Happy Birthday Canada

     Hubby and I set out early yesterday, after seeing that the dogs would be comfortable for the day, outside in their pen. We arrived at the waterfront in Dartmouth early enough to scout out a good spot for our stall and set up for a sunny, hot and busy day. There was a lot of traffic through our area and I'm happy to report that the purse has a bit more jingle today. I brought my Ashford Kiwi and demonstrated spinning throughout the day. We were fortunate enough to have the East Indian lady set up not far away from us so we partook of lovely authentic vegetarian delicacies for lunch. Hubby was a bit disappointed in his sales, but I did notice that the only products which were actually moving were lower priced, and much smaller items. There were lots of lookers and I was very surprised to note how many people had never seen someone actually use a wheel before. All in all, I would call the day a success. I'm still worn out from all the sun and crowds. My nerves are somewhat better now. Shortly after we set up, a couple of children's entertainers parked right beside us with their temporary tattoos, juggling acts and balloon creations. The combination of hot sun and rough concrete surface underfoot made for a lot of burst balloons! I felt like I was sitting on a rifle range! Well, at least it kept the kiddies happy. 

Never Met a Fiber I Didn't Like

     Having lost a small bet with my hubby, today was totally devoted to housework so I didn't get too much done in the studio other than some clerical junk. Managed to file some documents and pictures so I'll be able to access them again, and worked on labels and business cards for the November show. I have to pop out this evening for a bit, and I have a meeting tomorrow night as well as more housework chores for during the day tomorrow. It's turned out to be a rather busy week so far. 


     Since I haven't had a chance to complete the embellishments on my latest project, I wanted to take this time to comment on this wonderful fiber.  Shown above is the pitiful remains of what was a gorgeous art batt, carded by Linda Kotch in Ohio. It's a mixture of pretty well everything you could think of and it's so beautiful! I couldn't wait to begin something with it, and I came up with an idea for a wet felted 3-D hanging sculpture, which will be the subject of my next blog. 

    Oh, and I also had some time to play with my little sweetie pictured here. She's such a good girl! 

Needle Felted Meerkat

     I really enjoyed making this little guy. He too was done while I was recovering from the flu, as needle felting requires far less energy than wet felting. He's done really really tightly too, as I wanted him to be able to stand on his own without putting wires or sticks up inside his body. Once again ... he was an experimental piece, but he turned out so well. If he doesn't sell in the November show, he'll probably find a good home as a Christmas gift. 


     This little meerkat's eyes are Miracle beads and have a reflective glow all of their own in certain lighting conditions. It's really kind of eerie until you get used to it. There were a lot of hours that went into him due to the density of the felting. Since I've never seen a meekat, I relied on pictures from the internet and the pattern on his back came out ok. Perhaps next time will be a bit better. I was starting to get the hang of it toward the end of the pattern. 

     You can see here how his rear feet and his tail, also very tightly felted, form a tripod to support him.       


     Finally, in this last picture, you can see that he's just darn cute!

Needle Felted Sculptures

     I've been down with the flu for over a week. It's nasty and lingering. It makes you wish you were dead. However, I did manage to catch up on some needle felting that had to be done. It's been awhile since I've made anything needle felted and I find my style has changed a bit. I seem to be much more into detail than before. Well that's a good thing. Since I was pretty much confined for several days, I used the time to get started on my list of things to be done by Christmas. I finished the little beaded ring in no time, and then made the sea horse brooch. These are both orders to go to the city. 






     That left a couple of larger sculptures to be done. I tackled the trout commission and it turned out rather well, but took a couple of days. I'm sure it will find a nice home. 

     The next project was a pair of earrings I had started. When I realized the pattern was a bit more time consuming than I had thought when I started them, I had put them aside for an occasion such as being laid up for a few days. 

        That nearly caught me up and I only have one more commission lined up right now, which I will begin working on today. I've taken on the chore of cooking something nice for supper as well, since I'm feeling better now. I have a project ready to start with the wet felting too, but that will have to wait until this awful cough subsides and I have the energy to work the wool. 


     It really feels good to be all caught up this early in the process.  

