The therapy of the creation of teddy bears

Every so often I have a group of people ask me if I'll teach them how to make teddy bears. If I can possibly make it happen, the answer is always an enthudiastic "YES!". I love to share the joy of creating a bear from scratch. It is so easy and so rewarding. For some it is theaputic and for others it fulfills thier sensory seeking tactile cravings. In the last two lessons when the creator's bear starts to come to life the smiles are immovable and the joy is contagious. There is so much self-satisfaction in taking a fat 1/8th of mohair fur fabric and turning it into something that almost lives.

Anyway, to my absolute joy and satisfaction, a group of friends has asked me to teach them the art of teddy bear making. We are getting together this week to make some decisions, choose patterns, choose fabric, and basically get prepared to launch into it next term. The aim is to have them done by Christmas. I usually teach an 8 week, one lesson a week term, so I think that we can do it!!! I will post photos of our progress.

Above are a couple of the patterns that I designed... From right to left they are Jamie, Bop and Taku. Though you can't really see it, Jamie has wings. Her brother, Bumbly, is a bee in gold and black, with gold wire wings.I usually teach bear making on James, a cousin of Jamie. He is a great size to begin on and to cuddle and hold. Also economical.

The beginning of a brand new week!

OK, so last week I managed one out of seven early morning wake-ups. Shameful, I know. This week I am aiming much higher! I will begin Tuesday morning, which means early to bed tomorrow night.

Tomorrow is Monday and Monday is sewing day! This week I am going to embark on the happy task of creating hip protectors for my precious Nan. I am going to make the first pair out of plain white so that we can test my pattern out. If it works, I am going to make them in some brights as well. I am also hoping to do a bit more work on the space quilt / wall-hanging, but it all depends on how long it takes me to get that hip protector pattern to work! It will be rather un-interesting to all but me, so I'll try not to ramble on too much about them.

Have a happy week!
Nay

The colour book is finished!

Here it is, all finished, and ready for my cute little poppet to play with and practice her colours on. I have to say that I really did enjoy making it!

Following are a couple of pictures of the book open, just to give an idea of what it looks like:

And one more:

Yay! Another finished project! One down, 99 to go...

Early Morning Creative Quiet Times

I did it! This morning I got up at 5:20am - yes, AM! It was so hard to drag myself out of bed in the cool dark of the morning, but I did it. At 7:30am I am still sleepy and can see myself crawling back into bed everytime I blink. Glen tells me that it will take a while for my body to get used to it. He says this as he bounces around this morning as the amazing morning person that he is. I am going to keep it up, but I really do wonder if I will be able to convince my body that getting up before the sun is really a good idea...

Having said all that, I did spend some good time pondering Proverbs 31. One of my first posts related to a book that I began making on the Proverbs 31 woman. I set myself a project to creatively study my way through the verses and learn about what it means to be an 'excellent wife' whose worth is 'far above jewels'. This morning I was working on the first part of verse 10: 'An excellent wife who can find?' Though the question is answered in great detail in the following verses, today I am left with more questions than answers. I know that she is rare, that is part of why she is so valuable. But what is an 'excellent wife' - what does she look like? and, what does it take to be an 'excellent wife'? and, how do I become an 'excellent wife'? These are my questions. I am a little trepidous as I embark upon finding out the answers to these questions, because I know tthat I am just not going to stack up well against this vastly elusive woman.

Space Quilt Wall Hanging for my boy

Monday is sewing day. So this past Monday I sewed. I acheived a lot, too! 

1. I made a pattern for hip protectors - I am going to make them for my Nan so that she doesn't smash her hips if she falls. The ones you buy cost $90 each and she needs to have at least 8. I figure that I can make them for a fraction of that price. I just need to get myself an overlocker!
2. I made a pattern for a child's apron. My big girl is having a sleepover for her birthday - activities will include cooking and craft. She would like to make her friends an apron each with her brand new birthday sewing machine as a thank you gift and to use during the sleepover.
3. A while ago I aquired the following Bernatex fabrics. My boy loves space so I thought that I could make a wall hanging to go with the space quilt that his Grandma made for him for his birthday (I will put up a picture of his quilt soon). Above is a picture of the wall hanging so far...

And here are the fabrics that I used to make it:

The main piece is a panel of lots of different 'spacey' squares, and a starry boarder at top and bottom. On the top right is an orange pattern fabric that I thought looked kind of planet-ey and on the bottom right is more of the star fabric. 

If you are interested in the details, here they are:

I cut the the picture squares out into 7 1/2" squares and the others into 7 1/2 by 3 1/2" rectangles. Then I cut the orange fabric into 3 1/2" sqares. Next I cut some of the starry fabric into a few more 7 1/2 by 3 1/2" rectangles because I didn't quite have enough of the other. After that, I randomly sewed it all back togther into 10" squares. Next I made the 10" squares into 3 rows, added an extra square and rectangle at the end and sewed the rows togther. It still needs boarders, then it will be quilted and bound, but for a couple of hours of work I am really happy! And so is my big space loving boy!!!

