Purple Kappa

Christmas was lovely, all the gifts we gave were appreciated, the dog and cat family set were well-loved and I got to visit with family I hadn't seen since Thanksgiving. We're off to visit Brian's family in Pennsylvania until New Year's Day, so there probably won't be any blog postings until then. See you in the Year of the Rat!

Christmas Eve

Just in time for Christmas, I think I may have these finished

It's so cute, but never again. Everything is hand sewn, and everything is separate. Head, body, 4 legs. Everything needed to be attached, and it's a little wonky, they tip over easily. The dog house still needs the roof attached--there are actually two house parts, with cardboard sandwiched in the middle. All handsewn. The doghouse isn't quite right either, the roof doesn't exactly fit the way it should but I think it will be okay. There's a cat bed behind the cats, they all have little bowls, the dogs have a ball and chew toys and the cats have a mouse and a litter box (not in the picture).

All I'm saying is that this better get played with.A lot ahaha.

I still need to finish up some cans of food. Brian has to work the help desk for his job until 6 PM, so maybe we'll go to Chinatown for a little shopping--I figure that's the one place that won't be terribly crowded.

Winter Solstice

We decorated the little Magnolia tree in our front yard with food for the birds to celebrate the Solstice--borrowing heavily from the episode of Little Bear where they celebrate the Winter Solstice by gathering with friends for a feast and putting out food for the "snow angels"

The next morning a solstice gift was on the porch--a little wooden cheese house with toy mice

(the cheese house was from Hearthsong, but it's no longer on the site)

This year we have an artificial tree. It was a difficult decision for me--we always had a fake tree growing up and I swore when I had my own place I'd always have a real one. But they are just getting so expensive and it's getting hard to justify the cost when we are trying so hard to budget things. It's really a lovely tree, it doesn't look fake at all. And I bought some pine roping to hang around the windows for the Christmas tree smell

Every year since I was born my parents would make or buy and ornament. Unfortunately, because of being handmade many were fragile and haven't survived. This is the one my mother made the year I was four, it's made with the styrofoam from a meat package

Stellaluna is hanging from the tree as well

I'm not sure how old these ornaments are, my mother gave them to me when I was in my teens for the little tree I had in my room. The one with the church and "silent night" is starting to grow translucent, I think it might be 1950's

The Harry Potter scarf is finished, I just need to finish a few details on the cat and dog families. It's probably going to be the thing where I actually have more to do than I think, but it still should be completed by Christmas.

Runo, dollmaker

Runo is a Japanese artist who makes the most wonderful dolls. I found her website a few years ago and used the instructions for the Nekomimi (Cat-Ear) Doll for Ivy and Miranda.

To be honest, they were really more of a gift to myself, as neither girl really enjoys playing with dolls. Ivy's is in the kimono, she's actually a fox-girl, and Miranda's has Chinese-style pajamas and cat paw mittens and boots. The instructions were very thorough and easy to follow.

A couple days ago I was doing a search on Bunka Ningyo and found that Runo has a blog, Nuno Life. She doesn't update very often, but shares a number of cute projects.

Still furiously knitting and sewing for Christmas. I thought I was doing so well, and realized yesterday there are four days until Christmas and I work 3 of them. I already knew that, but the actual cold reality finally sunk in.

Orange and Clove Pomanders and Japanese Snow Monkeys

Clementines seem to work just as well as oranges to make pomanders, and since they are much smaller covering them with cloves goes quickly. Because the skins are thinner and the fruit is juicer, it's messier then I remember oranges being, but the end result smelled lovely. We rolled them in cinnamon and will wrap them in tulle and ribbon for presents

Ivy tried to make a little face on hers.

I discovered this some time ago, it's a live webcam for the Japanese Macaques at the Nagano hot springs.

http://www.jigokudani-yaenkoen.co.jp/livecam/monkey/

The Snow Monkeys live farther north than any other monkey. In 1963 a young monkey went into one of the hot springs to retrieve some soybeans a keeper had thrown to her. She stayed in the warm water and soon some of the other monkeys joined her. Over the years the rest of the troop took up the behavior--to the point that they were giving their own hot spring, to keep them from invading the human springs (and apparently filling them with monkey poo, from accounts I've read). I think maybe I wouldn't mind the cold and snow quite so bad if I had a hot spring to relax in--although getting out would probably be somewhat uncomfortable. I'd just have to sit there until Spring.

