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Once I start needle felting...it's hard for me to stop. These are so much fun to make. 
...oh, and what's this I spy in the pumpkin patch?...
...a sweet little bat friend who flew here all the way from California to wish me a
Thank you sweet Jen! For the treats, the cards, the little bat friend and all your beautiful wrap...you always know how to brighten my day.
Happy Halloween Eveyone!!
Still catching up from my summer hiatus so with the Autumn Pincushion Challenge soon coming to an end, I thought I'd better post the summer theme pincushions as well as the fall one.
The summer theme was a perfect opportunity to FINALLY finish a WIP from over a year ago.
Since I couldn't stick to just one pincushion, I also made this starfish.
And for the Autumn theme, I've been crazy for needle felting again and just had to make a pumpkin.
Thanks for all the well wishes from my last post. Still no changes in my health, so am just hanging in there. I got home late Wednesday after an unexpected stay over in Atlanta due to bad weather and cancelled flights. It was straight to the doctor to find out what I have is bronchitis. It's either wait it out or take steroids. I'm just going to try and let it run it's course. Thought I'd give this recipe for good health a try. If anyone knows of any others I'd love to hear about them.
In swapping news, even though I'm months behind in my paperbag swag round robin, I dared to sign up for Amy's annual Haunted ATC Swap. I played around with several witch designs, but they never quite looked right when I pieced them out in felt. So, in a bit of a deadline panic I went for a similar design I created out of paper last year for a postcard swap. Guess I'm still quite stuck creatively.
They were a little trickier to work out of felt, but so much fun to embellish. I do realize this is more "Day of the Dead" than Halloween, but I'm sticking with it.
I also couldn't resist Michelle's embroidered button swap. That was something new for me and so much fun. Here's a bad photo of the ones I made. (dark days make for tricky photo taking)
...and here are all the lovely ones that arrived in today's mail.
Mine are from Amy, Anina, Joy, Monica, Regina and one from the lovely swap hostess herself. Thank YOU Michelle! You can see more here. She may host another in the near future so if you're interested, be on the look out.
I'm off to make some soup. Happy weekend wishes!
Apparently it was much more than a cold that I brought home with me from Milwaukee. The three of us have been terribly sick for the past ten days and I'm just tired of coughing all the time. Peanut seems to be the least affected, but his poor papa is being treated for pnuemonia...as am I, although my doctor is not able to confirm nor treat it as such. Pregnancy has those limitations...no good strong drugs for me to take. I don't want to gross anyone out, but all this coughing with a baby sitting on my bladder has made for some very uncomfortably embarassing moments...those of you who have been pregnant will know what I'm talking about. Anyway, sick and all I packed up my bags and came to Florida last Wednesday for my second to last work trip before baby comes. I had high hopes of the Palm Beach air somehow curing my ills...but on it goes. blah...
I didn't drag my camera with me so am pulling a photo off my Flickr page. This collage is part of an idea I had to try and jump start my lost creative energy once again. With dear pal Jen, we challenged ourselves to spend ten to thirty minutes each morning creating something...anything to inspire ourselves. The collage is made from junk mail envelopes. It was fun, it was quick, it made me feel like I did something...it was the first and only page I uploaded to Flickr. I managed to do a page for the first twelve days, then just felt too bad to continue. The other pages sit waiting to be photographed. Too many consecutive dark days at home made for lousy pictures. Maybe the sun will come out next week.
I'm home again after a great reunion with my Lifeways classmates and three more days of classes. It was a whirlwind of a weekend and we really packed alot into a short amount of time. The Blessingway I mentioned in the previous post was quite an emotional experience for me as it was the first time I had planned something like this. It was fun to see it all come together. Our two friends seemed completely surprised. I did managed to piece together all the squares we knit for the baby blanket. I was thrilled to see how the blanket came together. I love how each square came to me with a different story. Some had forgotten how to knit until they did the square, others were not sure how to obtain the gauge. Anyway, each square was knit with love and the new mom-to-be was truly touched with our gift.
Our focus for the weekend class was on nursery rhymes and puppetry and we were fortunate enough to have master puppeteer Suzanne Down come to teach us. She was delightful and magical to watch. I found myself completely enchanted as an adult and can easily see why children are so drawn to her. She demonstrated for us how she uses her various puppets.
"Mary Had a Little Lamb"
"Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater"
Then we all got to learn from her how to make our own felted puppets.
We each chose a different nursery rhyme character, then practiced acting out our nursery rhyme for one another. I chose Jack of "Jack and Jill"
And among all the beautiful puppets, there were "The Crooked Man" and "Mary Mary Quite Contrary". It was a wonderful weekend (even though I caught a wicked cold) and I look forward to our next weekend together in March.
Oh! And I did manage to get to Alterra one time. Lucky are those of you who have one in your neighborhood.
I'm in beautiful Milwaukee again for a long weekend to continue my Lifeways training that I began last June. Tonight we are having two celebrations for classmates...one who is getting married and another who is having a baby this fall. I have planned a Blessingway celebration for them and am feeling a little nervous...hopefully everything will go well. It's my first attempt at organizing this kind of ceremony. The gift I hope to present is a group knit baby blanket. Everyone got a knitting lesson last summer and we each made our own knitting needles out of chop sticks, so the idea is to each knit at least square. I was busy making these during the week...a few extra just in case not everyone was able to do it.
It was after seeing this beautiful blanket-complete with instructions-on this blog that I knew this would be the perfect gift to make. Now the tough part is to piece them all together. Wish me luck! I have a few hours and some extra hands...hopefully we'll have finished the blanket to show next week.
While I'm here, I hope to make a stop Alterra, my new favorite coffee place.
It's really starting to feel like autumn here. Today was a perfect October day and the leaves were blooming in beautiful fall colors. It inspired me to bring out the wool and do some hand stitching.
Felt balls...
(The beautiful wood bowl was made by my brother)
...and jesters.
Patterns for both of these came from this book...
which I bought a few years ago and am finally putting to use. There are so many tempting little creatures from here that I would like to make, I may be back with more.
