to join the bunch of characters I've been making from the patterns in The Pooh Craft Book!

These two weren't done quite as quick as I would have liked, but I still breezed through making them in a relatively short time frame. I had a little difficulty deciding on color for them, debating between reddish brown and dark brown and then trying to decide if Roo should be a different color than Kanga. I think the reddish brown with cream belly suits them both really well, though!

Four down (technically five counting little Roo) and just three more to go, then I'll have the full set of  felt Winnie-the-Pooh characters! 

Meanwhile, Mary Poppins is proving a marvelous baby-sitter for them while she continues her wait for a coat and bag as I still have not found just the right fabrics for them. 

♥ ♥ ♥

On "Wallpaper Octopus": An Artist Book & Poem

In honor of National Poetry Month and as a follow-up to my last paper crafting post, this is another book style made from a tutorial given as part of the virtual Form & Function From Afar conference held by Book Paper Thread. 

After making my first triangle fold book, I immediately started thinking about all the interesting possibilities that this form would allow for and for some reason doing an octopus theme stuck with me. Going in somewhat of a Victorian Steampunk direction, I then moved on to thinking about how it'd be interesting to have a wallpaper print paper and have the octopus tentacles coming out of it.

Since this was along the lines of something else I've been brainstorming for a writing project and having had more of a yearning in the past year to illustrate some of the poems I've written, I ended up writing a poem to go with the book before I even started making it. 

Once the book portion was done, created using cardstock for the cover and scrapbook paper for the inside (including a copy of the original paper for the inside section since I cut my paper on the wrong grain and only had one piece), I created the octopus tentacles from a one sided textured paper, which worked out nicely for painting the suction cups on. Then I debated where the poem should go, but opted for writing it in a subtle brown colored pencil along the side of the pages and like how it took on a sooty appearance rather than being boldly noticeable. I also rewrote it on another slip of paper and tucked it in between the cover and the inside piece (the top and bottom of the cover are folded down about half an inch creating a "holder" it neatly slid into). There may also be the body of an octopus hiding in there, but as I'm not completely satisfied with it, that will be a picture for another day.

As I didn't have any joint pain this past weekend (something that's been keeping me from sewing or working on anything extensive), I threw myself into this and am rather pleased with how it turned out!

Wallpaper Octopus

 The paper has begun to tear
A ripple here, a crinkle there
A rustling in the wall at night
A cautious mouse, just out of sight?

  

Something moving in the wall
You can hear it in the hall
Something pulsing, then a push
Suckling crackle, then a swoosh!

In the parlor, near the chair!
Can you see it? Something--there!
Wiggly, waving tentacle
At the paper starts to pull...

I think this is the first piece of my poetry I've shared on here, so I hope you've enjoyed it! Happy start of National Poetry Month and may your walls be octopus free!

♥ ♥ ♥

On How to Make a Rocking-horse-fly Fascinator (A Semi-Tutorial)

Happy New Year, everyone! 

When the Lewis Carroll Society of North America announced they were having a virtual Through the Looking-Glass cocktail party to kick off the year that marks the 150th anniversary of the book, oddly enough one of my first thoughts was "I want to make a hat for this." Specifically I was thinking the hat Alice wears on the train in Chapter 3, but then after further reflection (pun intended☺) I decided it would be more fun to make a crown using felt or thick interfacing (with my hair frizz and having lost combs and entangled brushes in it, the White Queen has always had my sympathies). 

 

 

Then I jumped brooks again, so to speak, and suddenly had the idea of making a Looking-Glass insect fascinator...then I went back to wanting to make a crown and after some thought about the ball on top of the crown, decided I really liked the Rocking-horse-fly and would love to wear one on my head.

 

Having made my decision, I set about making one. The following indicates what you need to make one and how I went about making my own (hence the semi-tutorial, since this isn't going to be very exact).

Supplies I Used

• Printed Tenniel illustration of the Rocking-horse-fly (I sized it down to 2 1/2 x 3 5/8 in.)
  
• Balsa wood
• Floral wire (I used two two separate gauges, no idea what gauge since I don't have the packaging for either, just that one is thicker and the other very thin)
• Fake ivy leaves
• Green felt
• Acrylic paint
• Clear plastic sheet
• Glue (I used both Tacky glue and hot glue)  

I dragged this out over a few days, but theoretically this could be completed within a day.

Because the illustration is conveniently a side view, I started by sizing it down, printing it, cutting out the body, and then tracing the outline directly on the balsa wood twice. I then carefully cut it out (managing to break one piece in half in the process). For the side I cut a small square which I then carefully spliced in half to get an even thinner sliver. I glued the two body pieces together and then glued one square sliver on each side to get the slight edge seen on the front of the body in the illustration. 

Next came the rocker and legs. For the rockers, I folded the thicker wire in half (folding over the ends) and twisted it together to so it wouldn't look quite so smooth and to give it a little more stability. 

For the legs, placing the thinner wire on top of the illustration, I folded it to match with a little extra on both ends for attachment purposes and cut it.

