Finished, in progress and just begun

You may recall a week ago or so I talked about reworking a piece of jewelry.

Yesterday I finished up the rework

The new version is on the left, the old one on the right

I'm much happier with the new one. While the basic shape didn't change, it now has a much better bail, nicer fringe (that I think looks like the crystals they used to hang from the victorian lamps) and a completely different chain which does not use any of the wire and crimps that I have had considerable trouble with.

Yup, I like this version much better.


The DH got to the staining part on his project, so while the can was open, he put the stain on these for me.

Because of the different woods and the way they were cut when the roofs were made, they have this lovely "panel" look that I really like

And putting the stain over these softened the look of the paint color considerably

The next step will be to put a clear sealer on both of these and the red and white one



If you've been reading along for a long time, you may remember that I made my mother a set of paperdolls for Christmas the last two years.


She collects paperdolls, and really enjoyed having some of my hand made ones to add to the collection

She also collects playing cards

So I've decided that this year I'll make her a deck of hand drawn ones, using some of my infamous doodles


The drawing on the left is the design (so far) for the back of the cards. If you look closely at the "raw doodling" on the right you can see the piece I picked out of the scribbling and turned into the design by rotating and flipping it and merging it together in the center.

Yes, I know there is software out there (in fact, I probably have it on my computer) that would let me do all of that on the computer.

The thing is I enjoy the "organic-ness" of drawing it on the paper in segments, flipping and turning the little parts, doing the whole drawing in pencil first then inking it in, then erasing the pencil lines.

I'm not sure that I'm done "embellishing" -- I may put some more design work in the bigger white spaces. The backs of playing cards are usually pretty "filled" with design.

But at least I have begun the project!

May I present the first knitting done on the giraffe

I love the look of this

It's so long

It's got cute nobby knees

It's so, so -- "giraffey"

Knitting these one at a time was a good idea. Even with only one to deal with the many strands of yarn there was still a good deal of "knit one, purl one, untangle one"

I did discover some issues of conflict between where the increases need to be and the patterning chart, which I will have to work on a bit more when I get to the back legs and the body, but so far it's going pretty well.

The DH says this definately looks like something that should get entered in the State Fair.

I'm now thinking about the possibility of putting something inside the legs (and the neck too) that would allow him to stand up (probably chunks of PVC pipe), but on the other hand, the general design of this critter is such that it will look so cute sitting down with it's legs crossed.

Obviously there will be more fiddling with this one before we're done.