The Beginning of The End, and the Beginning of a New Beginning.

I have been truly  blessed to have spent the last 365+ days with my Darling Danielle and Delightful Delilah. Being able to spend this year as a Mother (for the last time) and Grandma (for the first time) has been an experience I wouldn't trade for anything.  Every day spent with them, it felt that my mother was there with us, too.

My son-in-law, Benjamin, Danielle's husband, Delilah's daddy, will be home on Thursday.  The next few weeks are a whirlwind of movers and bachelor/bachelorette parties, a wedding, and then the three of them leave on the 15th of March.  To Germany.  I can't drive to Germany.

There are other things going on in my life, of course.  I've been stitching and stuffing, and thinking and pondering, the two kinda go stitch by stitch.  My Young Son is taking a trip, my sweetheart and I have to make a trip to the airport and find a wedding somewhere downtown, in the dark...The Pro-Shop is making progress, thanks to some dedicated members...but, still...

To be completely truthful,  I can't quite pinpoint how I feel.  I'm ready for them to start their next chapter, far, far away, and I know I'm gonna miss them like crazy.  There's another aspect, too.  Since Sweetheart and I have been together, we've had 2 kids.  Now, one is going far, far away, and one is clinging to the nest with all his might.  Sweetheart is a bachelor.  He has never been married, no kids of his own.  We live in the house that his parents had built in 1973.  I want to broaden his horizons...I want to decide on a Sunday night that we are leaving to go see the Grand Canyon on Tuesday.  I want to be free to go have some fun!  I'm still 18 in my head, even though my body disagrees.

Thanks for reading my rambling post...trying to get all the thoughts in my head in one place is not an easy feat.  Trust me, there's more.

Delilah's Converse

My friend, Dammit Janet,

a polka dot horse

and a muslin pig. 

With Wings.

Y'all, Play Nice!  xxoo

Trying Something...

The other day an idea popped into my head, like they do now and then.  I've been making my Critters out of felt, my idea was to create a line of Critters made from Muslin Fabric.  I love the natural look of Muslin.  I still wanted to hand-stitch them, too.

I had the idea on a Tuesday, had to work my 2nd job on Wednesday, and finish a sold felt Critter on Thursday, then spent the evening with D, so I didn't get to start on this idea until Friday evening.  I traced out the pattern pieces, and began cutting them out.

As I starteed cutting, I thought, "these should have some seam allowance."  I don't use those on the felt, but soon figured out that they would be needed with the thinner material.

The front...you can see where the seam burst there on the front leg...need that seam allowance.

See how the back leg is shorter?  Seam allowance would fix this, I think, and this wing I didn't stuff, 

wanted to see how "natural" would look...I wasn't happy with this flatness, same goes for the ears.

Back end look, poor little gimpy thing.

Here is the "good" side.  This side I cut out with a bit of allowance for the seam, 

and stuffed the wing a little bit.  

I was glad to have tried this, and really learned a lot.  I'll use batting in the ears and wings next time, for a less "stuffed" look.  The seam allowance is really so important.  

So, what do you think of the stitching on the outside look of this?  What do you think of the monochromatic look?  I'm curious to see how it would look with a contrasting thread color.  

For now, I'm going to cut out another one, with a small seam allowance on all the pieces, I may do some colorful stitches on this one, just to see how it looks.  

Part of the creative process is in the feedback, so if you have any suggestions, please feel free to share!  

xxoo

Cindy