Saturday 23 December 2017

Gingerbread Houses

Every year about this time, my husband and I go and see the gingerbread houses created by local bakers to raise money for "Habitat for Humanity".  (I do have to twist my husband's arm at times for this event to happen)

This year, the theme was "Canada 150" of course, and the gingerbread houses were displayed at a new venue, the Parkside on Humbolt St in Victoria (on until Jan 3rd I believe).

Admission is free and if you want to vote, you donate to Habitat for the privilege. Also they are selling gingerbread cookies and coffee for only $2.25 and the money goes to the cause.

Here are some of the wonderful houses:












I vote for this iconic entry, although it was tough choosing.






Thursday 14 December 2017

Broc and Cara's Picnic Party

I was at the Sidney First Chance craft show this October and I was approached by a local children's book author, Dave Wilson.  Dave loved my wooly critters and commissioned me to make characters from his children's book using my wool sweater technique.

Here is the cover of his book, "Broc and Cara's Picnic Party":

The book is to encourage children to eat healthy and include veggies in their diet by making the vegetables into characters that children can identify.

The first character I made was the beet:


He became my favourite character even though he only has a supporting role in the book.  I had just enough of both the baby blue sweater for his uniform as well as the lovely green shaded sweater for the beet leaves that form his hair.  How cool is he?

Next came cool Cuke, the cucumber with cool attitude:

 I made the shorts using teeshirt material and appliquéd teeshirt flowers to mimic the illustrations in the book.  I love his wee toes.


I found the perfect orange sweater and green sweater to tackle  the main characters, Cara, the Carrot and Broc the broccoli:


I used baby shoes to mimic the runners he wears in the book
When making Cara, I wanted to make her hair using wool as well as yarn.  I have a stash of yarn and I found three shades of green yarn for her hair that is stitched over her kelly green head.

Finally, I wanted to make the busy bee who is crucial in keeping those yummy vegetables coming.

 He is quite the jolly fellow with warm wool wings as well:
Yellow sweaters are hard to come by and I lucked out when I found this cashmere sweater that was riddled with moth holes and so very affordable.

All the characters were so much fun to make and I am happy to report that the author, Dave Wilson, was thrilled with the results.  He wants to use the characters as promotional material as well as giving his son tangible characters to play with this Christmas.

Do go and check out brocandcara's website. He is writing another book in this series about "inner health".

Ornaments Galore

  It is mid October and I have just finished making a gaggle of Christmas ornaments in preparation for the holidays: There are reindeers, pa...