All In A Day's Work!

Amazing the things you can do with 14 hours.
I realize I am FAR less amazing than Mother Theresa, Olivia Chow, Alice Munro or Tina Fey. I am far less capable than every soccer mom that ever drove a minivan, and Martha Stewart would drive her BMW X3 over me on her way to the organic pumpkin store. But I have my own accomplishments.
I learned a new recipe, Thank you Swantje, for amazing Banana pancakes. And I made up one. "Vegetarian Garbonzo Bean Creole" You have to be resourceful when the cupboards are bare and you have to eat a balanced meal out of the last dregs of random ingredients available til grocery day.
I made some cool stuff today while  processing food, laundry, and mail. I played  with the dog,  recycled and composted everything that needed to be, had conversations with three of my children, checked in with my dad, talked to both of my brothers, and the nurses station at my moms longterm care facility

Now,  to totally round out the day my husband returned home this evening with  the flu. We all know the when the fella's get sick they're pitiful.  My thesaurus does not provide a sturdy enough extrapolation of the word "drama" to describe the wretchedness of this. ( Upon discovering this frightful fact,  I took a responsible 15 minute walk and returned to disinfected everything  in sight, hopefully to rid my life of my cold and Mike's flu.)
...AND I made all of these pretty things. My trip to Fancy Lucky was wonderful.  Every piece I'd made went right into the gallery...With Easter a month away, I'm stashing egg-stra pretty fuzzy things just in case!

Egg-stravagant colors!

Woolly Springy Thingy's

I'm felting oodles of Easter things, spring things... anything that elicits any shred of proof that Shubenacadie Sam, the groundhog isn't a sadistic furry fibber. He foretold, over 5 weeks ago that winter would soon give way to growth and greenness and warmth. Well Sam, you have 7 days to make an honest gopher of yourself. There is a quarter inch of frost on my apple trees and its -10 so you'd best get on it!

On Tuesday I will visit Fancy Lucky Art and Craft Gallery. It is located  in historic MacDonald House on Lawrencetown Beach. With a house full of surfers, I've been to the site many times but never to "Fancy Lucky". Now I'm embarking on a blind mission to create pieces that might fit a venue I've never visited. Fuel for the task  presented itself in a note on my email via the Saltyhag Studio blog, inviting me to come and bring my work. So I'm felting at spring fever pitch, with the goal to have a broad array of work to put forward.
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A quick photo session netted these lovely results. Above is a sweet little guy that I made just this morning. He has wire armature and is semi pose-able. I love it!! Just below, a true harbinger of spring the Robin, with a nest of lovely eggs. Of course the ornithologists would be non-plussed as the eggs are at a scale a little large for the parent. (didn't assign a gender but the brighter breast would suggest its a male who is sitting on them) so the missus was likely non-plussed too!

Cheer-upp! Spring is coming

The page header is a rainbow of easter eggs in nests. Then for fun we needed a whole warren of easter bunnies. This fellow first. Maybe 4" tall... Then this little cutie... about 5" from nose to tippy toes. The goofy fellow below is quite large. As well, he's a little cartoonish. I may pose him permanently with some sort of prop. He sits about 8" tall.
                                                 
It has been a really busy week. I've experienced "drivenness" this week, I have barely stopped to eat, sleep, clean or groom. My family will stage a protest if this keeps up!!!
All of that focus is just a surprising gift when the task is as much sheer fun as these projects have been. I can't wait to take these to the shop to gather a little feedback. I promise to return soon with many new spring inspired treasures.

Humble Sheep and how I Love Them.

"LaFermiere by Julien Dupis

Don't you love it!  Sheep are the bomb?..the dope?..the new black?...what's the current terminology? I am thinking about these docile ditzy critters and wishing I could convey my thanks. Wool has been the soft cozy epicenter of my existence for over a year now. The fervor with which I throw myself into this work has been surprising, satisfying.  I have been addictively, joyfully engrossed.  The end result, seems to have everyone else smiling too.
Through this past year I've made countless sheep in wool.  In previous  years they were resplendent in papier mache.  ( In fact, my first order with P'lovers in 2007 included 6 pair of rams and ewes. ) Seems fitting to write a retrospective to illustrate where their peaceful pastoral presence has inspired me thus far.

