This is REALLY It! (Copycat Challenge finale)

Done. Done. Done. And this is the green woolly "group" all gathered together for one last parting shot.It has simply been the best experience to make these items over the past year. In fact, I would highly encourage you to find a book you really like - be it a recipe book, a craft book, a non-fiction topic book and take a year to take your time to explore its subject.

I wish to thank Vicki Haninger for her inspiration - and her wonderful book. I wish to thank Anne and Jed for giving me a grand-daughter as my recipient/muse for these projects. I wish to thank those of you who humored me along the way by asking how the project was going and reading/commenting on this blog.

In the meantime, Vicki has written yet another book called Embroidery Craft: Stitching Through the Seasons. Bless her heart; she sent me a copy with a personalized note! Yes, I will enjoy making some of these cute-oh-so-cute projects, but am putting this blogging to bed! Good night. Stitch tight.

This is It! (Copycat Challenge #42 and #43)

Yes siree - these are the final projects in the year long Copycat Challenge experiment in which I made - and blogged about - all the offerings in the Blanket Statement book by Vicki Haninger in the style of Julia & Julia. Whew! Above you can see the pillow found on pages 32 and 33 called the Pretty Piped Pillow. I made mine smallish for Bella's head and added a quilt to go with it from an orphaned quilt block.

But what to put the pillow and quilt in was the next problem. Solved by making the Handy Catch All Bag on pages 78 - 79! I turned the reduced-size bag into a backpack by sewing a small

"D" loop to the bag and threading the handle straps through that so that Bella can wear the pack when she goes to visit her Gramma's for overnight visits!

The appliqued flower pattern was found on page 97 of the book.

So here we are. Done. Stretched in creativity. And off to new adventures with needle and thread in hand!

Next: the last word(s) on the whole undertaking with a parting "group" shot.

Bella's Shoes - and a Sweet Treat to Boot (Copycat Challenge # 39, #40 and #41)

Shoe #1:

Bella is wearing the Mary Janes shown on page 99 of the book. These were "inspiration" shoes found in the The Felt Book by Clare Beaton. On that same page is a picture of a sweet treat "inspiration" as found in the book Softies by Therese Laskey, Leah Kramer and Louise Frankel. My bad - I drafted up my own pattern making it a tall torte instead of a cupcake.

Shoe #2: Party Slip-ons

Pages 24-25 have a pattern called Posy Baby Slippers that I

reduced in size to fit Bella. I knew she would need sparkly glitterry shoes to go with the Party Dress, so I hand stitched oodles of sequins to the pink felt before stitching the lining.

Shoe #3: The Pear Pair

Using the same pattern, these go with the Woodsy Miss outfit. Using self-covered buttons with a pear from the fabric cut in a circle as the motif, Bella will treat herself to comfort with these shoes that can double as slippers. Coming: The Overnight-at Gramma's backpack! And almost the culmination of the green blanket finale foreworks!

Bella's Bags (Copycat Challenge #36, #37, #38)

Just like any girl, Bella Phant needs her bags. Again, more is more! Bag #1 (the Winter Tote Bag on pages 20-21 in the book Blanket Statement by Vicki Haninger)

holds all the outfits as shown in the recent blitz post "Meet Bella Phant" as well as her shoes. One might note that the bag applique of the striped elephant is a recycled/felted sweater remnant. Bag #2 is Bella's purse perfect for holding the smallest of treasures. It is embroidered with words to melt your heart...

Vicki called this project on pages 58-59 the Rose Petal Potpourri. I tweaked it by leaving an opening in the top to turn it into a pocket instead of a mini pillow and added side handles.

Bella likes to wear it this way across the front of her body.

Bag #3 was the Techtronics Bag on pages 64-65 in Vicki's book. Seeing as I know Bella will be an avid reader, I tweaked this to be a mini book bag. A "B" was pieced with foundation paper and an appliqued flower on the side. Tiny books fit inside.

