Update

Well, looky here. It has been an age since I posted. This, I'm sure, is not the last time I will disappear from here for a while. It's just the way I roll. I get really into something and then it's pretty much dead to me. For example, grilled cheese sandwiches were dead to me from age 7 until about 12 and then made a brief shining reappearance before being gone now for longer than my kids have been around. I just don't want one. I know I have enjoyed them and will enjoy them again, but there it is.

Short version, I have a pitiful span of attention.

So what has been going on, you ask? Well have a look...


There has been a lot of quilting. It isn't something I thought I would like but as it turns out, it's pretty addictive. I really enjoy that they always keep you warm and you don't have to worry about making them flattering. Quilts fit everybody.

And then there was some felted art for a show in December. Seriously. I know I've been gone a long time but I really have let this time away get a bit out of hand.

And some non-felted art for the same show based on the very amusing novel Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters.
And all the while teaching myself how to do my own eyebrows and make myself look like the undead. A girl only has so much time to perfect these critical things.

I know I could have spread these projects out to get the maximum air-play from each of them but time marches on. There will be more in the future but I am leaving you for now with this charming picture of myself at Halloween.

When I say "Craft or Die" I mean it.

Alright, enough procrastinating to avoid first post anxiety... here it is the first big felting project that I used up most of my first 5lbs of fibre on. It's a rug I'm working on for my oldest daughter's new 'big girl' room.
I learned a lot from this project. First, that felting on this scale is hard on the wrists and i might need a personal trainer to prepare me for the next rug. Second, that if you like your kitchen table, FELT SOMEWHERE ELSE! I've rubbed the finish off the table in a few spots. Next, that my kitchen table, and indeed my kitchen, are only large enough to produce a rug roughly 2.5 x 4.5 feet. (And this was two kitchen table sized sections joined end to end) This is not really as much rug as I would have liked for the output of elbow grease that was required. However, I just got 10lbs more lovely merino wool to mess with so there is more felting on the horizon to be sure. I think though that I will try to learn more on smaller projects and save up my wrists for when I make a truly great rug sometime in the future.

The polka dots were all kool-aid dye experiments that needed to be used up on a base of un-dyed merino wool. Even looking at this now I wonder at putting a white rug in a three year old girls bedroom. Luckily, since it's my first rug, by the time it is finished I will probably hate it. I don't tend to be too precious about finished works. A few hours after it's finished I'm already plotting the next project. Which is much smaller in scale and much easier on the wrists. Hammered silver wire jewelry.
I'm nothing if not diverse.