Book Jackets

     With the passing of another long, summer weekend, I've suddenly realized I've been getting lazy and just enjoying some good weather. It's dryer now and the nights are cooling down. Sleeping is bliss again and the mornings are perfect for any chores as heat isn't an issue until later in the afternoon. 


     I've been satisfying my artistic needs with a couple of wet felted book jackets for myself. As always they are experiments in technique. In this case, setting the curly locks and blending the colors. I got to play with my beads for awhile too, making embellishments for them. They are covering my two favorite sketch books. I especially love the one shown above, mostly because those colors appeal to my tastes. 

     I think I would love the red tones as well had I used a whiter background. Both of these were done with two resists, for the front and back covers of the book. I did the inside in a thinner felt as I didn't want too much bulk. They have a simple single snap sewn in closure under the flap. 


     My first attempt at this project was a miserable failure as this wool shrunk 40% during the process and the end result was too small for the book. The insides were a bit bulky as well so I think it's looking for a home as a cover for some sort of storage folder ... perhaps a CD case. Who knows? I will either find a use for it, or it's going into my scraps pile and will be used as prefelt in something else. All the little scraps can be rolled up and used for textural elements on felt. There is virtually no waste. 


    I now must go attend to a few domestic issues, and then I have an idea for playing with some Angelina fiber for a new project. It looks like it's going to be another lovely day, so I must accomplish something. Bye for now. 

"Watching"

     I just completed this piece. It's called "Watching" and it's a statement about our diminishing personal privacy in current society. 


     This picture was taken with a flash in order to make the pupils of the eyes glow. I used Miracle beads which have this property. The second picture was taken without a flash. 


    The art is a birthday gift for an old friend. It is destined to reside on Nova Scota's beautiful south shore at White Point. 

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

     I'm getting a bit slack with my posting here, but I have been otherwise occupied by visiting relatives. The highest ranking member of the family as well as the second heir to the throne, after myself,  were here for a couple of days so we did some catching up and ate a lot. The one from Montreal brought me the squeaky cheese curds I wanted, as well as an amazing surprise assortment of soft, ripened Quebec cheeses. Oh my heavens they're good!  I had given myself a wee break from my cholesterol medication, but due to this extravagant gift, I'm back on it again, just to be on the safe side. The grand matriarch from quaint Sherbrooke Village brought a couple of her award winning, totally to die for, rhubarb pies and some deliciously healthy bran muffins to counteract the effects of all that cheese. 

     So, while the relatives have now toddled off to the  South Shore, to spend a couple of luxurious nights at White Point Beach's Lodge, I was able to complete this bag. I had laid it out and wet it down before they arrived, meaning to find some time to work on it while they were here, but since I wasn't feeling my best, it required all my energy just to keep up with the meals. I rescued it just in time as the mess had developed and faint but offensive oder and I had to wash it out before continuing before I drove the smell into the wool, which seemed fine at this point. This bag required a lot more hand rubbing than I've been used to up until now, due to the complexity of the pattern. The diamonds are made of prefelt and each had yarn around it. In order to keep them in place I had to work this through the mesh for a long time. The results were well worth the patience it required. This is also my largest project so far. I think this will be the limit for awhile as finding space for anything bigger is going to require moving some tables together, all of which have other uses. 

     So here are three shots of the bag so far. I still need to make some simple ropes to serve as handles. I'm not sure if I'm going to add any beading to this. The more I look at it, the more I think the pattern is busy enough and beading would take away from the effort that went into putting it on. All the prefelt has Angelina fiber in it anyway, so I doubt there will be beads added. Once the ropes are on, there will be knots and tails too, so it's quite well embellished. 


     Well, it's long past lunch time and I'm starving, so see yas all next blog. 

Catching Up

     It's been quite awhile since I wrote anything in here, so today I'm going to try to catch up on some computer stuff. Last weekend I had a friend staying with me, which was an amazingly good time. We ate too much and drank too much but caught up on lots of news and gossip, and made some new plans. It was lovely weather all weekend. Another lady came to visit on Sunday and stayed for supper. She brought her boxer dog to play with Daisy, who was thrilled. She wagged her tail so hard she split the end of it open on something and my house looked like a crime scene since she kept wagging it. I'm still cleaning up little dried blood spots off the door frames. As soon as the weekend was over, the weather changed and I felt awful for about three days ... extreme fatigue and sore joints again. I'm just coming out of that now and only my lower back is bothering me. I did manage to get a small bag made. It's very small but would make a nice little girl's purse. The project was more about blending the two colors evenly, which I think I managed to do. The colors of dark blue and wine blended well and I was happy with the way that turned out. The yarn I used for decoration is a blend of acrylic, wool and mohair. I just love the way it looks and will surely be using a lot more of it in future projects. 

