Fun Stuff

Last weekend was a magical weekend.
It started Friday, with a wonderful workshop on plaster basket. I can't show you mine, cause it's not finished yet, but here's an example made by Nili, who taught us about the basket, taken from her Flickr.

I can only hope mine will be as beautiful...

Here’s a link to Nili’s Flickr, where you can see all 95 plaster baskets she’s made:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nili_choman/sets/72157594321303280/

We started at 10 in the morning, and left somewhere around 3 in the afternoon, and out of all that time, we spent about 2 hours on making our baskets… So you can imagine how much fun we had. LOTS.

And the magic continued on Saturday. I met a bunch of friends at Limor’s magical and wonderful craft store in Yuvalim. “Kesem Shimushi” is the name of the store and it means – practical magic. Like the name, the store is magical. I had a wonderful time browsing through the different items, and to top it all off, Limor had a table all ready for us, to sit down and work.

Here we all are standing at the table that's ready for us (well, Keren is taking the picture, so she's not in it...).

We are (right to left): Hagit, Myself, Shron, Limor, Revital, Dvora and Mor.

The picture was copied from Keren's blog, and here's a link to that post (mind you, her blog is in Hebrew, but if you read Hebrew, it is much recommended):
http://www.tapuz.co.il/blog/ViewEntry.asp?EntryId=1229632

I got to tell you, a lot of work was NOT done at that table, but a lot of talking and laughing was.
I had such a good time, that we stayed on and on and on. We got there at 10:30 in the morning (after almost two hours driving) and left at 6 in the afternoon (for another 2 hour driving). A long day, but I can hardly remember when I had more fun!

And, to top it all, I got a very-very-belated Bday gift, 9 months after my birthday (that's how long it's been since I've since Limor and Sharon.
I got this beautiful pail:




And in it was this gorgeous bag:

And in it were these amazing ribbons (I LOVE ribbons):

Then, this week, since Passover is just around the corner (tonight, actually), I needed to finish up the gifts I wanted to give.
So first came the snails. The pattern is a Tilda pattern, and I learned to make my snails from Keren, who taught me in a workshop, which was another fun evening, filled with laughter.
(Do you get the common thread here? Working together with friends always leads to more laughing than working…)

Here's the snail I made in that workshop:



And here are the two I made for my nieces:

Then I figured I needed a pin cushion, and I saw one here a while ago:

http://www.bhg.com/crafts/sewing/accessories/patchwork-pincushion/

And I remembered it cause I liked that she looked like a gift. To be honest, I was too lazy to look for it again and follow instructions, so I just made one from memory. It could be better, but I like it:

Then I remembered seeing a really cute owl online, so I looked for it, and found this:

http://moonstitches.typepad.com%20m/photos/tutowlrial/030726.html

I printed the pattern at work, and that same night, made a small owl from memory. (It's small because the pattern seemed really big to me, so I down scaled it to 75% of the size).



Last night I decided to add to my nieces a couple of owls, and this time I made them the size of the original pattern. So here's my small owl family, which is going to part tomorrow:

And since I had so much fun sawing yesterday, I also made me this little bag:




No pattern was used here. I took measurements of what i wanted to use it for, and constructed it all on my own. Again, it could be a little better, but for the first time of making a bag I'm really proud of myself.