Family Turkey Craft

Last week C came flying home with a large piece of paper with a pattern for a turkey. It was for the whole family to work on together, and she knew I would love helping her with it.



I went shopping in my craft room, and we came up with a whole bunch of stuff. We used 6 different fabrics for the tail feathers. C stuffed all of them.



The wattle is on foam-core; and is kind of cool. It is white glue with salt encrusted in it, and then water color soaked into it. C painted it orange and then red, and it turned out great.



C got a rubber band loom for her birthday to make bracelets, and that gave us the idea for the feet: rubber bands around pipe cleaners.



We made the base for the whole bird out of foam-core as well, and painted the edges and the background so the white wouldn't show through. C did the painting.



The beak is made from a pistachio nut shell, the wings are made with real feathers, and--crisis adverted--we found a googly eye in the button jar. We tried a bead, and we were talking sequins, but the googly eye fit the bill.



We are very pleased.



We hope the teacher likes it as well.

October knitting and Halloween

I did get a little knitting done in the last month or so. These mittens were a KAL (knit-a-long) on the "I knit mittens" Ravelry group for July. DD2 likes them and they fit her, so they are hers. I didn't start them until the end of the month, after I had seen the finished product; I tend not to like mystery projects.



C was Dorothy for Halloween. (She did have ruby slippers, but didn't have them on for this shot. She also had Toto in a basket.)

 

Everyone greeted her as Dorothy; she was really cute. P did have a Minecraft Creeper head, which he did like; but since it was almost raining, and his "head" was cardboard he decided to stay home and help hand out the candy.

Half September, most of October

Due to overwhelming requests from my fans (thanks mom!) I am back.

I finished reading the Gabaldon books about 3 weeks ago, but I had given myself permission to take a break until Halloween, so I took it. The problem with that is is that now I am even more out of the habit of blogging.

I really enjoyed reading the whole series of books in one stretch; I did see some things differently, but I am still hating the cliffhangers. When I was done I had to "cleanse the palate" by reading something else. Every morning when I got I would still wonder what Claire and Jamie were doing...

We had a guest in the back yard for about a week:



He lived there for so long that we named him! He is Peter, because Peter Parker had a real relationship with spiders. His web was amazing. It went from waist-height on the fence in the back yard up to the canopy over the back door, and the electric lines from the house next door. The web was repaired every day for that week, and the spider was either on the web, or hiding in a curled up leaf that had attached itself to the web. We checked it every day, and C would announce that she was going to run screaming past it every time she went out the back door.

I did a couple of handwork things while I was gone. In September my guild collected baby bibs for charity. I made a cute one:



C had her birthday in October, and we went to the zoo. Here she is at the wolf exhibit:



DH, DD1 and C hanging out with a polar bear.



 We brought our own picnic, for a change. I was going to post the pictures of that, but I don't think my family will speak to me if I do. This is a picture of the peacock that was trying to share our meal:



Here's a picture of C, P, DD2, and DD1 looking at the bald eagle.



Tomorrow is a family reunion in Michigan, and we are going to try to recreate a picture from our youth; it should be fun!

Jury Duty

It's like a whole day of detention, with a visit to the principal's office at the end.

I was interviewed to be on the jury for a murder trial, with a list of 25 witnesses. It would have taken forever! I was excused.

Reading

I can't believe how long it is since I posted... yikes!

I have been reading. One of my favorite authors (Diana Gabaldon) is coming out with a new book next April to coincide with the debut of the TV show based on the book (!?) She is hosting a read-along of the previous 7 books in the series so everyone will be up to date when the new book becomes available. We are supposed to read one book a month until My Own Heart's Blood comes out. That sounded like a very good idea, except that in the 3 weeks since I started reading, I have read Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and half of Voyager. At this rate, I will finish the 7 books by Halloween.

See you then!

Stitches Midwest

I have been waiting for Moonsilk Stitches to post her pictures from last Friday, so I could piggy-back off her post here. We had a lot of fun, and I got some very nice stash. I shopped differently this time. I took a list of projects I was interested in making, and searched for yarn to make them with.

The biggest success was this:



This is for a sweater with sort of a tuxedo front and shirt-tails, with 3/4 sleeves. It is from Knitty.com, and you can see it here. I think it will look wonderful in turquoise.

I also bought this:



This is for another shawl:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/queen-annes-lace-5

It is a "Queen Anne's Lace" shawl. I think queen anne's lace is beautiful, and I enjoy it every year during the summer. The cone is 1/2 lb of wool/silk mix, and will have plenty for this shawl.

The last yarn I bought is this:




It is cobweb weight! I plan to make a cowl.

I also bought a set of 40 inch size 1 carbon fiber knitting needles. I like bamboo needles, but needles that small feel very breakable, hopefully the carbon fiber will be more durable. I will let you know how I like them.

We had a wonderful time, even through we were exhausted by the time we were done shopping. We managed to make it through the whole market though, which we felt was quite an achievement.

It is never a lot of fun to ride home during rush hour though. Next time we will try to get an earlier start.

Fibery goodness

I have been working on a new project... it is going to take a long time:

 (please forgive the shadow from the railing)

This is the first of 4 panels for the world, plus I have matching yarn to make a map of the US.

I bought the yarn for this afghan more than a year ago, and it has been sitting in my workroom since then, waiting for me to get the courage to try intarsia knitting. My mom knit a cardigan for my dad many, many years ago, with a golfer on the back in intarsia, and I was awed at the time. That type of knitting seemed to me to be the pinnacle of knitting perfection, and of course, I would never be able to reach that level. It has taken me more than 50 years to try!

I am enjoying the knitting, even with having to stop every couple of rows to untangle my yarn. I am using a Cascade simple spun wool, so the yarn is quite fragile; if I pull on it too hard it breaks. The only problem is, I didn't think it would take this long. I am already thinking longingly of some of the other projects I have lined up... but I will at least finish this panel before I start something else (big).

This doesn't count:



It took me an afternoon; it is a 4 inch teddy bear that I think is simple enough for the new knitters in the class I am teaching. They got all excited when they saw it, and 2 of the 4 cast on right away. We will see on Wednesday how they did.