This little pouch looks just like an orange. The inside is red and the outside is yellow, but the blend worked out orange and the pebbled surface resembles orange peel. It's deadly cute! There is yellow Angelina fiber in it too. I have no idea what to use it for, but it's so pretty I will surely find something to put in it. My plans for today involve laying out another small bag ... until my back is feeling better I simply can't handle rolling a large project. This one will have a flap on front and rope strap so that's actually two projects in one as I do the rope separately. There will surely be some Angelina and yarn in it, but I haven't worked out the final design yet. Once it's wet down, I'll make those decisions ... something simple though. I've had some fabulous advice from Andrea Graham, who I consider to be my best resource at the moment as I'm in love with all her work, but especially her bags. I follow a lot of other felt blogs from around the world as well, so there is always some new art to admire and sources of inspiration. 

Wet Felted Handbag

 

     Well, here it is. No, I couldn't wait for my new supplies to come. It was calling to me and I had to answer. Actually, it wasn't a trial at all .. it went very smoothly ... only took a couple hours to make and all day to dry. I had already made the strap before as a rope project so that was ready to roll. The only thing I don't care for is the shape of my fringes .. looks like I cut them out of solid felt ... actually, I almost did .. the red solidifies very quickly and I should have teased them apart earlier than cutting them later. All in all, I rather pleased with this. The surface texture is really nice. 


     I had an email from Louet yesterday too. My order has been shipped but one of the colors is on back order and to follow in another couple of weeks. Hopefully the most of it will be here by next weekend, as well as the Angelina fiber from the states. I'm having my friend Lu out for part of the long weekend and she is interested in seeing how this is done.  That gives us something to do, besides our trip to Masstown in search of Dragon's Breath Blue Cheese.  We have both declared this to be the absolute bomb of blue cheeses. 

     It was quite late last evening but I still wasn't ready to retire for the night so I made this pretty piece of prefelt from some of my needle felting wool and the long stapled yellow which I have no idea what kind of wool it is. That turned out well and was a quick process as it's only half felted. It will be used to make cutouts for embellishments for future bags, etc.  I'm kind of thinking about making a pair of slippers too. I saw a couple of different ways to make the seamless ones, but I don't think I have any leather here for making the soles, so that might be a project for much later on. 


     So, I'm not sure what my projects will be this weekend. I think I'm going to make another bag. Can't decide on the color or style just yet. That decision is going to take another cup of coffee. Have a great weekend everyone ... the sun just came out here and it was supposed to be raining, so all is great in my world. 

If At First, You Don't Succeed .... Try, Try Again

    Not one to be defeated by my own stupid mistakes, I made three more cellphone cases yesterday. I am pleased with these. The dark brown one I made first. I was quite happy, except I didn't have quite enough white on the outside of the fringe of the flap. That was my error on layout. The grey one came next and even though the grey is a very coarse, long staple wool, it worked better than I expected. I was happier with the fringe. 


     I attempted the red wool again. As soon as I wet it, it tried to get away from me again. I have no idea what this wool is .. the staple is short and it's very fine and soft. I'd guess merino, but not sure. I was able to control the wool but you can see this one is a bit wider than the others. A tiny bit of the red solidified and didn't stick on the front so I snipped it off. Not sure what happened there either, except I think it might have folded off initially on the bottom side where I couldn't see it, during the beginning stages. I also dared to cut some holes in the flap with pleasing results. I found out these holes can get a lot larger in a big hurry where the wool is very thin. More valuable knowledge for the data base in my brain. 