Prototype rugged old 20 year-old sheep

Above was the Sunday school collection sheep back in 1996,  when Seth, my youngest was only three.  (  Alarmingly I think now, his head used to come off and the student's pennies and nickels were dropped inside. ) These two were made some time ago for my brother Robin and his wife Kim. He graciously sent their photos a few days back.

Robin and Kim's flock

As well, I completed four sets of these fellas during my time at the Crafter's Room.

 Lastly this big fella now resides with Sadie's other Grandma, Margot Miller. Imagine explaining to airport security what this was doing in my suitcase!

"Yeah, just lemmie get this..."

When I began needle-felting last year the very first sheep was this big booty-ed white one made from the wool included in my first kit given by my Isaac for Christmas 2012 and some dark fleece given to me by my best buddy Elaine.


She was the first of many, most of which sold at the Crafter's Room where I've been volunteering my time. They were all colors shapes and sizes, very simplistic and very quick to construct, with the most endearing results. Below  is a shot of them in the display at the store.

A varied flock of Crafter's Room sheep.

Also at the store I had an inventory of note cards in pen and ink. Amidst that collection was this lovely sheep.

pen and ink with minimal watercolor wash

In due course my dear brother took a shine to the sheep and increased his collection to two more, another big booty brown and a teeny little pink to go with big mama white. Clearly, these humble ovines persist in bleating their way into my thoughts.

Robin and Kim's flock.

Recently I've rediscovered an amazing resource.  Sara Renzulli,  a needle sculptor in Maryland is gracious enough to instruct on line.  In a quick look back over my blogs,  I found that in fact I'd first enjoyed her work, at www.sarafinafiberart.com,  back in March of last year. A single lesson from this humorous articulate and gifted artist took me from here... 








..to here, in a single day.

So I shall continue this love affair til I've run out of steam,  this last week has been thrilling with the catalyst of a new and boundless resource. I feel as though I'm growing in leaps and bounds. For now there are needles and lots of fleece so I must find the next "something completely different". Back to work!

Cute Iron on patch from company called MT Coffinz

Teaching an Old Dog Some New Tricks

      I've been in a blogging hiatus it seems.  With the opportunity to be juried by a new and prestigious retailer, I have been imagining being seen through their eyes when I make my presentation of pieces created in hopes of seducing their acceptance.  I am prone during times of self-examination to always believe I'll be found wanting. That though often I can  in a million things,  I seldom sit still and thoroughly learn the real "how-to of things.  I'm always too itchy to  go "hands on".

The most recent fruits of my labor.

      That's a good thing according to Einstein, who believed that knowledge can only be achieved through experience. Experiencing new art forms and methods,  however,  often leads me down a rabbit hole of fruitful but lengthy digression.   I have always felt blessed with and innate sense of the creative.   Having a dependable "feel" for things is often to the detriment of actually learning  the true process.  Tried and true rather than trial and error would save time when I have a deadlines and demands.
True to form though, trial and error have been the order of the day these last few weeks as I teach myself to "wet felt",  an exciting departure from the needle-felting that has consumed this last year.  My first few pieces have encouraged me to go on.  Getting a feel for consistency and weight is the challenge so far but here's my very first piece,  a seamless tea cozy.

My first seamless wet-felted tea cozy

      At the onset,  wet-felting affords  much less control so WAY-Y out of my comfort zone. The results  to date have been fantastic! ( Of course I might have more control if I had a full grasp of my teaching videos,..turns out the best ones I've  found are Russian or Scandinavian!  Here's one I love,  even though it's  entirely in another language the girl's face and manner are most endearing..   http://youtu.be/0W2nWsz3irA  (  my favorite moment is at 4:13 when she flips over the piece and says " Chhhhpook!!... )   Anyway,.. I watched the whole video and then I made this!!



      It really has been fun. The next pieces are all tea cozies too.  One piece is a cool seamless spring one to which I will add a needle-felted riot of flowers, butterflies. bees and lady bugs.  I  need a little time to embellish it so I promise to post a photo of  it when it is finished. The other,  a crow/forest design shown below,  is wet felted in two pieces and will be blanket-stitched together.  For now, the journey is always worthwhile.



      Plato stated;  "Never discourage anyone... who continually makes progress, no matter how slow."  Oh, and by the way...wet felting involves oodles of bubble wrap!