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We made ornaments this week...for the birds.

Because they ate all our cherries this year?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Looking for a unique Christmas gift? For only £285 you can take home one of these gorgeous felt beetles (measuring a huge 52cm across!) by Louise Evans (aka: Felt Mistress). Of course, you may need to buy a second one for yourself. 

(via Felt Mistress — Giant Cavalry Caped Kitchener Beetle)

It’s that time of year again, when little huts like this pop up all over the Hannover. I love the way seasonal produce is so easy to find. No trouble locating this vendor. Often an erdbeer-hof also offers spargel (asparagus, usually white) since it’s in season as well.

Along with strawberry season comes the annual Waldorf school bazaar. This time I was a contributor to the crafts table, and a salesperson, too. I was pretty proud of myself for handling a few simple transactions, considering that I had to speak and count in German plus make change in Euros. Simple things, but put all together it was a little challenging. Sorry the picture is a little backlit. It was hastily taken with the cell phone, as a lot of these were, since it doesn’t seem to be the norm to snap a bunch of pictures at Waldorf events. I wanted you to see a bit of the arrangement, though. I can’t  take any credit for it, but it makes me want to buy the entire menagerie every time I see it.

That crazy blue thing in the upper left of the picture will be explained later.

Below are some of what I made, in addition to the little Waldorf men I blogged about earlier.

Hot sellers, these little bunnies.

They are made of felt, blanket stitched and stuffed with actual wool, with needle-felted tails. I had never needle-felted before and always sort of regarded it as a craft that must take a lot of training to do properly. It’s really easy, though, at least to do bunny tails. I was shocked. It almost seems like magic. Below are some more felt animals and figures, not made by me.

And here is my needle-felted doll, my first needle-felt project. The blue thing hanging from the top in the earlier picture is also a felt doll.

Here’s a little of my delicious Waldorf lunch from the bazaar. No Waldorf salad. Ha! There were bratwurst, too, but the salads were really the star of the show.

And here, an only slightly-related photograph, of

These hand warmers began life as perhaps the most expensive children’s underclothes known to man.

Figuring out the right gear for the weather in Germany has been an ongoing education. When my three-year-old’s kind, dear kindergarten teacher told me he needed undershirts, I listened. He needed not just any undershirts, mind you, but silk-wool undershirts, from a boutique. I can’t even bear to tell you how much I paid for them.

Meanwhile, it’s very un-German of me, but I haven’t been able to kick the big ol’ energy-wasting American dryer addiction. Maybe there’s a 12-step program I can enroll in and by the time we leave here I’ll have cleaned up my act. Dryers do exist in Germany, but it’s much more common, regardless of income level, to use a drying rack. I do this some but not enough.

Sadly, this is what happened to one of the costly silk-wool undershirts:

Gasp! All those Euros gone to waste! I couldn’t handle it becoming just a doll shirt, and my daughter had been asking for a set of hand warmers. So I broke out the Kool-Aid (brought from the U.S.) and dyed it, using roughly these instructions.

If I had it to do over, I’d probably use one less packet of Kool-Aid to get a slightly lighter color, but oh well. It’s done. After that I just cut up the middle of the shirt and trimmed the top down so that the arm-piece of the shirt became the thumb-piece of the warmers.

I used an old T-shirt to line the arm warmers and finished them off with blanket stitching. Voila! You could certainly make a similar pair with a shrunken sweater, using the underarm corner as the under-thumb corner.

4 Comments on The Golden Fleece Hand Warmers: Underwear to Outerwear, last added: 1/21/2011

My favourite watch is a Swatch that had a red satin embroidered strap. Unfortunately after tons of wear it became pretty worn looking and then finally the buckle broke. I was inspired by this blog post to make a new strap for it.
First of all I used the old strap to make a paper template and cut out wool felt pieces from it - two for each side. Then I used a piece of twill fabric (with anti-fray) to make pieces shaped like forks with 3 strips that fit through the slots on the watch and stitched them in place. Then the wool straps sandwich the twill piece, top and bottom and get sewn together.After trying it out I realized it was a teeny bit scratchy on the wrist, so I added a ribbon lining. I used anti-fray to the ends. The last step is a snap closure.
The embroidery is done with wool, just a simple flower pattern.
Now I can wear it again!

There’s a Spider in my Sink!
By Bill Kirk
Illustrated by Suzy Brown
http://www.ebooks4tots.com/
Copyright 2005
Ebook
Ages 2-6



"There’s a spider in my sink!
Did he drop in from the brink?
Does he want a little drink?
There’s a spider in my sink!"

Thus begins this very cute picture ebook young children will love listening to and early readers will enjoy reading on their own.

The little boy in the story has a problem… a spider has suddenly taken possession of his sink! What is he to do? How to get rid of it without hurting it? After all, the only thing the spider wants is a safe home. But he has to do something! How will he be able to brush his teeth and comb his hair, when the sink is covered with cobwebs?

The story is written in iambic beat and has a smooth, fun rhythm that both children and adults will enjoy.

The colorful illustrations are appealing and possess the right touch of wackiness that well suit the story. I also found the ebook itself a pleasure to use. The book appears on the screen and all you have to do is click on the page for it to turn, giving the feeling of a real book. Even toddlers will be able to turn the pages on their own. In sum, this is a delightful little book that teaches children the good side of spiders, while at the same time developing children’s language and computer skills.