News…

Hi to all that may have been reading my blog,

I have not been on here recently as I have had a bit of a chaotic few weeks. I have managed to finish the bear for my mother-in-law and also made two more smaller ones, one for my aunt and one for my younger brother.  I have photo’s of the one for my mum-in-law and my aunt but not my brother’s one.
I will add photo’s later along with some tips I have learned.

The biggest reason for my absence is that my mom passed away suddenly and very unexpectedly. As she lived in South Africa, it meant an unplanned trip over there to attend her memorial service and offer some support and help to my rather devastated dad and my very brave brother.  My Dad works in Saudi on contract so my 17 year old brother had the rather awful task of finding my Mom and dealing with all the initial steps of contacting the medical team responsible for assisting in these matters and watching them take our mom away.  Fortunately, it appears that she did not suffer prior to leaving us.

Last Thursday my Dad, my brother, myself, my husband and my one year old son went down to the beach where my parents live and released my mom’s ashes into the ocean as she had requested. Now she’s swimming with the dolphins and whales in the Atlantic ocean.

So, I ask of any readers or followers I have to please bare with me while I try and sort a few things out of my own.

Memory bear One

Being quite an avid Pinterester, I came across a pin for a “memory bear” from www.momfinds.com.  This is a bear made from clothes of significant sentimental value, like baby clothes. There is company in America that does this called The Patchwork Bear and they have apparently made some for prominent celebrity children. Exploring their website I decided I LOVE the idea of doing this but didn’t like their bear design and then seeing their prices I decided that this will have to be a DIY project.

Now, a good number of years ago my Nana showed me some bears that she and my uncle made and taught me how to do them myself.  They even had moving joints.  I would have loved have made these but making the joints required a set of woodwork skills I do not yet posses so I set about finding a different bear pattern.  Thanks to google I found this http://www.howjoyful.com/2010/05/howjoyful-bear-tutorial-and-pattern/. Now the author was very specific that this is not a beginner pattern so taking her at her word I reviewed the pattern first.

Thinking about what materials I could use to make the bear, significant memories I want to capture, I thought about using my sons onsies, obviously, and started mentally planning which ones I wanted to use. I then started wondering if it would work with the fabric of my wedding dress being satin and all.  Then I came to the conclusion that I would hate to cut this up without knowing I could actually master the pattern. The next thought was: If I am reluctant to cut up my wedding dress, which although a significant keepsake, I did not have as much of an attachment to as some of my son’s baby clothes!

So the following day I decided that a sample bear had to be made.  I had a pair of jeans that had developed a rip in an inappropriate place for public outings, so this was the bulk fabric for the sample bear.  In the vein of being a “memory bear” and recycling my jeans, I thought I could make it for my Mom who lives in South Africa and I was missing her (and the rest of my family there) quite a bit; I decided to add one of the onsies my mom had bought my son into the design.  Losing one onsie wouldn’t be too bad if it didn’t work.  I also decided to put my (very expensive and rarely used) embroidery machine to use and add some unique personalisation to the bear by embroidering “Ouma” (Afrikaans for Nana) on the bear’s foot.

I then set about making the bear and true to the author’s word, it is NOT a beginner’s pattern but luckily I have a wide enough skill set and experience that I managed the pattern.  Although not perfect, I loved the result and here’s a picture:

After sharing this with my family, I got the response from my mum-in-law where’s hers. So, now I will be making another one before the original one I planned from my son’s baby clothes.  I will be doing this a separate post with a few pointers I picked up from the first one.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Officially a blogger

Right, here we go.  I have never done a blog and I stopped having a diary when I was 12 but being at home with a 10 month old baby has created the need to just put my thoughts down and see what happens.  Why not start a diary again you ask? I don’t know.  Guess this just seemed more 21st Century.

Now, I don’t intend to write about feelings and moan about problems, no.  I like making things; sewing, knitting, jewellery, randomly sticking stuff on paper, anything really.  My husband thinks I’m a bit off the wall with most of my ideas but as long as it doesn’t cost him money, he goes along with it. So my intention is to share my “mad” creations and others can comment or possibly take inspiration or most likely just dismiss it all.  I say “mad” creations not because they are wierd or wacky per se but more that those are my initials and my brain thinks it is a funny play on a “designer name”. I like it, I think its great and that’s that.

Part of the appeal of the blog was that a few months ago I completed a very complicated jumper for my son, which he wore twice before outgrowing it, and I was particularly proud of it.  On the two occasions that he wore it, I wanted to stop people in the street and say: “Look at his jumper, isn’t it great? I made that.” but came to the conclusion that random strangers were likely to have a two-word answer, most likely ending in “off”. So I managed to keep my bragging to close friends and family only.  On here I want to share my creations. Say I made that and be proud and if any random stranger reads this and wants to say “well done”, well that would be great.  If their response is likely to be similar to the one I would get in the street, well then don’t waste your time; just stop reading and avoid this blog completely.

So, I believe that when I click the publish button, that will be my first post and I will officially be a blogger. Cool. Thanks to anyone who has stuck with me so far and hope to post some creations soon./