Thursday, August 17, 2006

Recipe for Felt Sushi



This is becoming the summer of fiber arts for my almost-10-year-old daughter. Yesterday, we made felt sushi, inspired by a Japanese sewing book we found at Lacis earlier this summer.

We ended up not using the pattern in the book, mostly because we couldn't figure out which pattern was used for which kind of sushi (there were many), and when I realized that all we really needed were strips of felt.

If you'd like to do it at home, make 1" strips of white and dark green felt, the short way on your basic $.29 felt rectangle from the fabric store. Fold the white one in half, and whip stitch along the two long sides. Stuff with a tiny bit of stuffed animal stuffing.

Now, for the filling, we didn't have felt that was the right color for carrot and avocado (she wanted veggie sushi), but I did have a TON of DMC floss in a couple hundred different colors, so we crocheted little carrot strips and blobs of avocado out of the floss (colors 971 and 471).

Just like real sushi, we laid out the "seaweed" and put the "rice" on top, placed the fillings on the edge, and rolled it up. We cut the "seaweed" just past where it covered the "rice" and we sewed the end down with dark green thread. Then, just to make sure it would all stay together, I took the needle through the center and tacked down all four sides.

The avocado DMC floss also made for some nice wasabi.

Give it a try sometime!

Friday, August 11, 2006

Avoiding Madness

With all the recent hubbub about airline security for flights originating in the UK, I got to thinking, if I had to empty my pockets and could only carry a plastic bag with cash, credit cards, plane tickets, feminine supplies, and keys onboard, how would I avoid going totally insane on a 10 hour flight. Hummm...

Well, first off, 4" size 1 dp glove needles could masquerade as hair ornaments. But where to put the yarn? Skein it and wear it as a necklace? Knit a faux garment (sock yarn scarf knit on size 15 needles?), wear it onboard and unravel it as I knit? That might work.

Tatting could be disguised as a necklace too -- wind a couple of plastic tatting shuttles, drape the thread around my neck, and I'd be good to go as soon as the flight takes off.

A regular-sized kumihimo disk wouldn't pass muster, but one of those little bitty ones (couldn't find them online, but I've seen them at Carolina Homespun) could also be disguised as a bigass necklace.

Okay, I feel better now. But then again, how would I keep the kids from going bonkers?