Wardrobe work!

Hello everyone.  My bathrobe has needed help for quite a while.  First I thought Replacement...but I'm so fond of it.  Then I asked myself what is its worst feature and could I fix it.  The answer...sleeves! and yes...
So...here are the sleeve ends which I cut off:

And here is the improved version:

To do this I deconstructed an old nightie that also needed help...the rest of it is going to become a summer skirt eventually, maybe soon!  Jude's classes have definitely helped me become braver about this sort of thing; my classmates have all been inspirational, particularly Deb and Grace. Thank you!

Next, sigh.  The little hummingbird from my last post has gone away...she was sitting on her beautiful little nest, but the neighborhood crow ended that happy story.  Not that there is just one crow...there are many, many.  This happened last year also...the squirrels and the crows are very dominant here.

Here is another trivet/prayer mat,  "bee star":

It's one of several prayers for the underdog, for example, that the hummingbird might evolve to not so easily attract the crow.  I just finished reading River of Doubt by Candice Millard, about Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing adventures in the Amazonian type jungle, and how life in the jungle there evolved.  So, it's easy to see how a crow can find a hummingbird nest...I wish mother nature could assist the hummingbird a little more here.  Seems like I should be able to help. 

That's all for now!

Marching into April

Hello fellow dear inhabitants of Planet Earth...locally, spring is behind schedule because of all the rain.  One (of the many) advantages of blogging is a new form of daily ordering of events.  Last year on March 23, I took this photo of the wisteria:

Here is the wisteria on March 29, this year:

I've been working on more felted squares, which I've decided to call Prayer Mats.  First a green horse, which isn't quite done:

This is a prayer for order:

And this is a prayer for Containment, for all the leaks our planet has been experiencing...in the Gulf of Mexico, in the nuclear power plant in Japan, the wiki-leaks, and also for the levees in California, which hopefully will hold during the spring melt:

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That's all for now...

Farewell January

Where has January gone?  It was a good month and still a bit of it remains, so here is some proof that I'm still here...one day at the dog park, this appeared:

Jude's Boro class has us excited and busy, working hard and making progress (as above)...I'm working on a quilt for grandson...here is the start of my first project for class:

At the same time, I'm still working on more felted trivets, which soon will appear in the shop:

and, inspired by ducks at the dog park:

also:

A tribute to January, called Merry Cherry January:

 Finally, in preparation for the Year of the Rabbit:

That's all for now!

Busy bees

Hello everyone, I've been busy making small objects!  Here are some bees:

 This is a celebration of arriving home (2 weeks ago!)

I'm really looking forward to Jude's boro class that's starting Wed!  So I've assembled a pile of fabrics as well as some of the already made squares for my grandson's quilt, which I'm hoping to subject to the techniques we learn:

And lastly, this morning after walking Agnes, I noticed these spider webs...I've seen them a million times before but never observed the lines that provide structure from above...my eyes are getting older, but I'm seeing more. 

That's all for now.

Peace now

I see 2011 coming.  I see it through the forest of days between now and then and I wish everyone peace and comfort as we all wander through that forest.  Tomorrow I embark on a trek to see loved ones...Agnes will have a visit at the farm while I travel. We (not including Agnes, who had doggy treats) indulged in the annual glory of:

And this is one of the Christmas projects I've been working on.  I'm thinking of it as a trivet.  Several more need to be accomplished on the trek.

Happy holidays to all!