Ornaments

So this year I'm focusing more on needle-felted ornaments, rather than stitched ones. I still think stitched ornaments are probably the prettiest kind (I would love to someday have a Christmas tree decorated with nothing but hand-embroidered ornaments; wouldn't that be gorgeous?), but they are awfully time-consuming, and as usual I find myself racing against the clock as Christmas approaches.

I put a few felted ornaments up in my Etsy shop and have been encouraged by the response, so I'm going to make some more over the next couple of days. If I find time, I also want to write up a quick tutorial on making simple felt ball ornaments. They're so quick and easy to make that they're a fantastic last-minute gift idea for crafty folks.

Anyway, here are a couple of the ornaments I've made so far:

SNOWMAN ORNAMENT



PURPLE BALL ORNAMENT WITH STARS (this one sold almost as soon as I put it in my shop!:


MUSHROOM BALL ORNAMENT (this one is probably my favorite; I think mushrooms are so cute...):

Another polar bear!

Finally found time to get back to needle felting, which I've been missing. I found some really nifty tutorials on making felted soaps - here's the one I think is most helpful - so I've tried my hand at that, but I don't have any photos yet because I apparently don't have the hang of it yet (I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have a big wad of wool hanging off one end, sigh).

I'm also working on some Christmas ornaments, but the first order of business was to make a new polar bear, since they always do well in my Etsy shop. So here he is! He's only two inches high. Awww...



He's up for sale here.

Busy...

Wow, I have really fallen behind on posting! My excuse is that I've been pretty busy with work-related stuff and also NaNoWriMo (which I'm doing for the fifth year in a row, wahoo!).

I am currently stitching on Mirabilia's Poppy, which I'm doing on one of my hand-dyeds, but I need to get back to ornaments soon. She is not stitching up as quickly as I'd hoped, but that's primarily my fault because I ended up having to frog a big-ish portion of her after being off by one stitch (somehow that's easier to bear when you're off by a whole lot...being off by only one really sucks!!)

I did make some more jewelry this past week, mostly some new peace earrings, plus a cute (well, I think it's cute) little phone fob for my line of fertility jewelry:


I can't believe Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas is coming way too fast!

More fun with chain maille

I am really having fun making chain maille jewelry. The weaves (at least, the ones I've managed to pin down at this point) are not that difficult once you get the hang of it, and chain maille is so visually and texturally interesting. I especially like working with aluminum rings because they're so lightweight, and there are lots of pretty colors! (Always a good thing for a magpie like me).
Here's a set I made recently, using the Full Persian weave. I love this weave because it's really slinky and flexible. Both are available in my Etsy shop. I've also added a Chain Maille Jewelry section to my jewelry website, which will have some pieces not available on Etsy.

World Tarot - Stephanie Pui-Mun Law (HAED)

It is bad, bad, bad for me to start a new stitching project. I have way too many WIPs already, and never mind all the other crafty projects on the back burner (I'm still playing with chainmaille, and I'm going to try to make some needle-felted snowman ornaments this week). But I heard a lot of great things about the 30-count linen from Passione Ricamo, so of course I had to order a couple of pieces to see for myself, and of course once I had it I had to test it out, right? It'd be downright wasteful not to!! And what better way to test it out than by starting a new Heaven and Earth Designs project?

I feel semi-virtuous for choosing World Tarot, because it's a small piece as HAED pieces go (meaning I should be able to complete it in under 350 hours, as opposed to the 600-700 hours I'll have logged into Gypsy once she's done). Plus, I really had to start another piece by Law, because she's one of my favorite artists and I loved how Lady of the Ginkos turned out, and I'm not stitching any of her charts right now (gasp! such an oversight! had to be remedied!).

Here's the original artwork of the piece:



and here's my progress so far - 20 rows done in just under a week:



Aren't those greens just to die for?

