Feeling Thankful

Shew. The last few days have been a blur. Hazel and I flew to South Carolina to celebrate dear Uncle Pete. It was a beautiful weekend of stories and laughter and tears and love. We saw so many beloved family members and watched and listened and smiled as Pete was remembered so lovingly.

Then yesterday - Halloween - we flew home. I landed at DIA at 4:30 and caught up with Eric and both our moms at their gate where they were waiting to board their flight to Frankfurt before their flight to Venice. 

That's right. We were two ships passing in the airport before he left for 10 days for Italy. With Yaya. 

Whose idea was that? 

Oh right. Mine.

So today I'm on my own with all three kiddos for the first time (for the next 10 days), and you know what I'm feeling (besides tired and a little trepidatious?)? 

Thankful.

It's serendipitous then that I'm feeling so thankful and that today is November 1st - The first day of our Thankful Tree. 

Each November we bring out the Thankful Tree. And everyday we write down something we're thankful for and tuck it into that day's leaf. 

In today's leaf:

We're so thankful Hazel Mae has come to join our family!

I'm sure we'll get to monster trucks before the month is out. 

If you'd like to see how we made our Thankful Tree, click here to last year's post about it.

Oh...and hi dear reader. I'm thankful for you. 

Vegan Mother Hubbard is all about thankfulness this month. I linked this post up to get in on the thankful action:

Thankful Tree

Bursting with gratitude?

Got a hefty stash of felt handy?

Well here's the tutorial for you.

I must give credit where it's due - I get (*cough* steal *cough*) lots of ideas from Pottery Barn Kids. Eli loves to play in there, and while he plays, I get inspired. That's where the idea for the Thankful Tree was planted, as well as the Paper Bird Mobile. I don't take photos (the fella scolded me for that one) I just look and let the ideas ruminate for a while until they bust their way out via my fingertips. To begin, sew four sheets of green felt together like so:
(That beige sheet should be green, but I only had three green sheets).

Then cut it into a bushy/tree shape por exemplo:
Now, because my sheets weren't all the same color, I decided to felt in some green roving to mask the different shades. You can skip this step if you have enough green sheets of felt.
Make some branches and a trunk out of brown felt:
Voila.

Then cut out a buncha leaves out of fall colored felt. Add numbers for the dates of the month. I sewed my numbers with a very tight wide zig zag stitch. But you could cut numbers of out felt and stitch them on by hand or machine (don't worry about the edges - felt doesn't fray - love the stuff!).
Then stitch the leaves on, leaving the center portion of the leaf, and the top wedge un-stitched, so that you'll have a little pocket into which you can tuck a note of thanks.
Because November's been a busy month, I just got this finished today, so the boys and I played Gratitude Catch-Up at dinner tonight. Dizzy totally gets it. Right out the gate - he's thankful for his family (melt). Then he's thankful for us one by one (including me, with a little goading - "How about the one who made the tree?")

Then he exclaimed, "The next one's for Luca and Inara!" - his besties. Heart...warmed.

We were thankful for his school, teacher and class buddies...our yummy food, especially when prepared by Daddy, and being so healthy. And now we're caught up.

The plan is to continue discussing gratitude and write something we're thankful for each of the remaining days in November. I even plan to take this with us on our travels.

Gratitude abounds...

Felting for Beginners (that's me)

This is how I roll.

1) I get wind of a craft that I'm not doing that sounds cool, in this case, felting.
2) I RUN out and plunk down all the cash I can spare on said craft.
3) I do said craft instead of sleeping for a few days.
4) I whip up a couple of sweet projects.
5) My interest peters out and I don't touch it for a while.
6) I pick it back up in a few months in a less manic manner.

That's where I am now with felting. Wanna see?

Those boys look excited about felting don't they (what you can't see is me out of frame shaking treats at them)?
The supplies:
Cheapo sheets of felt from any craft shops
Not-cheapo wool roving which if you're in Denver, you can get at Fancy Tiger (my fave crafty shop)
Scissors
Piece of Foam
Felting needles (below)
Something on which to felt (in this case, onsies) NOTE: If I were sewing or appliqueing fabric onto a onsie, I would wash the onsie first since the fabric is already washed and shrunk. Since the wool roving or felt has not been washed, I felt on an unwashed onsie so that when I do wash the item, the onsie and felt shrink together.
That's the basics - you can get really creative with your materials - lots of things can felt and be felted upon.
1) Slide onsie onto foam.
Like so. That thing to the right there is a Clover Felting Needle Tool. It's super handy because it's a cluster of needles instead of a single, which speeds up the process considerably. Also, your needles are inside the holder, making it harder (though not impossible) to stab yourself. WARNING: These babies are sharp, and with all the jabbing it's very easy to stab yourself.

Also - an word to the Mamas from Captain Obvious - don't leave these laying around (I need to remember this especially when crafting with the boys because there are so many distractions)
So, option 1) I cut out circle and peace sign out of the sheets of felt. And then, the magic of felting: It's all about the jabbing. You just stab and stab and stab and viola! The fibers mesh together microscopically and your piece ends up felted and joined to your fabric.

This is what it looks like on the inside. See all the little felted fibers.

Now, here are a bunch single needles which are handy for more detailed areas.

Option 2) This is wool roving. I used this wool roving to shape a peace sign on a circle of felt. You just pull a piece of roving off and then twist it and shape it, then jab it into place.

Aside - Roving is also fun for dressing up your helpless infant.

I just twisted and stabbed, twisted and stabbed.

Circle complete. Now I twisted more roving into straight pieces to make the lines of the peace sign.

Viola.
Then I threw them in the wash. This shrunk everything and really secured the fibers together.

Above is the one on which I used the sheets of felt. This is post-washing. I might do a little more stabbing with my clover tool to lock the circle down around the edges.

And here are the finished products. They will each have a pair of peace pants to go with very soon. Check my etsy shop in the next day or two if you want to snatch these up!

Amos is rocking this sweet rocket onsie I felted for him.

This was my first felted project. This is where I learned about not pre-washing the items on which I felt. After I felted it, I washed it and things drew up a bit. But I still rock this baby.