Ren + Craft = ??? (Part 1)

Ok, so my last “Oh How Pinteresting” link-up made me curious about the little projects that I’ve pulled out and had displayed on the shelves in my craft room. This is stuff I’ve bought over many years of attending various craft fairs with my mother as an annual (or whenever there happens to be one) mother-daughter pilgrimage.

I always have highfalutin and fanciful ideas that I can do crafty stuff when I’m in that environment.  It must be the whole surrounded by the OMGSOPRETTYCOOLSQUEEEEEEness of it all.

But, see… I have trouble with that sort of thing.  The whole sewing thing.   Particularly stuff that involves the cutting and the needles and the threading and the stitching…

You’re looking at a girl who failed her first attempt at getting a sewing machine licence in her high school textiles class.

(Yes, we had sewing machine licences. We had to prove that we weren’t going to play funny buggers with the equipment. You do not need to know about the horror of the destroyed bobbin on my first attempt.)

(Yes. I am deadly serious.)

(It was a massacre.)

(I also broke the foot thingy.)

(Not the needle foot thingy, the accelerator thingy – the bit that makes it go…)

(Don’t ask.)

Anyway, so in my delusional state of HOWHARDCOULDITBE? I ended up coming home with a little boxed project from a lovely artist by the name of Claire of Craft Schmaft who sells sock toy patterns and kits.

SOCK TOYS.  How could you not instantly love that?

When I saw the Sock Toy Owl mobile hanging in her stall, I was in love. Hopelessly in love. I wanted to have that owl’s baby-sock owl chicks.

Hm. Maybe a bit gross but it gets the point across – I loved them.

And I bought a kit.

This was three years ago, at least, because we’ve been in this house for three years now.  That’s how enthusiastic I was about putting them together when I got home.  I sort of looked at them and thought to myself, “Ren, what on earth were you on when you bought that?”

Don’t get me wrong, I still loved them (love them now, even) but once sense returned, I realised that it would be a cold day in Hell before I sewed even one little owlette together.

Well… looks like Satan is skating to work these days because I grabbed that box and opened it for the first time this morning.

 

I love the packaging. It’s so simply done, yet effective.

 

Ooo, ooo, ooo! Look, the first peek inside and an idea of what the owls are supposed to look like.

 

Now this – THIS was cool.  Totally unexpected; a little tin that had the extra bits and pieces and probably where I could hide the evidence of sock murder I am about to commit later if things don’t turn out well.

 

This is everything in the kit, sans stuffing which I don’t think anyone needs to see.  Some very cute socks-soon-to-be-owls, a few contrasting bits of patterned material, threads AND a needle. Clair thought of everything.  Really, all I need to do is provide the scissors.

 

And that’s the pattern book.  Don’t the owls just look precious?

Stay tuned for the next installment of Ren + Craft = ???.

Will she succeed?

Will she fail?

Will she end up stitching a sock to her shirt?

Eh, that last one is probably the most likely.