What to Post on a Snowy Day

Today it's snowing and right now it looks like it could go for an inch an hour. So here's a project to go with the day.

Once when I was setting up a felting class, one of the students asked if we could do a tree like this for the project. She had seen it online. So we tried it, and this is how mine came out. When he saw it, the boy said the tree had to have a “house-hole” at the bottom and he felted the bunny to live in it.


Speaking of the boy, he recently turned 13, so it's time for his quilt. When the girls turned 13, each of them got a flannel quilt to wrap up in and comfort them through their teen years. The quilts were made of flannel from dad's old shirts, my old nightgowns, and scraps from many sewing projects - so they were warm and full of memories.
This morning I ironed out the fabrics for the boy's quilt. It was fun to sift through the memories as I worked, and will continue to be so as we design his comfort-wrap.

Musings

Brrr! It's still cold out there. We fared better than some yesterday. The wind took out power in part of our town and the next one over, and the town was preparing to put folks up in the high school. We were fortunate to keep our power. But there was a tragic death because of the wind. Deep breath of gratitude and sorrow.

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep, I was thinking about quilts. We were under the one my grandmother made for our wedding, and I was thinking of the ones I've made. And the thoughts drifted to wondering if I could combine the quilting with the sewing I do on recycled sweaters - maybe on jackets or skirts or bags...? I'll have some fun playing with that idea.

Gordon Bok sings a song of a woodcarver, and some of the lines are beautiful to me right now: "While my hands are steady, while my eyes are good, I will carve the music of the wind into the wood." Somehow that resonates with me about the birds I sculpt. And especially with the injury to my arm, I'm not sure if my felting days are numbered. They are certainly limited. I felted too much yesterday and will have to rest the arm today. So I think I value the felting I can do more.

So anyway, here's more of what I've worked on this last week/month.

This is a western tanager. I don't ever see this bird, but his picture is near the goldfinch in my bird book, and he's so beautiful, I just have to have him around sometimes.

This is a red breasted nuthatch. I've never seen one, but they are native to my area, so I hope to someday. I have the white breasted ones at my feeder every day.

The Wind is Howling...

Today is a day to be grateful for shelter as the wind screams around the corners of the house and through the screens. My heart goes out to those who don't have the comfort of being out of the wind and cold.

Now my busy season is over (I just have the Coventry Farmer's Market on a regular basis) and Christmas has passed, I feel I can breathe some. I hope to be making things daily to prepare for next season's busyness, filling my Etsy shop, and making the rug that a customer ordered. This, along with more attention to homeschooling with the boy and driving him to classes and rehearsals. Life will still be full, but hopefully more serene.

I'm getting back into a little more needle felting. In the fall I was felting so much that I got a repetitive motion injury and have had to give my arm a rest. I still have to limit what I do, but I can do a little more than I could a month ago. It's been a positive thing - I started learning to felt right-handed; they say that doing things with your off hand is really good for your brain.



This is a chippy I made for Audrey. I have a few things that people asked me to make before Christmas, that I now have time to work on. Then I'll start in on the rug. I'll post pictures as I work on it - it's fun to see the process.