Owl cushion

Poor MrM.  Not only did his favourite wool sweater get attacked by evil moths, but his wife decided to make it into a whimsical owl cushion, useful only for getting in the way when you want to have a nice sit down.  It is quite cute though.

Please excuse the creme egg wrapper shrapnel in the foreground, unnoticed until I uploaded the photo.  There may have been a small amount of wanton, unbridled creme egg consumption going on over the course of this weekend.
Anyway, the jumper was found on Thursday in holes.  A shame, since it was rather a nice jumper.  However, never one to eschew an opportunity to have a look at Pinterest, I searched for recycled woollen sweater craft.  Several very lovely things appeared, including a completely awesome cuddly peanut.  However, a rather sweet, very plain owl caught my fancy, so I based my own creation very loosely on that.

First of all, I washed the jumper at 90 degrees.  It came out tightly felted, and the size of a jumper for a small boy. I drew the outline of an owl.  Let's pretend I meant for it to come out "primitive", as they say.  It was strangely satisfying cutting through the felted wool.  It's very thick, and doesn't fray at all, so made a good, clean cut.

I used felt for the eyes, beak, wings and feathers.  I added a few scraps of Annali fabric which I had left over after cutting the many, many hexagons for my quilt-in-progress.

We have named the owl Olwyn, and she is going to live in one of the armchairs we have acquired from Great Grandpa for the new house. Well, she'll live there until someone chucks her off so they can sit down, which seems to me to be the fate of all cushions...

Easter bunnies

This month's Seamstar kit contained the materials to make three little Easter bunnies. I decided to make one each for the children to keep in their smalls drawer. This kit was a very good one for me, since it forced me to use my sewing machine, which I am a bit scared of.

I think it's partly because it's so very loud.  Also, looking at the manual, there are so many, many things that could potentially go wrong with it. So many sharp, loud moving things that could go horribly wrong at any time. 

However, something going wrong with it is probably preferable to leaving it gathering dust for a decade, sneaking glances at it every now and again, in case it is plotting to kill me in my sleep.

Turns out the machine is not that evil after all. It's actually quite helpful and handy.  And a darn sight quicker than sewing by hand.

The first step was to machine "draw" the outline of the bunnies onto white felt, as though they had been roughly scribbled.  "Don't try to be too neat" said the instructions.  Not a problem.  Then, I sewed the ear sections on. A few short sentences, and yet it took quite some time! Not the actual sewing, but working out how to thread the machine, and draw up the bobbin thread. The first time took over an hour, the second under ten minutes.  I am hoping to get it down still further next time.

Last night I sewed tails, a small carrot and a name on each bunny's back.

Tonight I machined them together and stuffed them with lavender. They are small, and have numerous mistakes, but I am rather fond of them.