Walk for Wildlife, April 10 to 16

National Wildlife Week

Did you hear the songbird's melody coming from that tall pine on the corner of your street?

Did you see the squirrel running along the neighbor's fence?

Did you notice the small toad jumping on the sidewalk, or the robin looking for worms on your front lawn?

I am a nature lover.  I cherish the trees and flowers that grow in my environment.  And I am amazed by all the animals that I meet, from the smallest ladybug in flower beds to the giant moose hiding in the forest.

This week we're all invited to go for a walk and look at the life around us.  We often forget all those creatures who share the territory with us and we don't realize how much our actions on the land impact them.

Official walks are organized all over the country, but I invite you to make it on a more personal level.  You don't need to go deep in the woods to be aware of the wildlife.  A simple stroll around your neighborhood will let you see plenty of animals, and will reconnect you with nature, if you just open your eyes and your ears and take time to observe.

I am not just talking about this, I believe in the necessity to reconnect with nature.  My boyfriend and I started the week on Sunday with a visit to one of our favorite places, a protected area including a small marsh, a wood and an access to the St.Lawrence River. 

The marsh was still frozen and pretty much deserted at this time of the year, but in summer

it is a marvellous place to observe birds:  herons and egrets, kingfishers and kingbirds, and a great number of ducks

We went down the trail to the woods where the snow had begun to melt and where robins were actively looking for juicy worms.  Black-capped chickadees and squirrels were begging us to give them seeds and nuts and were following us from branch to branch.  A wood-pecker was hard at work in the dead trees a little further, and water was streaming down the hill in a soft ringing melody.

And just as we were going through the apple orchard and wondering about the faded prints in the snow, Patrick spotted a deer lying under the trees about 30 feet from us.  We knew then whose prints we'd been looking at on the trail.  She looked at us unalarmed and let me take pictures of her for a long time, even when she got up and walked slowly towards a clearing.

A second deer was going her own way a little further, we watched silently as they gracefully entered another wooden area and disappeared.

Our walk took us down to the river side where we were able to observe a large flock of Canada geese feeding and chatting gaily.  We also spotted a couple of mallards sliding on the calm water and far away some sea ducks were visible through our binoculars, though we could not identify them at that distance.  We watched them dive and resurface a few yards from their starting point.

This was a walk filled with pure delight, and we still talk about it two days later as if we had just come home.  We could have made it a very different experience, we could have walked through the woods and never stopped one minute, talking about our problems or about the movie we had seen the night before.  The deers would have watched us walk by unnoticed.  We would have never seen the sea ducks.  We would have been annoyed by the insistence of the chickadees.

We would have forgotten that we share a land with so many other species, all of them worth at least as much interest as ourselves.

Take some time this week and go for a walk, open your eyes and your ears and your heart, and who knows what new furry or feathered friend you could meet.

A mosaic of hexies

This is what I have been up to lately, 60 hexagons.  I started with two charm packs of 5 inch fabric squares, one is Amy Butler's Soul Blossom, the other one is Kathy Davis's Blossoming.

I now have all my fabric basted to paper hexagons and I have been playing with them to make a mosaic, a very colorful one.  I will start handsewing them together this week.

What are they to become?, I hear you asking.  Well, it could be a number of things, really, but if you own the book Sew! by Cath Kidston, you will know.  And the rest of you will find out soon enough!

A mini makeover

This is the "new" couch that we bought last year.  We'd been wanting a red, country-looking couch for a long time and we just love it.  However, there is one thing about it that got me a little depressed:  its legs.

It had some cheap black plastic legs that I just couldn't stand.  There was nothing remotely country about those legs, and so we'd been talking about changing them for wooden legs instead.  We shopped for those, but they were either too big or too expensive.  I was not about to pay 20$ for one leg, however beautiful it might be.

We finally found what we were looking for at the flea market.  These are basic unfinished wooden legs, and for 3$ each, we took them home.  My boyfriend used some colored shellac on them and screwed them in place.

I like the new look much better!

Craft Book Challenge... without the book

Well, there is a book, I just don't get along with it very well.  My two last projects, meant to be my CBC for February and March, were supposed to come from this book, but the patterns were all wrong for me and so I had to toss the book aside and improvise, which turned out to feel even better.  It made me realize that I can do stuff my own way and it can look as good as the ready-made patterns.  Huge boost for my self-esteem.

So, the book in question is Sew!, by Cath Kidston.  

