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.