Tea for Two (or Four)

While I am still trying to take good photos of my new sewing machine I thought I'd share a few moments from earlier this summer when I had my camera but did not end up finding time to write.

First is this collection of beautiful kid-crafted felt tea bags and cookies, by MVB. MVB was HG's only birthday party guest this year, as HG decided she would prefer a very small, very special party for her 6th birthday. This suited me just fine as I had read that 6-year-old parties are not always as fun for the birthday child as the planning involved. I took the girls to the Children's Museum in Providence and afterwards we went for cake slices at our best known (and just plain best) patisserie. I think their favorite part of the outing was when I left them in a small pedestrian square with a fountain and walked a block away so they could play at being "big kids" and pretend they were unsupervised. My favorite part was, naturally, the cake.

Earlier, MVB's mom and I figured out what would would be the most appreciated present for HG. Our family had planned to give her a tea set, so MVB and her mom made a full set of gorgeous goodies to go with. Eight bejeweled cookies and four delicate tea bags! MVB's mom confessed that she stayed up quite late to finish them, for which HG is very grateful.

The detail in each of the cookies is amazing! So are the decorations. I have to say I am quite inspired by the creativity. 

These delectables come out quite regularly for HG's tea parties, though we do eat real cookies and drink real tea with the set as well. The real cookies taste good but they don't look nearly as delicious as the felt ones.

I am certain if MVB made these to sell at our school's Holiday Faire she would sell out. Right? Would you not buy a set? 

Hot Water Bottles are so Yummy!

For many of us, winter rages on. We had snow yet again this morning. I thought I'd share the hot water bottle cozy I made a little while ago. The cozy slips on and off with a simple pillowcase-type closure in the back. There aren't any buttons or anything, just fabric from the top of the cozy laying over fabric from the bottom. To change the water you just slip your hand in and pull the bottle out a little. 

I used some leftover luxurious felt that my mother had in a drawer in the attic for the main cover. It's a lovely dark grey color and is a substantial but pliable wool. For the circles I used some lightweight wool felt I had purchased in tiny swatch sizes a couple of years ago. 

It was kind of daring of me to use contrasting thread to sew on the circles, since you can see every stitch that way. Sewing the little spiral on the littlest piece of felt was not easy. But the wobbles are whimsical and cute.  

Here is the cozy with a little friend, a gnome doll I made from my daughter's teacher's pattern. That was mostly hand sewn from flannel scraps, and I stuffed it with wool roving that I purchased from another Etsy seller. I hadn't intended for the two of them to match, but they look really sweet together! 

I bought a new hot water bottle for this project. I find that the heat it puts out is very soothing, nicer feeling than a heating pad, and safer, too. We keep our house pretty cold because we like to conserve energy as much as possible (our big kids will tell you it's because we're crazy and we like to torture them), so getting into bed with a hot water bottle is kind of a necessity for me. It's also lovely for healing small tummyaches and for snuggling with on the couch under a comforter. I'm off to sew up some new snack bags with my serger now!