     I was really happy with the flame look of the red flap. I don't know what kind of wool the yellow is either. It's a long staple a slightly coarser than the red. I got both at a fabulous price on EBay in large amounts. I imagine it is left overs from the International Day of Felt project quite some time ago as this was themed in red and yellow colors. In any case, it was inexpensive and I have a lot of it. 

     This is the sketch I have ready for my first handbag. I'm waiting on an order of four colors of dyed Corridale top from Louet in Quebec and a sampler of Angelina fibers from the states. Once those treasures arrive, I think I'm ready to dive into handbag production. The little cases were a great experience, but I just fell in love with the handbag concept and can't wait to try it. 

Wet Felting Process

     Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. I hope you have a wonderful day. That goes to my mom too, who I know will be reading this. Love you Mom. 


    I'm still playing with the wet felting ... holding off on the handbag project because I just am not yet skilled enough and I really want to make it nice. I'm learning quite a bit about the art just from making these bangles. I've already learned that not all wools like each other and have had a couple of disasters. The black and red number shown fell apart on me early in the wetting process, so after fighting with it for a little while, it wouldn't go the way I wanted it to, so I discarded it. 

     I've learned that the hotter the water is, the better this works. I'm starting to develop a feel for  the process, beginning to understand when to add water and when to add soap. I'm completely amazed by the process and how hard and smooth it becomes. I've been flaming the fuzzy hairs off the damp finished bracelets, before beading them because I love the look. The smell of burned wool disappears once they're dry. I can't find any instructions where this step is mentioned .... so it's not likely recommended. Remember, I don't have the luxury of an instructor. I'm trying to learn all this from internet resources. I can't afford to buy the books either. I've also been sharing this with my talented artist cousin, Deb, on the South Shore. She has made some very pretty unbeaded bangles and has also become obsessed with the process. 

     The ones shown in this pic have just been flamed and I took them outside to brush the burned bits off. Notice how smooth they look. The more I make, the more I realize I need to learn. This is especially true when something doesn't work out and I then have a need to find out why. So many questions ... so much to learn .. but it wouldn't interest me if there was no challenge. 
I'm looking for a list or chart or something to tell me which types of wool work best for needle felting vs. wet felting vs. spinning. So far, I have found no such chart, but lots of info. It looks like I will have to make the list myself based on many different resources. Any helpful hints from my readers are gratefully appreciated. 

     There are volumes of things I want to know. Like all about wet felting with resists, and how to stick on pieces of prefelt and how to attach ropes for bag handles and the like. I now realize a beret with a resist was a silly thing to do for a beginner project and the fact I was able to save it with so little experience was a pure miracle. This is so much fun and at the same time so difficult. The learning curve will surely take years to master. I now understand so much more about the accomplished artists in this field, and have so much more respect for the time they invested to get to where they are. 

Checking Out that Wet Felting Thing

     Yesterday was one of those wet dreary days that I really didn't feel like doing mundane housework or anything remotely related to domestic work. I thought it was time to learn something new. Between the three loads of laundry, I managed to absorb quite a few YouTube videos on wet felting and decided to start with the little blue bracelet shown here. Using a piece of hemp tied to the correct size to fit over my hand, I carefully wrapped layers of wool around it and proceeded to wet felt. The bracelet didn't turn out half bad. Yes, there was a large fold on the inside ... so large in fact,that it looks like I used two cords and fused them together. I used too much wool in the whole piece and I carved some away to show the inside purple color, carving too deep so that my sliced area kind of caved in. Acceptable though and once the beads are added, it will be a truly unique piece. It's a bit chunky but like I said, too much material. 


    Then I moved on to the rope. This turned out really well and was much easier than needle felting them so I'm fairly pleased. I could have continued felting this for a much thinner and stiffer rope, but at this point I wasn't sure what to use it for, so stopped at a point where it was flexible, strong but still soft. I think should I need a stiffer rope, I could just repeat the process on the same piece. I really like the rope. 


