Bluebirds

Saw my first Eastern Bluebird today - a pair, on my upper deck! The female was sitting in a planter, mouth open like she was hot and tired. The male hopped around the deck, onto the glass-top table. And they chatted....I heard them.

I know anthropomorphizing animal behavior is just silly, but it look just like they had been flying long and hard, and were hot and tired. So they stopped on a shady, protected deck to rest and scout out the housing in the area. (We have a bluebird house cleaned and ready in the yard.) They discussed things back and forth, and the female complained she was SO TIRED she just couldn't look more today.

I quietly went downstairs and put fresh water into the birdbath and set out some dried mealworms - just in case. Later, I tried to set out a dish of water onto the deck for them, but they flew off when I stepped out. But she was back a couple hours later....sitting on the finch feeder hook, surveying the yard. Welcome, welcome, blue birds. We hope you choose to nest in our yard again this year.

Passementerie

Reading one of the (too) many craft newsletters coming into my email paid off today with a new word. Passementerie. Not a new word, but new to me, so all thoughts of my morning tasks vanished as I dropped everything to find out what this wonderful-sounding word meant. Wikipedia gave my the definition. The art of making elaborate trimmings or edgings (in French, passements) of applied braid, gold or silver cord, embroidery, colored silk, or beads for clothing or furnishings. Or tassels - think sultan's palace or exotic drapery fringe, or just fabulous pull for your ceiling fan.

This fabric angel from Eclectics Gallery is a great example.

Found this revelation on the Quilting Daily Blog, then simply googled the word....gotta love the internet, no matter how distracting.

Now I have yet another way to justify keeping bits of old trims, lace, braid and gimp - someday I'll used them in a passementerie project.

Faux Bone

Faux Bone - another new jewelry and art medium - brought to us by the talented Robert Dancik. Since I have signed up to demo how it works to my friends at the KC PMC Guild in June, I decided I'd better starting using it. Note the Faux Bone is a type of PVC sheet, manufactured in 1/16", 1/18" and 1/2" gauges, as well as bracelet forms and other things. Available directly from the Faux Bone site. Here's what I've come up with, so far...

This is a faux bone disc, carved, stained and shaped (with  my heat gun), then bolted onto a hammered copper ring with some added stones and a brass clockwork sprocket.

Here I tried making a spinner ring, but obviously didn't measure properly and got a ring shank that was way too big, even though I was using a really big faceted stone (held in place with brass wire riveting and some copper daisy spacers. So I improvised with some additional brass wire.

This was actually the first one I did - a simple wrapped shank with some flat stones riveted on with a brass nail, trimmed and riveted into a brass bushing.

The Leaf Dangle Ring can double as a pendant, just hang it from a chain or chord.

I'll do more - though my DH thinks they are weird.

Happy Spring!

This is just silly - who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? This was my deck last night when I went to bed - the first day of Spring 2010....

W

This morning I measured - we got a full 8" yesterday and last night. Today it's melting fast, but was enough to cancel a lot of events.

I bought my lettuce and pea seeds this week, but it will be a while before our sticky Missouri clay backyard is dry enough to dig in.

Felt Food You Can Wear!

My friend Jenny at Eclectics - an artists' cooperative in Kansas City (where I sell my stuff) saw my felt food and said, "I think some people would love to wear these. Why don't you make some smaller bananas for pins??" Of course, she makes a lot of cool woolen things to wear, like flower brooches made from old, felted wool sweaters or other fibers, like this heart.

 

However, I dutifully tried it while staying out of my studio to protect my poor fractured arm - hand sewing shouldn't be considered a high-impact activity, right? Today I placed some of my results into my gallery inventory for all to see.

Actually the banana was easy - it was the strawberries that were tricky. A single felt strawberry is easily made from a semi-circle of red felt.

• Fold in half and seam up the radius edges. Knot.
• Add running stitch around the top (the round edge), draw tight and knot.
• Stuff with fiber and stitch closed.
• Cut a 3 or 4 lobed green leaf piece.
• Stitch leaves over the hole and whip stitch around all leaves.
• Add tiny yellow embroidery stitches to simulate seeds.

Voila!  A strawberry! Sounds simple, right? Well, it is - IF you are making a whole strawberry.

If you want to make a half a strawberry, which is flat on one side (for the pin-back to be attached, which is what I did) it's a bit more complicated. The above photo is a whole strawberry. This is two half strawberries....look the same right?

Nope - the back is flat. And it doesn't even show! Wonder if anyone really will want to wear one of these???