an entry where Ann is so crafty & clever it makes you mad …

…. but remember ladies; only dogs get mad, people get angry.

let’s move on, shall we? Have you been considering the Pocket Creature? Have you thought to yourself, ‘How twee!’ but then allowed thoughts of that little lavendar and rice sachet not to mention picking up stitches for the arms stop you? Ladies, have I got a solution for you!

Allow me to introduce a completed creature ……

the thought of setting up the old Singer to make a sachet almost spelled the end for him. But then I stroked my genius ;) and came up with this. Brilliant, no? A simple, yet elegant solution – a tea bag! Cut the tea bag as close to that mini staple as possible. Replace tea with rice. Or if you don’t have any lavender handy (did you allow your dried herb cupboard to go empty??) leave some of the tea in there for the smell good factor. Once your tea bag is full of tea and rice, refold the top and staple. A regular sized staple just fits. Violá!

~~I did think of one flaw in my plan, that turned out to not be too much of a flaw. As I was watching my tea bag/sachet spinning in my microwave, it occurred to me that the staple is metal …… metal & microwaves = sparks. In this case, nothing happened. Maybe it is too little metal?

As for the arms — the directions would have you pick up stitches. This is way too much aggravation to endure for this little frivolity. I knit an I-cord of appropriate length and threaded it through the little arm holes. Rather than weave in the ends of the I-cord, I threaded them back through to where they met the body and anchored the ‘arms’ that way.

Now that we’ve gotten the ‘clever’ out of the way, how about a crafty display?

bittersweet wreath

I noticed some bittersweet growing along the side of the road – I pulled over and had a Martha moment.

9 thoughts on “an entry where Ann is so crafty & clever it makes you mad …”

That is the cutest little creature I’ve seen! Love it. And the bittersweet wreath? Dude. You can’t become Martha.

Dang. You are one smart chickie. A teabag!

Love the little critter!

Jeez Laweez! If I remember a certain Mason Dixon post from about a week back, there’s definitely some changes a foot chez Anne. I’ll be right over with the portable AC. ;-)

(You know, I can’t believe I thought about this, but if you’re concerned about the staple and the microwave, you could probably just throw a few stitches in the top of the teabag to close it up. Crap. I’m too young for this!!!!)

I don’t know which I like better, the little creature or the wreath.

And Cara has the right idea. I think the stitches would be quick and easy. Personally, I have seen the sparks in the microwave before and I don’t want to again. Scary!

Brilliant! Sounds like you had more than one Martha moment there! Better hide – she’ll be coming to make you the apprentice before you know it :-)

That’s pretty damned slick, lady. I’m very impressed. And he’s soooo cute!

I can’t help but think of the first time that DH — when he was still a BF — and I went for dinner at my dad’s. My stepmom handed him a bag of dinner rolls and asked him to warm them up in the microwave. My DH had never operated a microwave. He tossed in the bag of rolls, twisty-tie and all, and spun the dial to, oh, let’s say 20 minutes. A very few minutes later, there was popping and sparking and melting plastic — and a very red-faced BF.

Guess what my dad and his wife gave us when we got married?