    By this time I was rather pleased with myself and thought I'd move on to something harder, like a beret. This requires a resist and I had everything set up and ready to roll in no time, with my corrugated cardboard resist, netting, bubble wrap, hot soapy water, etc. Things started to go wrong ... the soap bottle slipped from my hand and broke open on my ceramic kitchen floor, creating a treacherous terrain that had to be cleaned up right away lest I slip and break my neck in the mess. I worked at this piece a long, long time ... and I was really tired when I deemed it completed. However, I could see it was  still too big. Why wouldn't the darn thing shrink? I worked at it some more. Until it came time to cut the hole for my head, I still hadn't really decided which side was up but stuck to my plan anyway.   Once I cut the hole, I had to work on the edges a lot to keep them from coming apart ... and consequently the bottom of the work got a lot more fulling on it than the top, which was thin. It' could have used more wool to begin with. There were a couple of holes in it!!! I managed to push them together but it is way too thin on the top and seems just right on the bottom. Where I'd folded the overhang wool over to the bottom made all the difference. The thing is way too big ... the hole is the correct size but the beret looks like an extra large pizza on my head so it's now a nice piece of wool for  cutting up to become part of another project. I really messed it up but enjoyed the learning experience of it all. I think I can mostly see where and what I did wrong ... but it would have been nice to have an instructor to yell at me at the time I was doing it so the mistakes could have been corrected then. The top of the beret is a lovely weight for a laminated scarf though ... so maybe sometime soon, I'll attempt one of those. Even though it's too thin, I'm surprised by it's strength.


     Did I mention I feel like I've been hit by a truck? Wet felting is a great upper body workout and I likely should have paced myself a little better and not tried to do all three projects in one day. I can barely move my arms this morning. I'm disappointed in the beret and it did use quite a bit of wool. I'm rather intrigued by the whole experience and it's neat to watch the fibers do what they do when hot water and soap is added. It's not likely we're ever going to have an artist of the caliber of Andrea Graham here to hold a workshop in this neck of the woods, so I'll have to rely on instructional videos. I want to try making a bag with a resist. I've been checking out some of the ones Andrea Graham teaches and I just love the look of them. I'm a bit scared now that I've mucked up the beret project, but I have learned a lot about the wool, and it seems to me that the only way I can get this skill is by practice, so I'm going to work on some kind of design for a bag very soon. All in all, the learning experience was very well worth the effort, sore muscles and I did get a neat bracelet and rope out of it. 


     Here I am again .. a couple hours later. I've had another brainstorm and I think it will either work, or be a total disaster with no grey area in between. I'm cutting another resist, just a bit smaller and turning the hat inside out. I'll add more wool and work on that side a lot more and try to ease the material toward the center. I'll have to work on the other side as well, so nothing gets out of center, but not quite so much. Besides, there's only one way to fix sore muscles and that's to work them out. Wish me luck. I haven't given up yet!  I need to learn to see with my fingers (which feel like I haven't any fingerprints left) by touch and I will not let a bunch of wool defeat me! 

Amiryha: Spirit Mask Wall Art

     
     This is the second Spirit Mask work. I've called this one Amiryha and she is a sister to Zharyha. The story is the same. After much consideration, I decided to leave the tails off this one ... I don't find they add much to the work and only serve to lengthen the piece for display purposes. I think she is busy enough without more embellishment. This one has blue sand dollars, dyed in my kitchen sink with vegetable dye. They are very interesting to make once the main mask is shaped. That is where all the work comes into play as it's done over a form I fashioned out of large styrofoam balls. I have some new felting pads coming soon, so I'll make a new form from my two old pads and I think that will make my life easier for the third mask. How many of these I make will depend on sand dollar supply, which is getting dangerously low. Time to hit the beach again. I'll also be searching for small crab shells .. the smaller the better. I'd like to use them on one of these masks as well. 


I'm keeping pretty busy with my art these days, but I must admit, I'm getting a bit shack whacky, so I think it's time for a mini vacation. I'm looking at sometime in May for a trip to the South Shore, where I'll spend one night with a dear old friend who lives in an inspiring place beside the ocean, and one night with my cousin Deb, artist and owner of The Wardroom Gallery. Really looking forward to that. 
Last weekend one of my higher ranking relatives spent the weekend with me here. We got out for a nice dinner and had some leisure time to catch up. This coming weekend I have a social event to attend on Saturday night in Halifax at the Lord Nelson Hotel. I'm not sure what time I'll be returning here, or if I'm spending the night in the city, so have made arrangements for a dog sitter. 


