Artsy-Fartsy Day!

Raise your hand if you live in Canada, China or in Antarctica and you heard me scream this afternoon. Go ahead, I'll wait. Yep, thought so.

Why?

It all started innocently enough with this:



A pale pink scarf, some foam, a pile of Cotswold Curls and a nasty piece of mischief called a felting needle.

You see, today was officially Artsy-Fartsy day at the House 'O Shea and I wanted to play around with the above tools. I had seen some of this done at SAFF and thought it would be fun to give it a try. Try to make an odd felted scarf that is.


One of the first things I managed to do was to stick one of those barbed needles almost all the way through my finger. I now have a great respect for the felting needle, let me tell you.

When you heard me scream, did you also hear me censoring myself? I had an almost three year old at my side at the time and this is the one that thinks he's part parrot. You cannot under any circumstance cuss like a sailor in front of him and expect him to go back to church on Sunday with a clean mouth. Not going to happen.

So there was lots of motherf***&^*&%&$^$^%!!! and SH*^*^T! and D^#^-IT! and so forth and so on.

Anyway, the weird scarf thing now looks like this:

Very artsy-fartsy indeed. And it looks better if you click on the pic. It's not finished. I'll add another layer and then probably wet felt it just for fun.

I have no purpose for this thing. Don't really want it. But I have to say that except for stabbing my middle finger to death and covering it up with a Sesame Street Band-aid, it was lots of fun to do.

Think maybe someone will buy the d*mned thing?

SAFF, My Birthday Weekend and a Broadway Musical!

I successfully survived both SAFF and my 39th Birthday weekend.

I don't mind telling everyone this is my 39th, because this is the last birthday that I will ever have to acknowledge. The rest of them will strictly be known as anniversaries and I will be 39 forever and henceforth!

Friday got off to a rocky start. We managed to leave at around 3:30pm, but you have to remember that this is in Atlanta traffic and it was raining for the first time in over a month. Because of those two factors, people were driving on the highway with their heads up their behinds and having wrecks. The trip that was supposed to take three and a half hours took us five and a half hours and we didn't get our supper and margaritas until after 9pm.

Saturday was sweet! We saw several people from our LYS, The Whole Nine Yarns, wandering around. The crowds were in an amazing mood. Everyone, and I do mean everyone was so friendly and happy. The colors and textures of the products for sale were spectacular as well. I swear that I managed to "pet" everything that I could reach and those things ranged from the alpacas and angora bunnies to roving, yarn and sweaters for sale.


I found some of the most amazing art that I've ever seen. This lady does hers with needle felting.

This example is of puppets. All in the following pic are made by needle felting and the detail work is amazing. It blows my mind that she used a tiny needle and some loose bits of roving and got these. You can see more of her work here. Check out the dinosaur one. As always, please click on the pic to enlarge to see the detail work of all three pics.


These two pieces are astounding:


And this one needs to be in a museum somewhere:


The alpacas were just adorable. Check out these three lounging around:


This one has freckles on her snout:

We even got to feed a couple of them:


The alpacas also made the most amazing humming noise as they communicated with each other. The hubby and I had already decided to get some in a few years and raise them for their fleece, but now I'm absolutely committed to it. I must have them!

And for an extra overdose of SAFF cuteness, check out this 4 day old goat that was there. It was the size of a travel coffee mug. ( I know that, because there was one on the ground next to it.)


By the way - I've been trying to write this for approximately 3 hours. In that time, we've had three power outages, homework tears over a report for school and the Youngest (fascinated by the first fire in the fireplace that he ever remembers seeing) throwing his chocolate donut and paper towel into the fireplace when I wasn't looking.

Anyway, the best part of the weekend happened on Sunday (on my actual birthday) when I got to see this at the Fox Theater:


All-in-all, a fantastic weekend.

Edited to add: I'll show you all the loot I got from SAFF tomorrow!

The Feltness Protection Program Now In Effect

I've decided that the wool that is leftover on the hackle after you have removed your roving is not that great for spinning. You're left with tons of tiny slubs that won't draft worth spit cause all the staple that's left is too short. You might be able to use it with something that will spin cotton, but on my wheel, it just won't do. Now, if you want something artsy that will stick out and look kinda cool, you're golden. I will save some of it for that, but the rest? What can you do with that?

I was catching up on blog reading (I'm woefully behind, it's downright embarrassing) and I went to Samurai Knitter's blog and found a great post on making felted catnip toys. AHA!

So I got out the wool, some large Glad containers, hot water, dawn dishwashing liquid, some white vinegar and added two boys to the mix. The boys are optional, of course. Following Samurai Knitter's instructions, I got this:

The balls are not great, but it was fun and gave us all something to do. I made a catnip tea and soaked the balls in it and they're drying in a safe, protected place to dry. Why protected? Because of this:

Widget the Catnip Fiend

This is the cat that goes Psycho for all SPICES. It doesn't matter if it's catnip, pizza seasonings or black tea that you drink. It's all crack to her. She can get downright violent upon occasion too.

She was nowhere to be seen when we started this project. But when we brewed the catnip tea and the smell began wafting up through the house vents? Lo and Behold, Widget appeared! The above pic was taken at that time.

I haven't been able to keep her off the counters since. Thus, the balls are now in the Feltness Protection Program until they dry. Then she can go Psycho all she wants with them.