I've put her back in the storage box with all her little friends for now, and am currently working on Land of Enchantment. Hoping to get a full page done on that in the next couple of weeks...there's a lot of black on this page so it's going quickly.

Snowman Ornament

I almost forgot to post a pic of this...it's 'Snow Wishes' from the 2009 JCS ornament issue. I made a few color changes (can't seem to resist doing that with every chart these days!). It stitched up pretty quickly...I just did it on one of my hand-dyed Aidas instead of the linen it called for, since I figured that if I'm going to go around plugging my hand-dyed fabric, I'd better do some projects on it myself.

Anyway, here 'tis. I haven't finished it into an ornament yet, but it'll be for my nephew Eric.

Chain Maille

So I decided that I really needed to learn how to make chainmaille. I just love the way the weaves look, and they make such gorgeous necklaces and bracelets.
After looking over a few tutorials, I decided that it was probably easier than it looked, and I made my first two pair of earrings relatively quickly:




Then I decided to move on to the more complicated weaves, and discovered that no, it's not really easier than it looks. In fact, it's harder than it looks. But it's still a whole lot of fun to play with, and I did finally make a slightly more complex pair of earrings (no photo of them yet) which I'm quite proud of. The main difficulty is figuring out which ring sizes to use, because you have to calculate not only the basic diameter but also the thickness and the inner diameter.
Anyway, I plan to keep playing around with it, and may post a tutorial at some point in the future, because there aren't many free tutorials out there for chain maille jewelry.

Mother's Arms WIP

So here's my progress so far on Mother's Arms. I'm going to put her away for a bit, but I feel confident now that I'll be able to finish her either before the baby gets here or shortly afterward, as I'm about halfway done and she's stitching up pretty quickly. She's a lot of fun to stitch, too...I love all the different colors.



Not sure what I'm going to stitch next...I think I may do an ornament while I decide; I still have a few that'll have to be stitched in time for Christmas, and I don't want to wait til the last minute the way I usually do!

Just Cross Stitch ornament issue

I ordered this a while back, and just recently looked through it. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed - there are only a few charts in here that I'm interested in stitching, and it really seems to me as if some of the designers just sort of recycle their old designs every year. And many of the 'ornaments' are really way too big for a regular tree ornament (in my opinion, anything over 4" is too big...one of the ornaments is over 6" long!!).

I tend to get annoyed when stitchers gripe about this or that designer, since my feeling is usually that if you don't like c chart, the easiest solution is to just not stitch it, but this is not the first time I've been disappointed in the JCS ornament issue and it really seems to me that they could make a bit more of an effort to have truly top-rate, gorgeous ornament charts. I know I'm not the only one to look forward to this issue each year, but one or two more disappointments and I'm going to stop buying it.

So this isn't a completely grumpy post, I will say that I DO like their new layout, where the charts for each section appear immediately after the photos; this seems more organized to me. And there are some good designs included - such as Oh Christmas Tree (Charlotte's Web Needlework), the adorable Santa's Buddies (Angel Stitchin) and Christmas '09 Stamp (Jeannette Douglas). But most of them are just...blah.

A Mother's Arms

I decided to pull out A Mother's Arms again and work on it for a while. I now have only 14 weeks until my due date, so I think it's probably not realistic to expect her to be done by the time our daughter is born (especially since I have ornaments to stitch, and I know I'll want to work on something else soon), but hope springs eternal! Anyway, it'll be good to get some more done on her, as I didn't have much more than her face, her gown bodice and the baby's face done.
I've put off working on her because she was first started two years ago, a week or so before our first miscarriage, and I guess a part of me felt superstitious about starting on her again. The weird thing is that when I opened up my little stitching book to record my stitching time, I realized that I was starting her exactly two years to the day since I last put her down. I'm glad that at the time, I didn't realize what a long wait we had before us.
I don't have a progress pic to post yet, but I'm having a lot of fun working on her, especially because this chart is perfectly suited to making little changes here and there. I'm not really doing a conversion per se, but I'm not stitching the background because she's being done on a gorgeous opalescent (not one of mine - a Silkweaver), and I'm changing a few little things, like the color of her hair and such. I also changed her hands somewhat, because they looked a little clawlike to me. And I added lavender blending filament to the crescent moon to make it sparkly. You can never have enough sparkle!
Here's the original design for those not familiar with it:

