felting and drawing and knitting (OH MY!)

The stain on the bird houses dried (and "de-stinked") enough to bring them into the house and give them a coat of clear acrylic sealer.

Glitter and other embellishments will be next!






Meantime, I started working on the first of the birds.

On the left is the basic "bird" shape in the white base wool, and on the right is the bird with the first of the cardinal red wool over the base and the beginning of the special shaping (the "crest" on the head of the cardinal makes it look sort of like it has a pointy head).

I had fussed about (and put off) working on this because I was afraid it would be a lot more difficult than it turned out to be. (go figure)


So I got out the colored pencils yesterday and did the blue card back

And then I did a second one with more patterning in red

So, which one is better?

I've started working on the lettering and numbering masters too


There are no new pictures of the Milky Way necklace --- I finished the fringe, which I am pretty happy with, then I started on the right angle weave --- worked about 3 inches and decided the colors were just not right and tore it all out ----- ah yes, the trips to the frog pond (rip it, rip it) are still with us.

Perhaps today's work will go better, I added a tube of shiny rootbeer colored beads to the mix and I think that will help.


And the giraffe now has 2 front legs

The second one went a lot quicker, and I'm starting to get a better grasp of making the patterning chart and the shaping increases/decreases work together

So tonight I'll be casting on and starting the first of the back legs

I've pretty much decided that the legs of this critter need to stay soft and floppy, but I'm also pretty sure I'll need to insert something in the neck so it isn't floppy --- I'll be raiding our scrap pile of PVC pipe --- I figure a small diameter piece wrapped in some batting will work

we'll see





Yesterday I was watching the Martha Stewart show while I ate my lunch, and she did a whole segment about Lilly Pulitzer and the fabrics that are developed under that name. I remember those prints! And interestingly enough, some of them really resemble some of the doodles that I've done. They're all really stylized representations of shapes (like shells and flowers and one with a monkey on it), done basically in one or two colors on a white field.

So now I'm thinking it would be fun to create some fabric from my own designs. This morning I went on line to our local library and requested every book on that subject that I could find. Time to do some research!!