today is my next-to-last real day of summer vacation before i start the new school year on monday, so i decided to make a tshirt in the spirit of back-to-school...though it's a little bosomy to wear to work, i'll be thinking "back-to-school" in my heart and neighborhood.  
ironed some double-sided fusible on the various recycled tshirt layers, tacked them down with the iron and then sewed them together--they're all pretty thin tshirts, so it's not particularly thick or stiff even though there are several layers to the owl.  the eyes are a stack of some strange one-holed buttons held on with a couple regular dark mother-of-pearl buttons.

felt rug by drunkenlibraria, on Flickr
made this rug yesterday with felt sewn to a canvas dropcloth backing--it's about 2'x2.5' or so, most wool felt mixed with some cheap acryllic.  took a while to sew, but not difficult and i think it's super cute!

i ordered the funny bunny fabric from fabric.com and then this happened.  i embroidered the lettering in red over black sharpie, going for the crazed mess on purpose, though it wouldn't have looked much better if i'd have tried for "neat and tidy"...the red zig zag and such is machine.  everything looks better with red zig zag.  the canvas will thread out a little more before i'm done with it, i'm sure.
i've got a second piece on the back burner with some flaming raccoons!

it's a little goofy, but i like it.  reminds me of some hippie tree hugger pattern from the 70s that went a little wrong...


i'm putting a button, or buttons, to hold the front in shape a little better, but i can't decide if i like anything i have, or if i should go shopping for something else.  in any case, it's very drapey in the front, and slightly longer in the front than the back.


this is a spread of the front part, so you can see what i sort of thought i was doing there:

these are the buttons i'm considering:

what do you think?

a good friend of mine has had work upset of late and i said that a distraction is what she needed and she should start watching her mailbox because i would make her something--this tarted up frenchie cat is that distraction. 
didn't know exactly what i had in mind when i started out, but i like the way the proportions came together and i LOVE the combination of yarn in texture and partciularly color:



hanging out with the giant owl before i mailed her off:

as always, every toy is an emergency meal, weighted with two cups of dried beans in the bottom! 

i have a smallish, extremely cluttered apartment...so you might think that making huge things out of yarn (or anything else!) would be a little out of the question, but i can't seem to help myself.  i make them, i love them, i trip over them--hassock, i'm looking at you!
this is the latest--a giant stuffed owl made out of all the crappy red heart super saver, random itchy wool and freakish fuzzy stuff that i never got around to using:

it's about three feet wide, little more than that tall and about a foot deep...stuffed with all the guts of a body pillow and another jumbo standard pillow, in a cover, so i could conceivably wash the outside if i needed to...though i can't imagine i'll wrestle it open and closed again unless there is an emergency!  you can see that napoleon is not so sure about sharing the chair with the beast--nap's about 20 pounds, so that gives you perspective on the size, too. 
crocheted in a spiral, about 6 strands held together and the big "speed hook"...a Q?  black buttons for eyes.

made this today out of a couple tshirts and a lot of red zig zag stitching...threw some buttons down at the bottom of the trunk, too, just for fun, and might put some more stuff on it if i think about it.  can't decide if it's ludicrous or awesome, but i like it. 

i made a hassock for my friends jim and mitch--this one is about two feet in diameter and made using between four and six yarns held together.

the flip side!
a better picture of some of the yarn--and napoleon, peeking around the corner as a bonus!

patch on red canvas...

made for my friend ben's birthday--

made the line drawing from a photo, then made a gocco screen onto wool challis...sewn with red zig-zag on light canvas with a punched metal tag in real naugahyde brand black vinyl.


photo on card stock sewn to back to hide messiness of stitching...