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.  

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. 

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. 

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. 

Another Mild, Wet Day

I'm learning to type all over again. My ergonomic keyboard kicked the bucket yesterday and I decided to retire it, rather than fix it again.
I was getting fed up with sticky keys and praying for the @ sign to work. I switched it out for a standard keyboard and find it so small. It's cut my speed in half for now but as time goes on I'm sure I'll learn to use it without so many mistakes.

It's another wet dark day but at least it's warm. It could stay like this all winter and I wouldn't complain too much. Maybe palm trees would sprout in the spring and we'll become the new Florida! Yeah ... nice to dream.. I'm off to check out a new bead supply place in a little while. I need some pin backs to sew onto some brooches I felted. I have a huge bag of red wool and hope to get some brooches sold for both Christmas and Valentines ... hearts are very fast to make. I did a small lobster to make a pin, but don't really care for it. It was harder to sculpt and although it turned out well, lobsters just aren't cute. I have to figure out some small stuff to sell as people just aren't spending big money right now. If the craft show was any indication of the state of the economy, everybody wants stuff for next to nothing and appreciation for the craft seems to have flown out the recession window. Keep trying ... I keep telling myself that perseverence will someday pay off.

I'm back now from what turned out to be a bit of an adventure. Before I left, I had searched out my destination on Google Earth. It clearly shows a road that runs parallel to the 102 and runs southeast of Miller Lake. Do you think we could find the end of it off the Aerotech Park exit? No Sir! We saw a one lane road with a gate ... no public road going that way. Then we spotted a sign pointing to the Old Guysborough Road ... aha! It took about 10 minutes of driving before we were both realized we weren't heading in the correct direction. I hauled the smart phone out and booted up the GPS ... sure enough, we were heading back home the long way. We turned around and went all the way back out to the highway and proceeded to Fall River and went in behind the lake, and had no trouble finding the place.

What a lovely couple! The online bead supply place is run by a wonderful young British couple and their platinum blonde, cuter than kittens, little boy. Brian and Hollie are so very nice and just a pleasure to talk to. Brian liked my dog too. Big brownie points there. They run a home based online beading supply company and carry quality products. By the way, they've informed me that road with the gate is the one we were looking for, but is impassable by vehicle anyway. The way we came is the only way to get there. So, all in all, it was more than worth the trip. Good luck Brian and Hollie. Check them out at http://www.thebeadingroom.com/ . From there you can access their blog which is also very interesting. So, now I have the pin backs I need for my felted pins and I had better get busy as they don't sew themselves to the felt.