Add three more projects to the "fireworks" Blitz going on as the green blanket is dwindling in its size, but going out with a bang! Coming: the shoes.

Meet Bella Phant (Copycat Challenge #31-#35)

Ready? Set? BLITZ! A year ago today I embarked on the one-year-make-all-projects-in-a-book challenge in the blogging style of Julie Powell in Julie & Julia. Vicki Haninger wrote the book Blanket Statement and I set off to create all her projects. In one year. And I'm done! Of course the main reason I started this challenge was to provide a certain Miss Ellie with hand-stitched toys from her Gramma. One-of-a-kind toys, games and projects with lots of love stitched in as I thought of her magnificent presence in all of our lives - a true miracle and gift.

All of the remaining projects were "tweaked" to add my spin on Vicki's work. And all related to a certain green wool elephant I have named Bella Phant.

Vicki's elephant is named Ella Nora and can be found on pages 84-91 of the book. Patterns are included for an outfit with pants and top, a crown, and a shoe reference from another book. (More on shoes in a later post.) My Bella has many outfits; Vicki's comes with one. More is more in my book, so I took off with this wardrobe.

Outfit #1 is called (my terminology here) Dress Casual. Bella can wear it anywhere and be appropriately attired for wherever life (and Ellie) takes her!

Outfit #2 is called Basic Romper and is meant for the active times like tricycle riding down the street, going to the park, etc. When Bella and I had a photo "shoot" outside I mistakenly did it when son John was home. Unfortunately his, "Mom, what are you doing out here?" was making me feel a bit on the eccentric side. Oh well.

Outfit#3 is called Party Time and features leftover fabric from a Jasmine costume I made way back when for Anne as she was in a musical theatre production.

Note that Bella is posing with the candle cake as well as a torte which will be described later.

Outfit #4 is called Woodsy Miss. In a pinch it can also be used as pajamas because the top is actually flannel. Outfit #5 is called The Teacher as it is perfect for wearing it to the classroom at a blackboard. It was made from a recycled felted Old Navy sweater - label included. I downsized the Applique Bias Skirt found on pages 52 and 53 of the book for this one. Vest pattern was my own pattern.

Like I said, this is a blitz with more green wool "fireworks" to come as I wrap up this finale coming lickety split. Consider yourself officially introduced to Bella!

Swag-gering (Copycat Challenge #30)

Spooky Halloween swags, a GIVE THANKS swag for Thanksgiving, a PEACE ON EARTH swag for Christmas...I've made a few swags in my day! When I saw the Scrap Squares Garland on pages 34-35 in the Blanket Statement book by Vicki Haninger, I knew that I would "tweak" it to make a name swag for Ellie's little nursery in our home.

I found a glittery sticker "diamond" word of l-i-v-e in the dollar bin at Michael's (ooh, that area is a magnet for savvy savers!) and cut it apart to make the letters in her name. Easy as pie. Then I cut out five large scalloped paper circles in brown, 5 large alternating color circles, 5 circles from a discarded book paper and 5 alternating color small scalloped circles. Holes punched, a fancy ornament hook threaded through the hole and hooked between two beads on the swag. And done! This swag also has a secret: it can be used to hang other words - longer words such as H-A-L-L-O-W-E-E-N and C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S. Every 18 squares, two beads were thread between the green wool pieces. Using those curly ornament hooks to hang the letters will make changing swag-iments possible in the blink of an eye!

Coming: the Copycat Challenge finale!! Sort of like the fireworks on the 4th of July booming-off in green wool!

Busy Book for a Busy Girl (Copycat Challenge #29)

When I saw the adorable needle case in the book Blanket Statement by Vicki Haninger, I wasn't quite sure how to tweak it to meet the challenge of creating her project with my twist on it. Then, when I was reading a pop-up type of book to Ellie recently, I noticed just how busy she was with grasping dimensional parts and had my own "light bulb" moment (better than the "senior moment" I might add) and thought of creating an interactive book for her out of the green woolly blanket. Because the needle case on page 10 had a house, I thought I would create items that belong in a house, such as a bed, a chair, etc. I made up the designs. Oh, and I also enlarged the pattern of the house.

