Owls are a hoot

I stopped making these guys for about six months. Why? I love them.

What I made today

someone copied ME!!!! : )

Well, it finally happened.  Someone on Etsy copied me.  The other person used part of the item description for my felted wool sleeves--several sentences, word for word--and used part of my layout. 

I'm a tiny bit miffed, but mostly I'm flattered.  Does this mean that others look at my shop as a "model" for how to do it right???  What a hoot!!!  I certainly have spent my share of time on Etsy getting ideas from others and I do the same at shows and in stores.    But if I my product ends up too much like another product on Etsy,  I usually don't try to sell it on Etsy.  (Except for mittens--so many people are making wool mittens that I don't even know who I would be copying.)   I try to be careful not to copy others too closely,  but to use the work as inspiration and make things in my own way--even the language in the listings. 

Bottom line,  I don't really care.  I don't make enough selling sweater sleeves to make that my focus--it is just a good way to keep wool from taking over my world.   But this kind of plagiarism  is an interesting and thorny issue.  Is there an unwritten honor code?  I think so.  Do we all interpret "honor code" in a different way?  Yes.  Would I be mad if someone made sweater kitties just like mine wearing the same kind of recycled sweater sweaters?  You betcha!  That would be a whole different thing.  But I get inspiration from Etsy that helps me create my kitties:  how to sew cute faces, funky color combinations, different ways to make ears, what kind of buttons make cute eyes, do long legs look better than short legs, etc. etc. etc. 

I still feel like a rookie--so it is fun to see that someone thinks I know what I'm doing. 

Quilt Bears

I'm trying something new. I used cutter quilts for these, and stuffed them with felted sweaters. The stuffing can be much firmer than in a sweater bear, because the fabric doesn't stretch. Unless, of course, the quilt is really worn. One if these will be for display only because the fabric nearly fell apart as I made the bear.

New friends

New sweater friends!

Family Reunion Tokens

I wanted to make something for all my relatives--we are having a big reunion next month, but wool toys didn't seem like the right thing...   I want something more meaningful.  I have had an old quilt, made by my grandmother in the 1920's.  My grandmother was about 80 when I was born and I never met her.   I grew up with this quilt.  It was old and worn, but we used it.  I took it to college and grad school as a piece of home.   My mom tried to repair it, and covered the most worn pieces with new fabric, but those patches always looked out of place.  I quit using it and have just stored it.  It is too worn to be a pillow, too worn to use, too worn for anything but display folded on a shelf.

So, I'm going to share pieces of it with my family.  I don't know that anyone else will remember the quilt as I do, but I think all will appreciate seeing stitches made by a grandmother, great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother. 

I used fabric stiffener on the quilt and cut hearts.  I added a button and a string to hang.  We can use them as Christmas ornaments, scrapbook decorations, or whatever.  I'm happy with how they are turning out!  I actually think this was a pretty good idea.  I have some other cutter quilt pieces that I want to play with using the same techniques.  Birds?  Stars?  Garlands made from birds and stars?  Hmmm.  A lot of possibilities. 

It is for buttons