Weekend Handwork

I have discovered a new love! Oh my goodness, truly in love. Chloe and I made our first needle felting pictures this weekend. I am also working on a little standing doll, probably for our autumn nature table. This is our first real beginning with wool crafts. You see, we are a vegan family, have been for about 15 years, and in all that time have never worn wool, leather, don't eat honey, didn't use beeswax. Well, beeswax is actually how this all started. The girls never even had crayons, we just used the nice Lyra colored pencils. We were always looking for some kind of vegan crayon option, which would of course be synthetic. Petroleum based. Then a few years ago we stared wondering why we thought a petroleum based crayon was better than a beeswax crayon. After all, we never gave the girls any other kind of synthetic product, no plastic toys, only cotton clothing. We decided we felt good about choosing to use beeswax crayons and candles. (Totally personal decision for us. Other vegans may of course choose to do whatever they want.) Having the beeswax in our home brought us great joy really. Something about the connection to nature, to those sweet little bees so giving and full of love. The wool decision took much longer. Several years really. But recently we (and by we I mean my husband Jason and I) decided to start using wool. A lot of it again has to do with the synthetic versus natural. We never bought polyester fleece clothing or anything like that, (though we do wear synthetic shoes), not even the supposedly better eco type recycled fleece clothing, it's still just plastic to me. We just wore layers and layers of cotton. And we live where winters are very cold and snowy. I can't tell you how excited we are about the idea of having truly warm clothing this coming winter. I have already knitted wool hats for the girls and Jason, mine is still on the needles. The first wool that I used was from Sara from her own sheep. I really feel okay about using wool from my friends sheep, or purchasing it from a Waldorf homeschooling mother, and even supporting my local yarn shop and other small family businesses. Well, I'm certainly not trying to defend myself, it just really was a big personal decision for us, one that we took our time making (seriously, several years), and one that we feel very good about.

And now back to the original point of my post.. oh how we love needle felting! We didn't have any felt sheets to use as a base, so I just started with wool batting and kept felting layers of that until I had a nice thick base. I had started mine the evening before, finished it the next morning, and then Chloe wanted to make her own. At first she was going to make a girl and a tree, but then she ended up making Snow White and Rose Red. I love hers! I think it is wonderful. Little Chessa I just can't imagine letting use the felting needles yet. Too prone to bleeding and injury she is. But I have some wet felting projects planned for her and I soon. Chloe started another picture as a gift for Chessa, but then got sidetracked making doll clothes. The girls spent their entire Sunday making doll clothes!

Friday was a frustrating doll making day for me. I decided one of the heads was not good enough. I think I am too much of a perfectionist sometimes. In sewing this is fine for me, because after 17 years of dressmaking I can make them nearly perfect. But I'm thinking that in dollmaking there may be no such thing. I made a new head yesterday. So I am ready to attach the heads to their bodies. I will post some pictures as soon as I get hair sewn on their funny looking bald heads...