***Please note: I know this little book should be used with supervision as it has buttons, beads and other swallowable items. ***

Regular felt was used in addition to the green blanket. The pink background page has an operable door on the wardrobe closet...inside is a cat. Lift up the lampshade on the lamp to find a dimensional smiling light bulb. The hands on the clock really move. The mirror on the chest of drawers reveals a smiling picture of Ellie on her seven month milestone.

Two bubbles in the tub are attached to ribbons and can be pulled out. Under the bed is a hiding alligator.

The book closes with two ribbons for Ellie to play with as well.

Yesterday was the day for Ellie to get her hands on the book. She seemed to love it! Our busy girl was having so much fun with it that Wes took a little video of our "reading"

together. Sigh.

Stockings. One Christmas-y. One Not. (Copycat Challenges #27 and #28)

Time for yet another blog on the ongoing projects using the book Blanket Statement by Vicki Haninger inspired by the book/movie Julie and Julia. I am making the projects and blogging about the entire contents of the book with my own little renditions or tweaks. Of course, my inspiration is our Grand-daughter Ellie! This Christmas stocking will be for her. The book had no actual pattern for the stocking (pages 46- 47) , but called for a sweater cuff around the top. I've got lots of those around here - I have been thrifting sweaters and felting them for the past few years. In fact, Betz White wrote a wonderful book called Warm Fuzzies that provided the pattern for stockings I made for our grown kids a couple of years ago. Now Ellie's will match those.

Vicki's pattern really added shi shi fru fru to the stocking ornamentation. I copied it shamelessly.

I photographed the stockings as they sat on top of our shrubbery. Festive touch, eh? The second stocking was inspired by a nursery rhyme about the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. The original words have always disturbed me with the cruel twist of beating those poor kids and sending them to bed hungry!! I searched around and found a much nicer verse:

This stocking is meant for holding a bunch of kids. Alphabet kids. I found the needle pointed alphabet kids at St. Vinny's thrift store in Iron River and they looked so forlorn in the Ziploc bag that I had to take them home!! (Think about all the hours the stitcher took to make these babies and they ended up in a plastic bag? Yipes!)

Vicki included the stocking pattern on pages 36 and 37 in her book. The rest of the design is mine for the window boxes, door, cuff and heel.

Now all those alphabet babies have their own special, happy home! Ellie and I will have games with spelling and putting together simple words with the letters on the baby bellies. That is, when she is ready for them. Now, she will probably just like chewing on them.

With Christmas only 121 days away now, we're getting ready! How F - U - N is it going to be to have our first Christmas with our Grand-daughter?

Making the Cut (Copycat Challenge #26)

I got me some Gingher love going on here. If you sew, you know what I am talking about...these are the best scissors ever made (in my opinion). Sure, I've tried Fiskars and they are awfully good cutters, but Gingher rules! For garment sewing I use the full size, but for my small craft projects I use the 5 inch embroidery scissors.

Way in the back of the Blanket Statement book by Vicki Haninger - on page 98 to be precise - is an acknowledgements and inspirations page. No actual patterns are given, but I knew I could figure out how to adapt the Scissors Keeper by Charlotte Lyons to create a custom carrier for my own scissors. Snip, stitch, done.

And now I have a safe way to keep track of my little scissors. I chose to applique a tiny acorn on the flap (pattern provided on pg. 97) because, like the mighty oak tree from which it comes, it represents these mighty fine cutters! Please accept my apologies for photographing the project with a maple leaf background instead of oak leaves...I'm too lazy to go out searching on this beastly hot day and the mosquitoes appear to be on a rampage in these here parts!