Princess and the Pea

Jim is in Manchester at a conference for a few days and I'm not well endowed with time, so I thought I'd share a past project that I haven't shared here yet. I made this in January for my sister's birthday. I'm so glad that I have an older sister for whom I can make fairy tale play sets! I planned it before I found out that my niece was on the way - so now there will be a child to enjoy it at some point - but I didn't have that in mind. This was one of our favorite fairy tales to act out as kids, stacking up every cushion, pillow and blanket we could find.

I was inspired by soulemama's set last spring, but the project definitely morphed in many ways.

I wanted to make a cloth doll and used Mimi Kerchner's felt doll pattern from the purl bee, but I shrunk it 50%, made my own face, added length to the hair and added some embellishments. The doll is entirely hand sewn and was simple and enjoyable to put together.

It was such a fun project - the little pillow and quilt use Heather Ross' fairy tale fabrics that I absolutely love and was given a couple of for Christmas. (I haven't done anything else with it as I'm hoarding it as I do all my favorite fabrics.) The little bag holds several dried marrow peas, for how would the princess prove her princessness without a pea to feel through the layers of cushions? I loved doing this project in the states as I could find natural stuffing (bamboo for this one) and everything else is either cotton or wool, so it is all natural fibers, which always makes me feel so much better about a project.

This is inspiring me to make another one for me and my boys to play with and I've been thinking on doing a three bears play set for Rowan's first birthday... we will see.

A Belated Birthday

Hmmm, Christmas holidays seem so long ago and I have one more batch of projects to share that were made over that wonderful stretch of time (have I mentioned before that it would be great if Jim never worked?)  The following are for my sister's birthday gift, now sent (though only just this morning).  My new years resolution was to write birthday letters and send gifts to all our family and if possible on time.  Well, her birthday was the third of January and I'm just getting this sent off, but I really am trying to get the birthday thing organized (more on that soon).  So Laura, if you are reading this, consider this a sneak preview of your belated birthday gift - it will be there soon :o)

 These little gnomes were inspired by these on peasandcarrots.  So fun to make.  I added pipe cleaners in the hats so you can make them bend.  Jonah made the little boy (though I sewed his hat and scarf) and another one that is on our window sill showing off beautiful splotches of color.

This little snail is from the book Feltcraft, which I've been stitching from quite a bit lately, and I made a second one for our nature table, because I love snails.

 This headband is from Weekend Sewing (one of my favorite sewing books) and I again made two because I love it and wanted a bit of this unicorn fabric (by Heather Ross) to wear.

So as you can see my sister's gift had a bit of a fairy tale theme, and as last year I made her the princess and the pea set - it may just be a tradition.  Hooray for a sister who loves fairy tales as much as I do (or maybe even more).