It is a very good-looking book with great ideas, and I don't regret buying it.  In fact, I am trying a third project from this book, knowing that if I get lost again with the pattern, I can change a few things and work it out.  My first attempt was a needle book, shown here in the book:

And here as it turned out:

I thought that using fabric covered cardboard was a bright idea, that is until I tried it and realized it did not really work out well.  My main problem was that my Heat'n'Bond stuff did not really stick to either the cardboard or the felt, so that the whole thing was coming apart.  It might be that I was using the wrong stuff, or that I did not know how to use it.  Anyway, I had to add a few stitches here and there to secure it a bit, but it ended up looking a little too cheap for my taste.  

You can see below what it looks like from the back, where I had to sew the strap.

I was not about to call it quit, though, so I made my own version, inspired by the pattern, but without the cardboard and the fabric adhesive.  Everything is sewn and nothing will come apart with this one.  It is not as sturdy as the one from the book, but I wasn't really into it to begin with, so I made mine a soft cover with a sheet of felt as batting.

I like this one much better and as you can see, I have already found some use for it.

My second attempt was a fabric-covered coat hanger.

I have to report that I did not go very far with this pattern.  I read the instructions twice and could not make any sense of them.  The measurements were all wrong for the hangers that I had, and the gathering technique did not seem to me like it would work.  I was still on my guard from my recent experience with the needle book, so I used the book as inspiration for the choice of fabrics and I just drew my own pattern to fit my hangers.

I am still surprised they came out so good, and I can see a few more of these hangers in a near future, because these were given to my mom for her birthday, but I want some for myself as well.

 So far, the CBC has been very revealing to me.  I have learned not to be afraid to try something new, and I have learned to trust my instinct and to improvise.  The three patterns that I had chosen lacked some instructions, and I have had to stop and think to find out how to get to the result in my own way.

My next project again comes from Sew!, and hopefully I can work around that one too.  I will show you soon what I am up to.

Out of the Rabbit Hole

It's been so long since I showed up here that you must have thought I fell down the rabbit hole.

It might be just that, for look who I met when I came out.

I was browsing my favorite blogs a couple of weeks ago when I came across this great tutorial from All Sorts.      

And instantly it was clear to me that I NEEDED to make one for myself.  I pushed aside everything else I was working on and had to make it right away.  I looked through my supplies - sorry, no time to go shopping for the perfect fleece or new fabrics - and had my little bunny ready in no time.

Of course, my boyfriend got jealous and demanded a matching boy version, so a second one came as quickly as the first.  They are that easy to make!  And for the clothes, I used the dress pattern, which I slightly modified, and turned in into a little jacket.

What I like the most about these cuties, apart from the fact that they multiply in the blink of an eye, is that their clothes are reversible and leaves space for their pompom tails to pop out.  That is just too darn cute.

I don't have any specific plans for them, except to keep me company in the studio, but don't you think they'd be great in Easter baskets?

Sylvie

Wanna Swap?

Karen from Sew Many Ways is having her first Swap Meet Weekend and I thought it might be fun to join in and see how it goes. What I have to offer is one full yard of Kaffe Fassett Rosette print, which I think is beautiful, but I bought it for one specific project and now it just doesn't fit with the other fabrics, so I would be happy to let it go to someone who could use it.  And just so you can check shipping fees, I am located in Quebec city, Canada.

What I would like to swap it for?  It could be either another Kaffe Fassett print or some Phillip Jacobs.  I am also collecting polka dot prints and vintage calico fabrics , and they don't have to be a full yard, they can be a bunch of nice scraps, since most of my projects are quite small.  So, don't be shy, let me know what you have to swap and we'll see if we can make a happy match!

Visit Karen here to join in the swap party!

Sylvie

Craft Book Challenge - January

I finally came around to making this patchwork pincushion that I liked so much from the book Tout en patch'..., which I have mentionned numerous times on this blog.  It is, by far, my favorite craft book from my small collection, and I return to it quite often for easy small projects.

The pieces for this patchwork were really small, some less than half an inch wide, so I decided to try paper-piecing them, and it worked like a charm.  There is something about hand sewing that I find very relaxing and I have enjoyed making this little piece.  I think the hardest part was selecting the fabrics, which I chose from my vintage scraps collection.

You can still join in the challenge here, and see what other participants have been making.  For February, I will try something red to be in the spirit of Valentine's Day, crossing my fingers that I can get an earlier start than I did in January.

Happy crafting everyone!

Sylvie