Having done all that spring cleaning awhile back, I managed to find a place for everything in my studio, and promptly forgot where some of those places were. Some of my tools are now a bit hard to find and I was disgusted to realize I'd put my felting needles away and couldn't find them anywhere. Frustration set in! I ordered more and they should be here soon, and of course, found the old ones in the meantime in a little drawer labelled "needles". Duh! Anyway ... it's a good thing as I ordered smaller needles this time. I've stopped breaking them so I should be good to go with the smaller gauge.  That's a lot of felting needles, but I've fashioned tools to hold multiple needles (my favorite tool takes four) so I'll use many of them that way. Needle felting has become slightly more popular down this way, so perhaps I can also sell some of them in smaller quantities, but in any case, you can't really have too many needles. I'll likely have to go through a learning curve with the smaller ones too, so some will get broken at first. I have a ring to finish this afternoon for a customer but that's all the creating I plan to do today. It's dreary, chilly and looks like rain so I'm going to treat myself to a "no" day. Just relax and watch the tube, read or nap. I deserve it. 

Beaded Cocktail Ring Giveaway

I thought it might be fun to feature a giveaway on my blog, to help promote my work. This contest is open to all my blog followers as well as my Facebook community. Every person who leaves a comment to this post will go into a hat for a draw this weekend (April 17th). You must leave your email address so I can contact the winner, then I will send you this adorable cocktail ring in the mail, free of charge, just for participating and being the drawn name. I will contact the winner for your mailing address and get this off to you at the beginning of next week. This ring is size 5 and the picture does it no justice at all. It's so much prettier up close. Good luck to all. 

Zharyha and Easter Sunday

     A couple more small details have been given to the Spirit Mask. She has tails on either side of her head now, with some crystal and small glass beads added, the idea being that the wall where it will eventually live is lit in the evenings often only by the warm glow of the fireplace. I was hoping to catch some of that light in the crystals and have it reflect and glitter occasionally. I've been making more sketches, so she will have family. I've started working on a second one already. She now has a name and a story to go along with her. 

     Zharyha       She and her sisters are spirits who live and play in that mystical place where surf and sand or rock collide. They dance in the sea foam, playing on the crests of the crashing waves. They watch over this home of theirs and make sure the ocean and shoreline are always in harmony when they meet, as the friction erodes the rock away to form substrate for the beginnings of new life. These spirits are more visible now, in our lifetime. This is due to the increased density of the sea foam, from pollutants and chemical changes in the water. This makes the spirits' job much more difficult, and they often weep with the howling gales over the slow, but inevitable loss of their environment. Please help them survive and respect the symbiotic relationships of nature. 

     So, besides that, yesterday was a fun day. Being Easter Sunday, most folks have family commitments, but there's still a bunch of us old single birds out there, so we got together at the home of a couple of old friends and had a big feed. We started with appetizers of crackers with black pepper goat cheese, burn yer lips off guacamole, and smoked Genoa sausage. Then we moved on to the main meal which was a big ham dinner with several choices of vegetables, hot cross buns, home made pickles and beets, three kinds of mustard, oh my! Everything was so good and it looked like everyone had a pretty good appetite. Dessert was fresh made lemon cake and pumpkin pie. This is where I gave up ... I had no room left for dessert. None ... nada ... not the barest crack or crevice.

      I had brought Daisy along with me to play with their husky. Both the dogs were tied outside all afternoon and played each other out. They both enjoyed a portion of leftovers from our dinner. I took her home in early evening. She was played out and getting cranky and I had overeaten so just wanted to have a nap. That is exactly what we did as soon as I got home. I had lots of sleep and felt rather chipper today. Managed to get several hours worth of mundane chores accomplished and actually enjoyed doing it. I'm going to cook a nice pork tenderloin supper with fresh broccoli ... healthy and lean, watch a little tv, do a little felting and go to bed early in hopes I feel this good again tomorrow. 

Wool and Sand Dollars

This is the completed mask which will be a gift for a dear friend, to add to her collection. As I worked with this, and the face evolved, a female persona developed. I believe she is a guardian of marine shorelines; places where salty surf collides with rock and sand, eroding and providing new substrate for new life. I also think she is the first of a series of these masks. 