Fairy Flora

Okay, so I'm putting Fairy Flora away for now. I feel like I've made some good progress on her...but of course, the bottom portion of her is the most stitch-intensive, so I still have a ways to go.
I started her before I began keeping track of my stitching hours, so I have only an estimate of how much time I've put into her. I *think* this is about 70 hours' worth:



I have never been crazy about the fabric that Mirabilia calls for in this chart, but when I started her (LONG time ago) I was still pretty new to stitching on anything other than Aida and didn't feel confident enough to go with a different choice. I really regret that now, because I've seen her done on pale green fabric and I think she looks best that way. Still, she's turning out nicely, don't you think? (Especially since you probably can't see all the mistakes in the small image, heh heh).

what to do, what to do...

So I've been plugging away happily on Fairy Flora, but I don 't think I'm going to push through to a finish this time, as I still have quite a ways to go. I'm starting to get that vague, itchy 'time to stitch on something else' feeling, and I can't decide what should be next. Probably, I'll do a couple of ornaments (I really need to quit putting them off til December every year, since I always give three or four ornaments as gifts), and then switch to a bigger project...but I don't know whether to go back to Gypsy, pull out Land of Enchantment again, or start back on A Mother's Arms.
Really, what I want to do is start Mirabilia's The Stargazer as a color conversion on one of my own fabrics, but that would be bad. I have too many WIPs as it is. Bad Rose, bad. No new starts for you.
But that's what I REALLY wanna do....

Made some jewelry...

The 'fertility jewelry' section of my jewelry site was getting awfully sparse, so I made a few more pieces. The only problem is that I'm running out of names for the different pieces; since each one is unique, I want them to each have a unique name, but it's getting difficult to come up with good ones!

Anyway, here are a bracelet and necklace:




I always forget how much I enjoy making jewelry til I sit down and start making it. My next non-stitching project was going to be needle-felting, since I want to start getting some miniatures made in time for the holiday season, but I think I may make a few more pieces first. I have some gorgeous Hill Tribe silver beads that are screaming at me...

Color Conversion Blues...

After putting Marked One away, I decided to work on a Mirabilia for a while, so I pulled out Scent of Old Roses. I've always loved this chart, but I hated the brown in her dress and for that reason put off stitching it for a long time. But then I decided to do a color conversion a year or so ago, and happily started her, only to find myself not pleased with the result (you can see a pic of her over on the right side).

I thought that tucking her away for a while might change my mind, but I'm still not happy with the colors...so far I've just made a few changes, but it doesn't look right to me. I think the deep red in her bodice is the problem. Even though 814 is my second favorite DMC shade (500 is my first), I think it clashes with the blue. So, after working on her for a whopping one hour, I realized I was going to have to frog all the red I'd stitched, and since I'm feeling particularly lazy and self-indulgent, I tossed her back in the WIP box and pulled out Fairy Flora instead. I think my brain's just not up to dealing with a color conversion right now. Plus, when I looked at my stitching notebook (I keep track of all my stitching hours), I realized with horror that Fairy Flora has been a WIP for !!! SIX !!! years. Gah. Maybe I'll finish her this year...

Marked One

I did another page on Marked One, yay! Only thirty-one more to go. ; ) She's fun to stitch, but working over 1 on 32-count gets a little tiring at times. I'm tent-stitching her (2x1), so that does make it go faster...it generally takes me 18-20 hours to do a page, which is a nice block of time for my on-again off-again rotation. Anyway, here she is:

Ornaments

I'm so proud of myself - last month I went ahead and stitched the 5th TW 'Days of Christmas' ornament (I give one each year to my brother and his wife). I haven't done the finishing yet, but at least the stitching is done. This year's was easy...I was getting really tired of birds!!

