Crafternoon

The month has nearly passed without us making an entry here. The weather has been gloomy, and we Sasha dolls really don't like going out in the rain much. MamaT's been busy working both inside and outside and has left me free reign on the computer. One thing I've noticed about Sashaphiles is that a whole lot of them are extremely talented and creative, especially with sewing or knitting clothes for Sasha's and sometimes repainting our faces, or otherwise providing accessories for us. MamaT has made a couple of elementary attempts at sewing for us, and we hope she'll do more, and while she wouldn't call crafting her strong point, she has made a few things over the past couple of years. Today I've been going through the digital photos, and I'm going to show a few of them off to you without telling her.

First up is a necklace MamaT made last year. It's not anything she planned on, but she was in a hobby store with her husband, and while he was talking trains in the train department, MamaT fell for the stone beads and had time to find all the other ingredients for the necklace. She loves it, and later found a perfect pair of earrings to go with it.

Next we have a quilt square. In a weak moment, MamaT agreed to make a quilt square that in some way would represent Glacier National Park for a benefit fund raiser. She got the idea to create an image of Lake McDonald with the mountains and trees (larch and conifers) reflected in the lake. She was really happy to find fabrics at the store that worked just right with what she had imagined. She had never done applique before in her life, and so it was much harder and took hours and hours longer than she had bargained for. In the end though, she was so proud of herself she could hardly stand it.
Next we have a set of curtains started a couple of years ago. MamaT fell in love with the fabric, and just had to have it for her bedroom windows. When she got home, she discovered she didn't have enough fabric. She went back and bought the last of the bolt, but it still wasn't enough and she couldn't figure out a good plan B. So everything got stuffed in a drawer for a couple years. Until a few months ago when a friend came to MamaT's rescue and helped her figure out how to salvage the project and even helped a lot with the sewing. Now she needs to make a matching set for the second window....

In the next photo you'll see a bunch of spatulas that MamaT made as Christmas gifts in December. The uppers are in poplar, and the lower set in cherry. While the poplar was pretty and easy as butter to cut, they probably won't last as long. MamaT uses these spatulas all the time. She has one in every species they've tried out including, oak, cherry, apple, birch, myrtle and poplar. The cutting boards in the backdrop were made by her dear husband.

Several years ago, MamaT got a small window screen that she found was a perfect system for hanging earrings. After a while she found that her earrings were aggravating her metal allergy more and more and finally attributed part of the problem to the metal screen which was not helping matters. So she made this "hypo-allergenic" earring rack and replaced all her earring hooks with sterling silver or gold, and that has helped alleviate the allergy problem tremendously.

When MamaT moved into the house she now lives in, she painted the sunflowers on her mailbox. Last year the box was a target of random vandalism and was smashed with a framing hammer. One other box nearby (a standard plastic box) and several on a road about a mile away were also hit. Go figure.

So when she replaced the mailbox, this time she wanted a dragonfly on it, and since the stencil wasn't very big, she added flowers and butterflies, all representing species that can be found on the property.

Hope you've enjoyed these. Have a great day!