I learned a lot about the wool with this project, as it was full of challenges. No wet felting techniques were used so it had to be needle felted to a very stiff stage, in order for it to hold it's form. I fashioned a mold to work on, using styrofoam and masking tape, which I wrapped in plastic food wrap in order to keep the bits of styrofoam from getting into the wool. When it was stiff enough, I sewed a wire frame to the inside, which I made by using the same mold. The end result is worth the frustration. I'm very pleased with it and I'm anxious to begin another very soon. The amount of felting required has created a sore shoulder, so I'm going to catch up on some other things for a day or two. I'm also fighting a stubborn cold. Being Easter weekend, I have no other plans so will rest as much as I can and try to get well. 

The Masks: Repairs and Additions

These masks belong to a friend of mine. During her move across this vast country, they met with the misfortune of being smashed to bits. Poor things .. they are made of paper clay and quite fragile. The big smash weakened them in places where they didn't actually fly apart, and my friend was devastated at the extent of the damage. They are hand made by some artist which I'm not familiar with, but they do have markings and numbers on the inside, if anyone knows who the original artist is. I would like to know. Well, my first instinct was to write them off as trash, but out of respect for the artwork, I agreed to try to save them. The black one had the most damage. Shards were collected from both sides of the face, but under the chin was mostly missing, so had to be rebuilt. I made wool cords, with multiple tails and glued them to cover holes, rebuild the jaw area and generally cover the cracks that showed after the glue up of the paper clay. The owner has seen the pictures and loves them. She's already making plans for where to put them up in her new place. I'm not sure where these were originally purchased, but if I have the story correct, it would have been at an arts and crafts show here in Nova Scotia say about 25 years ago. My friend has been all over Canada since then, and they had survived all the moves except this last one. 

The bone colored mask had much less damage and only one small hole. This was easily covered with wool ropes. 


The spring cleaning is still going on schedule. I'm almost up to the studio, which I'm leaving to last. If any of it is going to run over time, it's going to be the studio. So, I realize, now I'm procrastinating. Off I go with my cleaning supplies .......

Fresh, Delicate and Feminine for Spring!

Rings and Things

I'm running around here today trying to get a few things organized. A friend sent me the pattern for this pretty cocktail ring so I played with it last night for awhile. I came up with a couple of different looks for it. You'll have to excuse the old, dry wrinkled hand in this picture. It's the ring you're supposed to be looking at. The bands on these are beaded with 11/0 seed beads so they feel very nice on the finger. 

I just finished bathing the dog. She'll be going into the city with me this afternoon for a nice visit with my friend, Lu. I wanted to make sure she smelled pretty for the visit. She was due for a bath anyway. My next move is to have a shower myself and try to do something with my hair.  Then I'm off to the big city to spend the rest of the day. 

Wooly Brooch

This brooch was snapped up yesterday on Facebook buy a return customer. He loves my wool creations and this is the second piece he's purchased. I managed to get the rest of the completed ones uploaded to Etsy so they're waiting for new homes.  www.SponalgeKarney.etsy.com


While doing some blog browsing, I came across a nice recipe for Scottish oatcakes. There was a lovely photo of the ingredients, so it was easy to figure out the consistency of the oatmeal required, as I wasn't familiar with the local names. They turned out great and they're party worthy, easy and delicious, so will likely be sharing these with my friends at our next gathering. 

I haven't heard any more from Don. We agreed on  one phone call a week and decided Friday would be good. It's still only Tuesday. Being garbage day, I spent some time in the garage yesterday, sorting and bagging various trash. I managed to get up early this morning and have everything to the edge of the road before the truck arrived for pickup. I over slept last week and missed it. There is nothing else on the slate for today, so I can enjoy finishing up the pins,  begin either a pair of earrings or a ring ...  the new ring pattern I received is very enticing, and do a bit of cleaning up. Tomorrow I have to make a trip into Dartmouth to drop off a couple of pieces and meet up with some friends for coffee. I don't plan on being in there more than a few hours so Daisy will be fine here by herself for the afternoon.  Well, that's all for today folks, and now I'm off to begin working. Wishing all a fabulous day.