The ornaments are pretty, but it's turned into something of a chore getting each one done in time for the holidays. Hopefully I've started a new habit, and next year won't go back to 'OMG it's two weeks til Christmas and I haven't stitched the $@^&! ornament yet!!!', which is my usual modus operandi.

Here's the unfinished ornament. I finish all of them as standups, because I think they're really too big to hang on a tree. My brother keeps them in his china cabinet all year round, which is great for my ego. ; )

It's up!

My website has officially launched:

Faery Fire Fabrics

Now I just have to figure out the best way to promote it... I thought about doing Blogads, but they have only two (!!) crafty blogs in their list, and they're for those yarny people. Well, okay, I crochet (never could get the hang of knitting, and to be perfectly honest I have a slight resistance to learning now because it's turned into such a trendy thing). Anyway, I don't know that a blog devoted to knitting/crocheting would really reach all that many stitchers, so I'm off to put my thinking cap on...

Fairy Moon

This is my favorite fabric out of the new batch...I think it'd be an awesome fabric for Mirabilia's Fairy Moon. But I really wasn't planning to start that one anytime soon (though it's in my stash, since, hey, you can never have too many cross stitch charts!), so I can't really justify keeping it.

Playing with fabric dye again...

It's really hard to think of this as anything but playing; I LOVE seeing how the different fabrics turn out. This is going to be a big batch - I am finally ready to 'launch' my hand-dyed fabric website, so stay tuned for an announcement about it! : ) I'll also post some pics of some of the new pieces tomorrow. There's one that I am soooo tempted to keep for myself; it (all modesty aside) is GORGEOUS!

Gypsy

I'm over halfway done with Gypsy now, woo hoo! She's going back in her box for a while so I can work on other projects, but I'm pleased with my progress. There's no way I'll meet my unrealistic goal of finishing her this year, but at least she now has more than a head. (See the gallery on the right for the 'before' pic).

I can't believe that I've gone nearly two months without posting! Well, I'll blame it on all the busyness of moving in, plus being sick for several weeks (still not up to par, but at least I'm functioning again).

I have FINALLY gotten back to stitching. It seemed that one thing or another kept interfering or taking precedence, plus I didn't really have a stitching corner set up (still don't alas), and finally a couple of weeks ago I'd had enough, so I hauled out Gypsy and put in a few stitches. I haven't gotten much done since then, but most days I try to get at least 30 minutes in. Since one of my 2009 goals is to finish her, I'd better get cracking! The most recent pic is over on the right side of my blog. I think I'll work on her for another few weeks and then pull out Marked One again.

Speaking of HAED charts, a lovely stitcher in Italy is going to be stitching a Hannah Disney fairy on one of my hand-dyed fabrics! I told her that she absolutely MUST send me pictures; I'm really excited.

settling in...

Moving is probably lots more fun when you can afford to pay someone to haul all your endless boxes of craft junk over to the new place, and unpack them in an organized manner. But what keeps me from being frustrated with how long this whole 'settling in' business is taking is the fact that A) I love our new house, B) We no longer have to deal with a landlord and C) I finally have my own office!
Now if I could just get it organized...

Here's a pic of the office before we started to move in:


and here it is with all my endless clutter (check out my awesome closet):


I have actually unpacked all but two or three of my 'office' boxes now (well, except for the ones I stuck out in the garage, heh), but it still looks so wretched that I'll hold off on posting an 'after' picture til I get things looking a little more reasonable.

skunk tutorial is up!

I finally finished it. Now to get back to unpacking...(I can't believe I have so much stuff. Neither can my husband...I was so good at hiding my stash that he was quite shocked to see just how many boxes were labeled 'craft stuff'.)

moving...

