~:: More Handmade ::~

So I get this visitor, showing up at my front gate, grinning from ear to ear.  She’s got her hands behind her back and a very pregnant twinkle in her eye.  She’s telling me about her annual sisters’ retreat and how each sister is going to make something – for some reason my visitor is not even sure of.  Then she says, “Wanna see what I made?”  Like I’m not dying already to see.

“Do you love these thighs?” she cackles, thinking how right fat thighs are for the occasion.

And really, isn’t this an amazing cuteness?  It’s an Alan Dart pattern, one he sells on his web site – clever and charming as usual and full of wonderful detail.  The problem is, now this biddy is made, my visitor is feeling just a mite reluctant to hand her over –

As much as Rachel loves her sisters –

And here is my petroglyph quilt, made for Gin’s graduation.  The borders and quilted rattlesnakes.

Max shows me a monster he made in his class.  Probably appropriate that it should look just a little like a tooth.  He designed this and cut out the pieces and sewed it up himself.  He will not tell you that he’s proud of it, but he is.

This is Mama Fish.  There is a story to go with her, but I will not tell it now.  Let it simply be known that my own daughter, who crochets rather than knits, set out to knit a cousin to this favored of all fish.  I may have posted about this before, but my pride bears repetition.

Max was very clear about showing all sides of this really astonishing bit of yarn improvisation.

Side view.

And finally –

the tail.

Because fish were such a big dang deal in his life, I made him a quilt.  This was just before I stopped quilting forever.  It was inspired by a bag Rachel bought in Belize.  I was intrigued by the crazy fish that had been screen printed on it.  So I got wild and made my own crazy fish.

The fish were mostly made in three sections.  First the outside shape of the fish was cut out of fusible webbing.  I always cut the center out of pieces I’m going to fuse onto backing so that I’m only fusing with an outside rim of web.  With the inside parts, I made smaller fish.  One big fish yielded two smaller fish – it was kind of nifty, the way it worked out.

On the original, plain fish piece, I fused the colorful sections that made head, body and tail, blanket stitching them all on machine.  Then I placed all the fish and blanket stitched them to the quilt top.  The sky is full of squid.

A blurry view of the batik backing, which was perfect.  And the lone back fish.

I am sneaking in these two needle punch dudes.  I meant to include them with another collection, but forgot ’em.  I don’t do this much, but there’s great charm in hooking miniature rugs like this – I think it’s three inches by two.

This one is about one and a half inches square.

Last, but not least:  from the soap template above (old, gritty soap can achieve some wonderful shapes), I did this little thing:

 For a lovely, gentle young woman I know who had just lost her beloved chicken.  The fact that chickens can, indeed, be beloved was something this very young woman had taught me.  It was a great pleasure to be able to make something to give back to her.