I Can't Live Without Books

"I Can't Live Without Books!" .... Yes! It's the famous quote from Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers and the third president of USA.

I was thinking to make a birthday gift for anyone who loves to read books, all kind of books, I would say.  Digging my creativity, I chose an owl as we all know this bird represents wisdom, art and scholarship...so an owl reading a book will be a cool idea with Thomas Jefferson's quote at the right side!  I drew the owl on a paper and made it as a pattern to cut the fabric.  A combination of blue and yellow fabric for the owl and quilting around it would be great.

Actually, I planned to make a pillow cover out of it...and it was a pillow cover just ready to have final stitching, but my husband protested, "I thought you gonna make a wall hanging art, stop stitching!"  Hurriedly, he took off a painting out of its frame and put the sewn owl on it...and voila! check it out!  It's now become an art!

The eliminated painting is now kept for a while until we buy another frame for it :) anyway my hubby didn't really like it, it's an abstract and too abstract without any meaning on it :D   Well, now it's hanging there above my bookshelf, and I really have to make another one to be kept for a birthday gift later on ;)

Elodie the Elephant

I got the One Yard Wonders (OYW) book, I can say this book is giving me cool ideas on what to do with one yard fabric only.  And I bought this book mainly because I want to have the simple pattern on dresses they've shared there.  For my first project, I chose Elodie the Elephant, since I love this animal so much and I love to make doll...

The instruction on how to make Elodie the Elephant is a little bit confusing, thus I decided to search on Google about the tutorial.  Thanks for Sarah Faix of Bit of Whimsy dolls, the Elodie's designer, she shared the tutorial on youtube.com and divided the tutorials into three parts, click here for part 1, part 2, and part 3.  You bet you'll find it so easy to sew this Elodie ;)  

I was thinking to give the doll to my hubby's friend's daughter as a gift but rethinking when I found the stitching on the ears' sides were so tricky and I wasn't satisfied :(   So, just let me have this Elodie for myself at home :)  At least, if I have little guests they can play with it ;)

A Promise is A Promise ;)

I promised one time to a dear friend's daughters, that we'll make a doll together during their holiday...When they returned to Indonesia, they bought some meters of felt fabric to make the doll :)   So, holiday was almost finished when their mom took them to my home for the doll making project :)

I have a Wee Wonderful book by Hillary Lang, I showed it to them and asked them to choose which one they want to make.  These two girls are Megu, 11 and Pooja, 9 years-old.  Megu is on her transitional age, about leaving her childhood and going to enter her teenage age, so she's not that interested in making doll.  It seems to me that she's also not into crafting :) so she finally chose to make minnie mouse applique from the felt fabric with her mom's help :)  While, Pooja, she was so busy picking up the doll to make, she wanted them all but she knew she could only pick one :)  Finally she chose tag-a-long doll to be smurfed ;)

Look at them, they are so serious doing their tasks :)  And on the right side is Pooja holding her doll, she named it Emma :)  I wanted the girls to be involved during the project making.  They happily transferred the picture into a paper ready to be cut.  They also loved to help the stitching.  I taught them how to do the backstitch and they do the rest, though the result is running stitch :D  However, to save the time, I did the major stitching using my machine.  Well, as you know, kids will always hope a project can be done at the same day itself, so they can take their doll home :)

Isn't Emma as sweet as Pooja?  Pooja is so proud with her doll and keep on telling people that she made it by herself ;)