So moving is taking longer than I expected (doesn't everything?). I'll get the skunk tutorial up ASAP...by the way, Norman (the subject of the tutorial) sold last week, yay!

needle felted skunk tutorial

This is my 'learn-as-I-go' tutorial...I took photos as my skunk progressed, in the hope that my learning experience would benefit others! (Note - sorry for the delay in getting this finished...moving turned out to be horribly time-consuming! Booo to things that get in the way of crafting...)

Here are the materials I used to create my skunk:

~Clover multi-needle felting tool
~Clover pen-style needle felting tool (I have one of these available in my eBay store)
~size 38 star-shaped felting needle
~foam felting mat (I bought mine from Joann's)
~black wool roving from Lavender Rabbit
~white merino wool roving from Little Barn Fibers
~a smidgen of pink wool (plain roving from Nordic Needle, hand-dyed by me)
~two black glass Mill Hill beads
~needle and black thread for attaching the eyes

Here are my tools and my wool roving laid out on my felting mat. You can see there are only two needles in my pen tool; that's because one broke when I stupidly angled the needle incorrectly (never try to change the angle of your needle when it's in the wool, or it'll snap!). But I usually use only two needles anyway, so it hasn't been a problem for me:


Step One: the body (click on photo for larger view)


Step Two: finishing up the body (click on photo for larger view)


Step Three: the legs (click on photo for larger view)


Step Four: Attaching the legs (click on photo for larger view)


Step Five: the little skunk head! (click on photo for larger view)


Step Six: the tail... (click on photo for larger view)


Step Seven: the tail, continued... (click on photo for larger view)


Step Eight: fixing the tail (click on photo for larger view)


Step Nine: the ears and face... (click on photo for larger view)


Step Ten: the final details... (click on photo for larger view)


And here's Norman, enjoying a bit of sunlight:


I hope you found this tutorial helpful! If you have any feedback, or requests for future tutorials, I'd love to hear from you!

moving really interferes with the important things in life...

...such as stitching, and needle-felting, and other such worthy endeavors. We finally closed, and the house is now officially ours, but the title company waited until the end of the day yesterday to record, so the sellers don't yet have their money which means we don't actually get the keys until Monday. And this means that we're surrounded by boxes, and trying to figure out how we're going to move everything in only two days!

The good news is that now I have time to get my skunk tutorial up; I'm working on it now and hope to have it posted by the end of the day. Here's a picture of Norman the skunk - I just love him!

my new bunny - and more stitching blues

This is Thomas - he has an Easter egg!

He's now up in my Etsy shop.
For someone who claims to not like cutesy things, I sure seem to be having fun making cute little bunnies and such. ; ) I'm working on a skunk right now, and am taking photos as I go to make a learning tutorial (that's a tutorial where I learn right along with you - I'm going to include photos of the mistakes I made along the way). I just need to finish his tail and face and then he'll be ready to go.

On another note...I was stitching away on Chickadee in the Pines, and I realized I'd forgotten to order two of the thread types I need. This really sucks because we have only a couple more days in this house, which is not enough time to pull out one of my BAPs, and I was really hoping to finish Chickadee before moving. Now I'm not sure what I'll work on in all the extra time I'm going to have the next couple of days, ha ha. Oh, I know! I'll get my hummingbird out...it's a Crossed Wing kit on silk gauze and is tiny tiny tiny. I haven't worked on it in a couple of years...glad I thought of it! I'll try to get some done today and post a pic.

jewelry

Made some purty earrings yesterday...I'm really pleased with how all of these turned out! Of course it helped that I had some new awesome beads to work with...

amazonite & sterling silver:

black coral and sterling silver:

Bali silver and Swarovski crystal (these are my favorites...I luuuurve nubbly beads):

stitching blues

I miss stitching. I've been so busy dyeing fabric and making needle-felted gnomes and such that I've had almost no time to stitch. My progress on the Brazilian embroidery piece is laughable, and I haven't stitched on a HAED in weeks! We're in the middle of moving, so it seemed simplest to go ahead and pack up my HAED lovelies, but I'm starting to have withdrawal pangs.

