Flower lady

If you live in Nova Scotia, you're probably a bit sick of April showers (and they haven't been all "showers:" that was almost a hurricane). So, a couple of weeks early, here are May flowers. I cut a roughly round petal shape in felt, a contrasting circle for the centre, and hand-sewed the circle to the petal round. The eyes are hot glued, and the mouth, well, I have trouble cutting well-shaped felt mouths. I fiddled a bit, and got some shapes that were OK. I glued mouths on some and stitched others, then hot glued the whole flower assembly to the basic finger puppet form. I planned this puppet to use up some of the basic forms, already sewn, that Patti had sent me. Thanks again Patti! I'd love to see alternate designs for a flower puppet too, so readers, feel free to send them in. You can email me privately by linking to my profile.

Cancer Care Caps

Also seen at Atlantic Fabrics in Dartmouth, a drop-off box for Cancer Care Caps. These are to keep heads warm and covered when hair loss is suffered as a result of cancer treatment.

A blogger named Bev has knitting loom patterns for these caps at http://bevq.blogspot.com/2007/02/relay-for-life-chemo-caps.html.

Also this website http://www.knitwhits.com/grace.shtml has a free pattern for a cap (a "beanie"). "You will need one set of circular needles, one set of straight needles and a tapestry needle to complete this project. Needle size is determined by your gauge choice (see pattern for details)."

Pigtail Poppets

Our 12-year old friend Nick had a blood test at the IWK today. He claimed not to want a puppet, but manged to emerge with one for him and one for his kid sister too! What strikes me about these is the time that went into the 3 bows on each hair-do. A very caring person made these little poppets. And I do mean poppet, which according to the Oxford Dictionary is British usage for an endearingly sweet or pretty child, but to me means a sort of homespun, cute and floppy dolly.