Pintuck

I caved in yesterday and fell into the 'mushroom softie bandwagon'. I secretly longed to make one, but there are hundreds out there already, so many lovely...See more » I caved in yesterday and fell into the 'mushroom softie bandwagon'. I secretly longed to make one, but there are hundreds out there already, so many lovely ones, so perhaps this will feel like deja vu to you. Ever since my friend told me about amazing artist, Tamar Morgendorf's mushrooms, I've been hooked on the idea of creating my own. My fascination with fungus goes way back, all the way back to junior school in England. I remember doing a series of coloured illustrations of various mushrooms on pink paper in my nature class. I saved that drawing all these years and still have it stashed somewhere. Memories of rings of tiny mushrooms in our damp English garden lawn, and later, this man's adventures in Italy, truffle hunting, all fueled my wonder. Mushrooms just seem to signify everything magical to me. This article, by Tim Walker in 'The Scotsman', seems to sum it up precisely: "THE death cap, the sickener, the destroying angel, the panther, Satan's bolete; with names like that, it's no wonder the British call mushrooms toadstools and think of them more as perches for garden gnomes than as the aristocrats of nature's larder....." (A lovely article if you'd like to read on). Here's mine and how I made it (though you've heard this a hundred times by now, I expect): I recycled this 100% wool sweater for the mushroom top, that I'd previously dyed a dense red and felted, and found some white linen for the stalk and gills. Using a saucer, I traced a circle for the top. After marking small circles onto double sided fusible, I fused on the linen, then cut and ironed them onto the red top and blanket stitched around them. The 'gilled' under-cap was made of 8 triangle pieces sewn together. I'm afraid I missed photographing the whole stitching the 'gills', stuffing the 'cap' as it was night-time, but I'm sure you're all craft geniuses out there. After closing the top of the stalk, I weighed down the bottom with a few quarters... I needed the base to be flat and able to stand...I knew my little one would not give it her seal of approval if it tumbled down! So again, with the use of a quarter, I created this base. This is getting expensive as you can tell:) Here it is stitched to the base....I also poked two lengths of wooden skewers into the stalk. Finally the stalk is attached to the cap and voila, here you have a toadstool! I wish I had built some kind of armature that strengthened both the stalk and the cap, because, though it does stand up- the cap is still a bit on the wibbly side and tends to flop. In situ, atop Sandmidges bookcase.See less »