I think that tomorrow, no matter how busy I am, I'm going to put everything aside for an hour and work on Chickadee in the Pines. Here is my (minimal!) progress so far:

Felipe sold this morning! I have GOT to get busy making more needle-felted animals.

Alas, I think I may be the only person who really likes my gnomes, as none of them have sold. : ( But I keep hoping...

happy happy

I've sold two needle-felted miniatures! I'm pretty happy about this since I'm still so new to needle-felting; now I don't have to look at the pile of wool roving on the dining table and gulp uneasily, wondering if I've just plunked down a bunch of money on yet another hobby that will suck my bank account dry. I sold my little polar bear on Sunday, and my little orange cat Seymour today. I'm donating 20% of the sale of Seymour to FixNation, a really awesome group that does TNR work for feral cats. I'm definitely going to make more kitties like this!

I'm also happy because I made another bunny yesterday and I think he turned out really well. My first two bunnies were pretty funny-looking, so I'm relieved to know I can make a decent bunny rabbit. Here he is...his name is Felipe:


He's currently for sale in my Etsy shop.

dyeing wool

While I'm sitting here thinking up ways to put off finishing my hemp chokers...when I was dyeing fabric last week, I decided to dye some wool roving just to see how it turned out. I was really happy with the result! The colors came out MUCH lighter than I'd expected, but I think they look like cotton candy.

Of course, I can't wash them in hot water and detergent, which you're supposed to do to set the color, because they'd get felted, so I probably need to look into other dyes to use with roving if I want to dye wool for things that'll have to be washed eventually. But for needle-felted miniatures, it should work fine.


Oh, and here's a pic I took of my latest fabric batch, all neatly bagged and labeled now (and I've sold one piece already, yay!):

hemp

I forget how much I dislike making hemp jewelry until I sit down and start working on a piece. It was fun at first, but mostly now I just find it tedious. Because I get fairly steady orders for my hemp bracelets (and my best wholesale client orders bracelets and necklaces every couple of months), it'd be dumb for me to stop doing it. But I sure wish I enjoyed it more...I have to make two peace chokers this morning and I'd rather be needle-felting a bunny!

brazilian embroidery

So Fairy Flora has been put back in her little storage bin for the time being...I didn't make as much progress on her as I'd hoped, but I did get some done; mostly I'm just glad she's not a UFO any more!

Now I'm working on a Brazilian embroidery pattern hubby got me for Christmas - Chickadee in the Pines from A Candle in the Cellar. I'll post progress pics once I get more than a couple of stitches in. I'm doing it on a piece of trigger cloth I dyed in shades of blue. Here's what it'll look like (hopefully) when I'm done (except of course mine will be on blue fabric):

fabric overload

Since I don't currently own a serger, I found someone on Craigslist to serge the cross stitch fabric I was planning to dye. She came by Saturday and serged the 20+ pieces, and today I started dyeing them! I also dyed a couple of little purses and pouches that I got from Dharma Trading. I actually wasn't able to get everything dyed today...I forgot how loooong it can take. So I still have five more pieces to dye tomorrow, plus some muslin I want to dye to use in making gift bags or something like that.

Here's a pic of a few of the pieces after dyeing and rinsing, before I tossed them in the washing machine:


The greens didn't come out the way I'd wanted them to...I think it's because I used my new Caribbean Blue dye, which made the green a little too vivid. Some of the pieces turned out waaaay too bright for my taste; there are only one or two pieces in this batch that I'm tempted to keep for myself. I'm really happy with the new purple dye, though. Lookee lookee!