OK, so that didn't work!

I had the most interupted and not-deep sleep last night. I think that it was partly because I was conscious of getting up early, but mostly because my brain just would not switch off. Grrrrr! I was still prepared to get up at 5:30 and just start this thing, but it turns out that I fell into some deep some time after 4 and that Glen also had a bad sleep - he is the one in control of the alarm. He turned it off at 5:30 and I didn't even hear it. Oh well! So I will try again tonight...

Creative Quiet Time

Tomorrow I am going to be the supportive wife and try really hard to be a morning person. Hubby dearest does exceptionally well doing the early morning thing, so I am going to do it with him to give him moral support to get started. I am going to use it as my 'Creative Quiet Time' and work on my Aspire book. I am looking forward to it, I just hope that I can convince my brain that I am a morning person too!

Blog Makeover

Ok, so I decided that if I am going to get into this blogging thing, then I need a pretty 'Nay-like' blog. Those that know me know that I prefer to make my own designs for things, so would not be surprised that I set out to try to learn how to make my blog pretty all by myself (with heaps of help from Glen). As I looked at tutorials I discovered that it is going to take me more than a night and some basic Photoshop skills to achieve such a purpose so decided to look for some FREE premade templates to use while I learn. As it turns out there is next to nothing Nay-ish for free.

But then I found 'Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates' and 'Premades with a Purpose'. There are definately some Nay-ish templates there! The one that stuck in my head is the one you now see. By the time I found it I was starting to think that I would have to pay if I wanted anything that would suit the picture in my head. As I looked at Lena's stuff, I realised that she is only charging $US5 for her premades. Being the detail person that I am, I read all about her and what she is doing. Turns out that she is selling Blog templates to fund an adoption. So, even though I chose a freebie I decided to pay for it. I'm not putting that out there to make myself look good, I want to support what she is doing. So if any of the two or three people that actually read this need a blog template, go to her. She has beautiful stuff, is doing it for a great cause and is worth supporting. And thanks to her very easy to understand tutorials I figured out how to put her button over there on the left. Yay for me and yay for learning!!!

Allira's Quilt

This is not a brilliant picture - my amateur photography skills just don't extend to large quilts. 

 I began this quilt for my now 9 year old when she was 18 months old. I had just begun to teach myself to sew and was amazed by all the quilts at the Stitches and Craft Show. I don't know if it's pride, creativity or stupidity, but I prefer to make things that I have designed rather than the designs of others. I wanted this quilt to reflect the interests and personality of my precious little girl, so went about designing little appliques to be interspersed with hearts and 4 patch blocks. Needless to say that this project has taken me over 7 years and I have not even finished the handwork on it. What you can't see in this picture is the embroidery on each square. I also have a couple more appliques to put on and the words of a song that her Daddy dedicated to her - this will be transfered onto the white boarders using an image transfer technique that I am experimenting with. And I need to put the quilt toghether, quilt it and bind it. And then I will be done. I am aiming to quilt it over winter (it will keep me warm), so I have to get working on it!

Some Canvas Art

These are a couple of canvases that I have been working on. They are not finished yet, I need some time to look at them and ponder how to do the next bits. They are on my wall so that I can look at them and ponder...

You can't really see it in this picture, but the crown canvas has swirls in the background. I am thinking of writing about the significance of the crown in the crown. Hmmmm, does that even make sense? What I mean is that I have some stuff in mind to write in the white space of the crown, and it will not stay white.  Hmmmm.... I hope that is a little clearer! I think that I may also do some more to the background. They are quite small: the top canvas is about 10 x10cm and the bottom one is about 20 x 20cm.

Stuff that I am making...

Recently I realised that when I make things and give them away I have no record of what I have poured my heart and soul into creating for someone special. So today I took photos of a few of the (hundreds of) projects that I have on the go at the moment. I then decided to document them here. It is so much fun to blog, but there is that part of me that worries about what people will think of my creations. I know that I have been blessed with beautiful friends who only offer encouragement and support. But creating a blog is really putting it out there! Today I decided to swallow my fear of criticism and just diarize my progress. For me. I think that it may just give me the extra motivation to get my (many) projects finished!


So, here is the first one:

Isabella's Colour Book

I come from a long line of hoarders and find that it goes against my training to throw anything away. As such I have a reasonably sized basket of scraps. I figured that if I was going to justify keeping them, then I had better find a use for them. So I combined my scraps with my sizable ribbon collection and made a series of rough mini-quilts which I am in the process of making into a 'book'. Isabella is learning her colours and has been enjoying playing with the bits as it has all been coming together. As a sensory-seeker I have had so much fun making it and playing with the texture. If Bella doesn't take to it, I might just keep it to play with myself!

This picture shows the beginnings of the 'binding'. It simply consists of eyelet holes and big rings to hold the pages together. I was having issues with creating the eylet holes, so I am going to work on another method. There will be four holes in each page.

And this picture shows the back of the pages, just because I wanted to record them!