Candyland

Last week I took the girls out to a local park where they've created a giant Candyland Game in the Nature Center

Again with the goofy faces. The flash induced demon eyes really adds to the affect.

I can't remember if I posted a link to this website before, add since I'm so poor at remembering to add tags or categories to my posts, I can't look it up. So here it is again

Japan Couture Addicts

It's in French, but has loads of great pictures as well as a library along the side of the blog. The ISBN numbers aren't included like they are at Crafting Japanese but the titles are translated into romaji, which should help in looking them up. While perusing through the library,  it appears that the little doll pictured on the cover of this book (ISBN 4529044378)

is featured in this instruction book (ISBN 4834756211)

I own the first one and was a little disappointed it didn't include instructions for the doll so it was a pleasant surprise to find the second book.

Finished Quilts

Making these quilts brought the realization that while I love the idea of handmade quilts, I don't really enjoy the actual making. And these were just simple squares hand-tied, I'm duly impressed with those of you that piece intricate quilts. At least I achieved my goal of a quilt for each girl

My little speech about how having a quilt on your bed is like having a hug from your mom all night long didn't quite work--instead of sleeping in her own bed Miranda just drags the quilt with her into our bed

Ivy is still sleeping on a futon on the floor. My dream is loft beds for the two of them, but I want to wait until they stop coming into my bed--which may be well into their teens, the way things are going...

I'm pleased with the way they turned out and I used up a lot of stash fabric but I hope a true quilter never looks closely at these as I took numerous shortcuts.  They do both appreciate their quilts and I'm hoping they have them for a long time.

Mary Frances Books

When Miranda was a baby I started buying reprints of some of the books in the Mary Frances series. I have the sewing, the housekeeper and the garden books. I thought they were out of print again, but it looks as though they are still available for sale directly from the Lacis website , along with some other books by the same author that look intriguing

They've been sitting on my shelf in my sewing room, but recently I picked one up and started leafing through it again, remembering the patterns for wonderful doll clothes. Full size patterns are included in the back of the book, but I find you need some knowledge of sewing or the instructions are a bit confusing. A number of sewing techniques are also demonstrated. But the best thing is the clothing! With some adjustment of patterns I already own, I think I should be able to transform these into clothing for children. I'm already inspired to make an afternoon dress like the one in the picture, and the pinafore is lovely as well.

There are also 4 glossy color plates and numerous drawings. It's nice to find forgotten inspiration on your own bookshelves!

Gingerbread House

Our first attempt at a gingerbread house:

A house inspector would find numerous design flaws, but overall I think it looks pretty good. I had seen pictures of some wonderful ones online, even simple ones that were decorated with candy's in clever ways--my favorite used necco wafers as colored tiles for the roof. But I wanted this to be a collaboration with my daughters and so I just gave them each a side of the roof and let them stick the candies in however they wanted.

I used Martha Stewart's gingerbread cookie recipe and these directions and template (opens as a pdf. ). Fortunately I had checked the website a few days before starting the house because it included the useful advice that you should assemble the walls and wait 4-12 hours before adding the roof, to be sure the icing had set and the house was stable. As you can see, it snowed a lot in the gingerbread land...I wanted to be certain nothing was going to collapse! The gingerbread smells really good, I think we are going to have a hard time waiting until Christmas to eat it. I've already realized the folly in setting an entire house made of sugar on the dining room table and expecting Ivy isn't going to eat it. A few years ago I had some sugar skulls for The Day of the Dead and I would find her hiding in the living room, sneakily sucking on them. I have enough dough left over from the house to make several dozen cookies, we should probably get started on them sometime soon...

Wax paper and crayon snowflakes

Today we made snowflakes. Well, we made a snowflake. Ivy doesn't really like guided crafts all that much, she wants to do things her way. So she made this one snowflake, then decided she'd rather draw some more decorations instead. She did patiently allow me to take pictures, so I could write up a tutorial

You need wax paper, crayons and a grater. I have an old one I picked up at  a garage sale that's just for crafts. You could also use a pencil sharpener. You'll also need an iron.

Grate different color crayons onto a sheet of wax paper

You can make whatever color combinations you like or use just one color

Carefully put the wax paper with crayons bits on a towel. Lay another sheet of wax paper on top

Run the hot iron over it quickly. I had mine on the lowest setting. You might also want to lay another towel on top before you iron it. I didn't and now I have to wipe off the iron

Fold the wax paper into eights and snip designs into it

Open it up

Hang it in the window. It's very pretty if you can hang it in a window that sunlight streams through.