Dyeing's the fun part...what I hate is taking pictures/scanning everything and getting it posted on ebay and/or etsy. But since that's sort of the whole point, I'd better get cracking...

Meet Ted

We're in the midst of moving, so there's even more crap lying around than usual. Today I cleaned out my cross stitch cupboard, a pretty little storage thing my husband bought me a few years back, telling me with innocent optimism that I could use it to store my cross stitch supplies (it holds about 1/14th of them). Among the things that were left lying out on the table was my telescoping magnet that I use to pick up needles I've dropped on the floor. Hubby grabbed it and claimed it was HIS telescoping magnet that he uses to grab bolts and nails and other man-things. I explained that no, it was mine, and when he asked me what I needed it for I explained that I used it to get needles - "I just wave my magic wand," I said, "and it calls them to it."

Hubby then gave me a look of utter bewilderment. "WHAT did you say?" he asked. I repeated myself, and the bewilderment was replaced by relief. "Oh, okay," he said. "I thought you said that you waved the magnet at the needles and it called them Ted."

stitching

I'm supposed to be working on the fifth ornament in Teresa Wentzler's 12 Days of Christmas series; when I started Land of Enchantment at the beginning of January, the deal I made with myself was that I would stitch 2 pages and then get at least a little bit done on Day 5. I'm stitching the ornaments for my brother and his wife, and I always put it off until the last minute and end up having to mail it a few days after Christmas. Well, when I finished page 2 of Land of Enchantment, I started rummaging through my WIPs and pulled out Chatelaine's Convent Herbal Garden, which I hadn't worked on in well over a year (actually, I'm afraid it's been more like 2+ years). So I worked on that for a bit, but wasn't having much fun, and told myself that now I'd start the ornament. But when I put the Chatelaine away, I spotted Fairy Flora, which I literally have not touched in at least 3 years. I stopped working on it because there were so many errors, and I didn't have the motivation to do extensive frogging. But after looking over it, I decided that the errors weren't really that noticeable (I asked my daughter to find them, and she couldn't), so I started stitching on her again.

Really, I should have done about half of the ornament and have moved on to Gypsy by now, but so much for good intentions. I'm going to work on Fairy Flora for a bit and then pull out Gypsy, because I want to finish her this year and have yet to put in a single stitch. Maybe I'll get to the ornament by September...

Gnomes, cont.

Here are the three gnomes I've made thus far: Gnoogle the Gnewbie gnome, Gnexxus the Gnecromancer Gnome and Gnilligan the Gnapping gnome. Yes, I know, I'm a gnerd...

Gnomes

I am rapidly becoming addicted to needle felting; it is SO much fun. I love working with wool because it's so forgiving; if I make a mistake (which I do on a regular basis), it doesn't ruin the whole piece because it's easily fixed with a little extra wool or some targeted jabs with my needle.
I wasn't sure at first if I would like felting with a needle; it seemed that it might be similar to punch needle embroidery, which I tried a couple of years ago and didn't enjoy at all. I did finish one small piece, more out of stubbornness than anything else, but I doubt I'll ever do any more punch needle unless it's just to embellish a quilt or something. Needle felting, though, is completely different. It's really amazing to watch the fibers come together, and to be able to sculpt them into different shapes.

My first gnome was more or less an accident; I was trying to make a bunny, but the body shape just looked all wrong, and when I made the head, the little tuft that I was using to hold it ended up being bigger than I'd meant for it to be, and it suddenly occurred to me that it looked very much like a gnome hat. So I stuck a big nose on the face, added red wool to the pointed hat, gave him arms and a blue jacket and brown shoes, and added a big gray beard, and voila! Gnoogle was here!

I'm now finishing up my third gnome, and hope to start my fourth tonight if I can get enough other stuff done today (I have fabric that needs to be dyed soon!). I feel as if I have a dozen or so gnomes running around inside my head screaming at me, and they won't be quiet until I felt them into being...