Monster!

Monster!

His name is "Grummelchen". 

Grummel is a person which is grummelig or which grummels. Okay, how to translate "grummeln"? It means something like to rumble, to mumble, to chunter, to snarl or just being grumpy! Not too strong but being a little bit this way. 

So... and in german you can play and belittle the word by adding a "chen" at the end. Not for every word, but a lot! Like a tiny grumpy person = "Grummelchen" Of course Grummelchen sounds way better ^^

I sewed him out of strong and heavy wool felt (Walkloden in german). You see, he is the first (but definitely not the last!) of my tiny handsewn monsters! He just evolved by playing with the felt and creating my first eyeballs out of fimo. Things like monsters just happens! They do!

I made a little mistake with the glue so I added some eyebrows which enhances his grumpy look!

The eyeballs are made out of white polymer clay (fimo), the colours is painted and then a thick layer of liquid fimo was added to create a lense effect. And of course lacquer, shiny lacquer! Otherwise the liquid fimo wouldn't be so transparent. 

Some little air bubbles were trapped but I still love my first eyeballs!

Monsters also needs some teeth and they were also made out of fimo!

In the morning...

...you see the striking resemblance? 

...but invisible in the green gras...! Beware of the monsters! They are everywhere! ^^

New wrist warmers - for the five minutes in between ^^

I love this kind of warmers! They are made out of a fabric which is called "Walkloden" in germany. I tried to find the english translation... and I failed. Neither leo nor wiki could really help me. Some people suggest Loden alone but that is not the same (explanation later) or boiled wool but also that is something different. So I tried to patch all the single informations together! :)

Boiled wool is a knitted fabric which is afterwards felted by boiling.

Loden is a woven fabric made out of wool.

Walkloden is a woven fabric which is kind of felted afterwards (also made out of wool).

It is "gewalkt" (german again). What is quite interesting is that wiki says that the english verb "to walk" derives from the german "walken" because this process was mostly done with the feet ^^

I also read in some english blogs that this kind of fabric is sometimes difficult to get in other countries. I hope that is not true because it is an incredible kind of fabric! Just pure wool, a nice touch, water resistant, felt like properties like the cut edges will be stable, but unlike felt there won't be any more "felting processes" going on....

Unfortunatly it is a very expensive fabric. But my fabric shop had some at a really low price (which is STILL 20 € / m... not something I would normally buy). But for making stuff like warmers I don't need much of the fabric. I just bought 10 cm x 1,3 m. The wrist warmers should also be only 10 cm long because this fabric can stretch only a little bit. Enough for the hand and the wrist but not for the arm.

What I did? I just cut two pieces 10 cm x 20 cm.

I sewed the edges of each piece together.

Just turn it around...

I made some plain ones, but I already cut out a lot of pieces for making some ornamented ones...

....so many words for a project which takes... 2min! ^^