floppy-eared bunnies

 Bunnies featured heavily in my childhood. Peter Cottontail, the Easter Bunny, and these adorable sleepy rabbits kept me company through bedtime stories as I drifted off to sleep. My mom and I had matching pink and white bunny slippers. We kept a concrete bunny in the garden named PeeWee. To top it all off, "Bunny" is the nickname my mom gave to my sister and me when we were kids. Actually, I'm pretty sure she still calls us that sometimes. So, when I came across the hopsalot pattern, I knew I had to make these sweet little critters.

The knitting part was quick and easy--big needles and two strands of yarn held together. This was the first time I've held two strands together. It was no harder than regular knitting.

What held me up was the felting. I started by hand-felting the slippers, which took about a million years and left me with one slipper that fit and one that fell off my foot every time I tried to walk. I chucked them into the washer and dryer, which made for a slightly better fit. In the end, I just had to stitch up the top of the heel on the bigger slipper so that it fits more snugly.

 I still found myself stealing K's slippers when he wasn't looking. He's got store bought ones with comfy, substantial soles. My bunny slippers felt more like glorified socks. My solution was to cut out two foot-shaped pieces from a felted scarf and tuck them inside the slippers. The felt lining makes a world of difference. It's thick and cushy, making the slippers more comfortable and giving them more structure. K can keep his slippers. I'll take my bunnies.

And just like the bunnies of my youth, these have fluffy white tails. I love them. 

I can see myself making another pair of these slippers sometime down the line. The fit issues I had make me want to take on other projects first and let my frustrations settle. Next time I'd skip the hand-felting and go straight to the machine. Find more details here.

Making a Wedding By Hand

Handkerchief with crocheted border

In general, weddings make me feel kind of squirmy. There's usually so much pomp and circumstance, so many formalities, and so many things done "just because." So when I go to weddings, it's usually with a knot in my stomach and a thirst for wine.

Growing up, I never fantasized about my own wedding. My own children, yes. My future house, sure. Traveling around the world, of course. But weddings were for other people. When K and I decided that we would have a wedding instead of eloping, we both knew we had to find ways to make this wedding reflect us and our values. Our idea of a handmade wedding came from this decision.

With lots of help from my mom, we've made all of the decorations. Mom sewed about a million yards of bunting. It turned out so well, and I absolutely cannot wait to see it strung up at the party. We've made a ton of tissue paper pom-poms, too. For table decorations, we're going to have board game centerpieces (also, this will be entertainment for people that don't want to dance), simple flower arrangements in jars, and candles on vintage plates set on thrifted doilies and handkerchiefs. I love that we're using hand-crocheted and embroidered decorations. When I think of how much time someone put into each doily and handkerchief, I'm glad that we'll have them out where their beauty can be appreciated instead of hidden in basements and boxes. We'll also have cans of crayons* so people can let loose their inner artists on the paper tablecloths. It's gonna be fun times.

Hand-embroidery found at a local thrift shop (need to iron it!)

My favorite thrifted doily (I have crafting plans for this after the wedding)

My sister is making an iPod playlist, lots of women in our families are making layer cakes in lieu of a traditional wedding cake, and we're putting together simple picnic-style food with the help of our parents. Oh, and the favors! We've wrapped up a tea bag and a sugar heart for each guest. The sugar hearts were easy to make. I just added about 2 teaspoons of water per cup of sugar, mixed it up to the consistency of wet sand (yum, wet sand!), and put a teaspoon of the mixture into each heart-shaped compartment of a Valentine's Day ice cube tray. I popped the sugar hearts out onto a cookie sheet and let them dry overnight.

Favors--Sugar hearts and Earl Grey tea (our engagement tea)

My sister is doing my hair for the wedding, and I'm doing my own makeup. K and I bought handmade rings from Etsy, and I'll be wearing this necklace I made for the occasion.

My wedding necklace made from a clip-on earring and flea market pearls

K and I really wanted to make this wedding about our families coming together to celebrate. We're having our sisters stand up with us instead of having lots of bridesmaids and groomsmen.
We've only invited close family members and friends in order to keep the wedding small** and personal.

The wedding should be fun, but K and I are both more excited about the marriage part. The best is yet to come!

*Pronounced "crowns" if you're from Louisville. Thanks to Christine for first bringing this to my attention. I had no idea people from other places actually say cray-ons. Weird.

**As small as possible. My dad's family is huge!

Bedtime stories

Bedtime reading makes me so happy and deliriously sleepy.
I also love using my little gingham cloth bookmark.

one stitch pony

  Last weekend I went to a going away party for my cousin Amy. She's a surgeon (awesome to have in the family!) and will be moving to Minnesota for a year with her husband and adorable son for a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. She's super-cool and I'll miss having her around. Plus her son is the cutest kid I've ever seen, and I hate that he's going to do all of that growing up where I won't be able to see him.

 As a going away present, I wanted to give Amy a little reminder of Kentucky. You know, so she doesn't forget where she came from and so that she'll remember to come back after a year. I started out by tracing the state's outline from my handy-dandy wall map, cut it out in some scrap fabric, and sewed it on to a white and blue polka dot fabric. I can't get enough polka dots! I cut out a tiny pink heart to mark Louisville's location and embroidered the saying, "Home is where the heart is." I love the way it turned out--very cute. I also love that I can just write out the words I want to embroider, and when I sew over them it still looks like my handwriting. 

 Amy really liked the embroidery, and I loved making it. I think I'll be making lots more of this type of thing in the future.

 

what did my hands do before crafting?

I'm pretty sure my hands must have been bored for years because once I started crafting all of this pent up creative energy burst out and shows no signs of stopping. Seriously, I got to the point where I couldn't sit down and read a book because my hands always wanted to be doing something. Holding a book and occasionally turning pages just wasn't enough.

So I took a jewelry making class and spent many nights bent over my beads, stringing necklaces and looping earwires. Then my mom taught me how to crochet, and I finally got it. I had tried to learn to crochet at least 3 times before and just could not figure it out. I was seriously opposed to counting, which it turns out is integral to the art of crochet. After my mom took the time to teach me, I crocheted at least seven scarves in no time, all in a modified single crochet (because I didn't know I was doing it just a little wrong!). After scarves I discovered blankets and baby hats.

 My crafting thirst still unquenched, I checked out lots of embroidery books from the library and am working on that. And I carried a big box of cross stitch stuff up from my mom's basement (a place not unlike Mary Poppins' bag). Jackpot! I made my first cross stitch the other day, which is turning out quite lovely!

In just a few short weeks I'll be getting hitched to my guy of over 6 years, K. We're over the moon about the being married part, but the wedding we're both just wanting to get over. The highlight of the wedding for me (apart from, you know, declaring my intention of spending my whole dang life with a great man) is the decorating. It's a low-key, diy, vintage-feel type of deal. There'll be lots of bunting, the ubiquitous (but always sweet) Martha Stewart Pom-poms, board games, punch cups, hula hoops and more. Here are the envelopes for the invitations we sent out. I made them from recycled catalogs:

Look how many!
  My goal for each day is to make something, whether it be crocheted, embroidered, cross stitched, painted, cooked, baked, etc. I hope to share many of these makings here.