home again, home again (I've used this before) jiggity jig

Back from Thanksgiving in Juneau...and for once I'm glad to be here. I had an excellent time in town and got the thing I needed like dog food and a safety vest for walking in the dark, but this time it feels like coming home. Yay. I put that (nearly) all on the change of employment. Leaving the market was a very good thing even if it's quitting a job "in this economy" and not seeing the regulars at the market every day. There are a few folks I miss seeing and chatting with, but not many.

This thing died last week. My old bigger-than-a-deck-of-cards ipod sounds like it's in a toilet when I listen in a head set. Maybe I dropped it too many times, or maybe it's a dinosaur but I got a new (orange Nano) one at the dreaded Wal-Mart (thank you Rice) when I was in town. I'm kinda geeky eager to put music on it.

I also got some stiff interfacing to continue the anticipation soup project. I was trying to do it on some lovely soft leather that my friend Lindsey gave me years ago. Too soft...

...but oh so lovely to sew upon. I haven't decided how to transfer these two items to the interfacing. I might cut and paste them or baste the entire piece of lovely leather to the stiffer stuff and just continue from there. I was thinking I didn't care about the teardrop shaped cab, but I like it again when I look at it again. I was hoping to get some dark interfacing, but the mask I did last year was on white that had been painted various shades of green.

Anticipation Soup

I've been working on the felted birds and the wee paintings for a Christmas sale for too long. The beads are calling me, the embroidery has already got me. Hoping to keep the creativity going, I stirred together a soup of beads to remind me of some of the ideas.


I have a few ideas, maybe some free form peyote or brick stitch practice...maybe a collar or some other cab centric piece. I know there needs to be matte and shiny involved, seed beads because I love them and...no felt for a while.

winter wonderland!

My what a difference a month makes. The above picture is October 12 just after they cut down the old cottonwood tree that was blocking my view of the mountains. Below is yesterday, November 17. It snowed about another 6 inches today! So pretty and fluffy and light and bright and... early in the season so I'm still excited about snow.
When I was in Anchorage last month, I bought some second hand cross country skis. I tested them out tonight by sneaking up and down our road a few times. I'm pretty sure it's been about 30 years since I spent more than a few hours on cross country skis! When I was in grade school we had a whole bunch of them for snowy day gym class. It was quite a big deal teaching the kids of Capital School all about diagonal strides as we skidded around in a big circle on the playground. I'm certain I was more coordinated then. Practicing in the dark of night (or late afternoon) will make me as graceful as...as...

more photo fun

I did this at Tiltshift there's nothing to down load in this case,but I'm guessing your photo is no longer private after uploading. It's just so cool that changing the focus makes the brown dog look tiny. She looks like she's in a miniature railroad landscape!

fun with photos

This is the original picture of Biscuit the cat and here it is run through the Poladroid:


I found the application here: Poladroid Project It's a little goofy and a little cool, with sound effects and fading in just like the real thing!

later: I messed with this Poladroid thing a few times then it wouldn't work. I don't know if the application is shaky or what but just be warned it's not stable. I took it off my computer and used that cool XP restore feature to get it all off. Bummer, I like the effect.

Neddle felting

I saw it misspelled once and it's been neddle felting in my head ever since. Needle felting is cool, sculpting wool with a barbed needle, poke poke poke and it's a 3-d bird...

Some of the birds have big snoots like Senior Purple above...


Quite a few are purple or blue because that's the best felting wool I have, nice short kinky fibers. Only one is red..I'd love to make more red ones but that is good spinning fiber, all long and smooth and really crappy for neddle felting....or 10. I was making flat stuff with beads, inspired by Jo Woods' work when a wee bird flew in to my head. I'll sell them at the Christmas crafts show that's just after Thanksgiving...and if my fingers aren't too sore from getting jabbed, at the next one too.

Halloween, fall back, November and first snow all happened...what a day!