 

 

Following that, I wrapped the bottom of each leg around the rocker pieces and then spent a half an hour trying to get all four pieces to stay pushed and glued in to the balsa wood...it was the classic case of getting one end to stay and having the other pop out simultaneously minus the springy cartoon noise.   

 

Next, I cut out the wing pieces from the illustration, traced them on a clear acetate sheet, and cut them out. I then put the clear wing pieces on top of the illustration piece to trace the lines with ink. This was a bit backwards, as it really would have been easier to do before cutting them out of the larger sheet. I also should have used paint to avoid the ink smearing. 

After that, I switched over to the base. For this I cut a piece of green felt into somewhat of a squiggly edged triangular shape. Then for the leaves I cut a few off a dusty fake ivy plant in the living room that has finally made itself useful. They weren't quite the right shape, so I trimmed them down to look like the illustration and then attached them to the felt using hot glue.

Next came painting. I started out with a glossy blue paint mixed with white because the text states Alice "made up her mind that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright and sticky," and the glossy paint certainly looks that way, but I decided I really did not like the light blue and ended up repainting it gray. The glossy blue did get used for the spots, though! I used a toothpick to do the eyes and bridle.

To finish off the body, I attached the wings by dipping the very tips in some Tacky glue and holding them to the sides. 

To finish it off, I fought with the leaves and with a few stitches around the rocker portion finally attached the Rocking-horse-fly to the felt in front of the leaves. Rather than attach it to a headband or clip, I opted to just use bobby pins to hold it in place and that worked out just fine.

And with that, I created something one can proudly wear on their head whether one chooses to drink treacle and ink, put cats in their coffee or mice in their tea, sand with the cider or wool with the wine, as one makes a toast to Queen Alice on her 150th anniversary!

♥ ♥ ♥

On Inky's Christmas Reading Recommendations

A little late in getting this up as eye strain has kept me mostly off the computer the past few days, but it's not Christmas yet, so there's still a little time yet! 

Way back in 2014, I complied a list of Summer Reading Recommendations and rather than do a book review this month, I thought it would be fun to make a list of Christmas books and stories.

Story Collections, Novellas, & Novels

 A Vintage Christmas, A Classic Christmas, & A Timeless Christmas 

Three books in this set so far! Looking for a collection of Christmas stories that weren't the traditional ones included in every collection and by literary authors in 2018, I serendipitously happened upon the collection A Vintage Christmas and have been delighted that a new collection seems to be eminent each year! 

Each collection includes a section of stories and poems by classic authors including Louisa May Alcott, Harriett Beecher Stowe, L. M. Montgomery, Mark Twain, and Christina Rossetti among others. Longer works are included in the two later books with A Classic Christmas including Dickens' A Christmas Carol and A Timeless Christmas including, a new read for me, L. Frank Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. These are perfect for reading through a little at a time or having the intention to do so and getting completely sucked in. As a warning, many of the stories and poems are somewhat maudlin in nature given that most were written in the 1800's or early 1900's, so not always the happiest, but still lovely none-the-less.

I also have to mention how beautifully bound these are! 

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

Moving on to something more contemporary, we have one of my all time favorite time travel books. This isn't exactly a warm and cozy Christmas read, since it involves Medieval Europe and the plague, but it takes place at Christmas and seems particularly appropriate this year. You can read my full review here.

Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome  

Okay, so this is kind of a stretch to be considered a Christmas story, but it's Jerome poking fun at the British tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve, so I'm including it because, in all fairness, it does take place on Christmas Eve ("There is too much 'Christmas Eve' about this book. I can see that myself. It is beginning to get monotonous even to me.")! Anyway, this story recounts the narrator's evening at his uncle's house taking some of the "more traditional" Christmas and ghost story elements to a level of light-hearted silliness in a way that only Jerome can.

This one is available to read for free on Project Gutenberg (here), since it's in public domain and as it's short (my copy with a larger print is only 50 pages), it's nice to read when you only have a short break.  

Children's Books

The Story of Holly & Ivy by Rumer Godden

One of my most favorite holiday stories from the 1950's! I started watching the cartoon of this every Christmas at a young age and was thrilled when I found the book when I was in elementary school. This story can also be found in Godden's book Four Dolls, which comes with the added bonus of one of her other Christmas stories, "The Fairy Doll".  You can read my full review here.

Miracle on 34th Street by Valentine Davies 

Based off the movie (yes, that's the right order of those words), the classic story of a little girl, her mother, and Santa Claus. Read my full review here.

The Coat-Hanger Christmas Tree by Eleanor Estes 

Marianna and Kenny have never had a Christmas tree, their mother won't allow it because they don't need to be like everyone else. They know if they bring one home, though, she'll just have to say yes and the two of them go to work trying to find a way to change her mind. A sweet Christmas story that has an unexpected twist. (Thank you Phyl for the recommendation a few years ago!)

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! by Barbara Robinson

Originally published as a story in McCall's magazine in the 70's, I read this a few times when I was younger and was very happy upon revisiting it this year to find out it still holds up to my childhood memory of it. When the horrible Herdman children show up at church (the one place everyone normally gets a break from them) and volunteer for the annual Christmas pageant without any knowledge of the Christmas story, things become hilariously disordered.  

Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry

What do you do when your Christmas tree is too tall? You cut the top off! And then you give that top to someone else or throw it out the door for someone else to find and then they too can repeat the process! The illustrations in this are delightful and only add to the fun of this story first published in 1963!

This is another book that my love for stems from a tv special, in this case courtesy the Muppets, which, unfortunately, has never been released on vhs or dvd, so I continue to watch my fuzzy taped off tv version each year.

Tiny Stocking-Stuffer Books 

I wasn't quite sure what to refer to these as, but as they are all small and slim enough to fit in a stocking, tiny stocking-stuffers are what I'm referring to them as.

A Century of Christmas Memories: 1900-1999

A lovely glossy page book that chronicles seasonal happenings, fads, and favorite holiday traditions over a century. This one is fun to flip through at random just to see what you learn!    

The Night Before Christmas: A Classic Illustrated Edition
(chronicle books)

This fun tiny edition of the classic poem uses illustrations from antique books from late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Christmas: A Season of Traditions

A 39 page book that touches ever so briefly on the history of some beloved Christmas traditions in the US and accompanied by quotations both fictional and historical!

♥
Merry Christmas Readings! 

♥🎄♥

On Owl Joins the Hundred Acre Wood Group!

The foot and eye pieces kept falling out of my sewing box, so my sewing project of last week was finishing up Owl (or as he spells it Wol)!

I made few adjustments to this pattern, choosing to change out colors, skipping the cardboard glued to the feet pieces (I just stitched two layers of felt together), and putting the underwing piece atop the main wing piece. I thought about cutting out an additional piece to put under, which in hindsight might have looked a little better for if I position the wings up. However, that can always be done later and when I think of the Shepard illustrations, I think of the ones where Owl has his wings to his side anyway.

I'm guessing this will be the last of my Hundred Acre sewing for awhile, as I have quite a few other tiny sewing projects lined up, but who knows maybe Winnie-the-Pooh or Kanga and Roo will still be putting in an appearance before the year is out!

♥ ♥ ♥

On a Miniature Eeyore to Join Piglet

I had intended to have Winnie-the-Pooh be the next Hundred Acre Woods' character to go with Piglet, but, having been in a distressed state of mind for the past few weeks, trying to make a selection between three different shades of mustard felt was proving challenging. So, I went with the simplistic gray Eeyore.

Eeyore was faster to make than Piglet. Or would have been, had I not been so tired and started by accidentally sewing the forehead/nose piece along the back rather than under and around the nose. The larger pieces did make him easier, though.

Oddly enough, his tail was the biggest issue for me. The book's instructions were to use a button for the nail in his tail, but I really wanted to go with something that looked like a nail. I don't use a lot of metal in my sewing and the only vintage rivets I had were too puffy, so I ended up using a tiny scrapbooking brad! 

"Eeyore frisked about the forest, waving his tail so happily..." 

To get it in, I poked a hole in the felt with a darning needle and then scraped up my fingers trying to get the prongs flat through the multiple layers of felt, which was not exactly fun, but it's on there and not about to come off!

One must, of course, celebrate Eeyore's birthday with a red balloon!

And to conclude, a sneak preview of whooo's next...

  ♥ ♥ ♥

On a Pocket Sized Piglet

After years of intending to make the miniature Winnie-the-Pooh characters from the patterns in The Pooh Craft Book, I finally made Piglet this week.  

This was a pretty straight-forward project, though a little challenging at times due to the size of the pieces, the fuzzy nature of the felt, and the way the stuffing kept popping out as I tried to sew it in between the tiny pieces. For the suit, a rectangle sewn into a tube that is gathered at the top and bottom, I stitched some straight lines on the fabric before I seamed it to give it the ripply look of the illustrations. After finishing, I realized that in the illustrations Piglet's suit also has some buttons, so I made a few tiny stitches for those.

At the moment, I'm content with just having Piglet, but I think in terms of the other Hundred Acre Wood residents at least Winnie-the-Pooh will be making an appearance in the near future. ♥️

On A Magical Pop-Up Book!

Something funny happened on the way to making a garden tunnel book--I ended up making a magic show pop-up book instead. 

I'm not entirely sure where the idea came from, but it started with wanting to make a hat with a rabbit in it and took off from there. While I've been using pop-up elements in cards for years and made a simple pop-up book for a book report in high school, this is my first attempt at putting together a book with fancier elements. 

It took me a total of nearly three full days to make and while not perfect (I eyeballed a lot rather than measuring), for the most part I'm very pleased with how it turned out. 

Now without further ado, I present to you, Abracadabra! 

 

♥️ ♥️ ♥️