Holiday Open House

Does it bother you when people call an event the  "First Annual..."? Well, we had such a good time today, that I can say that we had our First Annual Holiday Open House. We WILL do it again. Two friends joined me with their wares. Jackie's business is Jack's Wool/Isabelle's Items.

This is one of Jackie's signature paw-print felted bowls and a felted sheep.

How about a felted hot-pad?

or felted ornaments?

Diane's family are commercial bee-keepers. She has recently explored local marketing of their honey and beeswax products.

Diane had sage, wild-flower, and clover honey. We sampled them and there are definite differences in the flavors.

Jackie and Shelby taught visitors needle-felting throughout the day and everyone took home a needle-felted ornament.

One of the best things about the day is that my shop is clean and orderly.

Thanks to Jackie and Diane for helping me with that. It is such a relief to have that done. What a pleasant place with Christmas lights sparkling and Christmas music playing.  This was our big advertised day, but I plan to be open again next weekend even though Diane and Jackie won't be here. I really love my shop and it's a great place to spend the day!

Trip to Santa Barbara - Part 1

There has been plenty to blog about but not enough hours in the day. I keep meaning to share photos I took in Santa Barbara when I made a quick sheep-delivery trip. People from San Diego  met me to pick up sheep and then I spent the rest of the weekend visiting with my friend, Kenna. We crammed a lot into Sunday of that weekend.

Double checking before I left that I had the important things--my dog and my spinning wheel.

We had breakfast and a walk on the beach with my cousin, William, who lives in Santa Barbara.

Next stop was the Santa Barbara Mission where it was the date of the annual I Madonarri festival, a fund raiser for the mission. This is based on the tradition of Italian street painting. Local businesses pay for spaces in the parking lot and then fill the spaces with chalk art. Look at the incredible detail in this design.

This is not just your regular side-walk chalk.

Aren't these incredible?

After this Kenna and I went to her friend's house nearby. Hebe is an incredible person--she is a quilter, weaver, jeweler, felter, painter, and probably more. She was recovering from back surgery but was gracious enough to take her to her basement workshop and show us some of her treasures.

This is a recently completed weaving.

Hebe has completed 10 incredible felted figures and will have a show after she has finished 12. I can't remember the names of these ladies (and men), but the figures are created with humorous themes in mind. Attention to detail is incredible. You can't tell in this photo but the tennies are covered with sparkly red sequins.

The felted rocks alone are amazing, let alone the rest of the creation.

The afternoon's adventures will come later.

Windy weekend

The title implies that I dealt with the high winds that we had this weekend. I didn't really spend much time in the wind. I was inside at the Art & Craft Holiday Fair sponsored by the Crocker Art Gallery in Sacramento. I was surprised at the number of people that came through. Not as many sales as I'd hoped for, but it will be worth going back next year.

These are some of the v-shawls I had for sale.

You may recognize some of these scarves from previous blog entries. I meant to count the scarves. I think I ended up with over 50.

These are 3-D wire pieces that I liked.

And this is an example of another artist's work that I liked. All his pictures have a time theme and are made from watch parts.

A friend visited me at the show on Saturday and look what she brought. This is a sheep from the WoolPets felt kit that I sell and she knit a scarf to go with it. I wonder if she used toothpicks for knitting needles!

So what was with the wind? It howled all weekend. We hadn't had any significant damage from the other winds that we've had this fall. This wind took the top of the big tree in front of the house. Fortunately all that is damaged is a fence board.

This is upside-down and used to be...

...up there.

The tree is lopsided now--used to have 2 tops that looked like one.

Scarves and a pony

I'm trying to get my shop ready for Shearing Day on Saturday. I'll be spending my time in the barn, but my friend will staff the shop and I need everything organized, labeled, etc. Here are new scarves.

This one is rayon chenille with a supplementary warp using a ribbon called Luna.

Same basic warp, but a different supplementary warp.

Here is another "left-overs" warp. The blues.

Another left-overs warp. This one is deep purple, but I can't get that color on my screen. Maybe it will show up purple on your computer.

I carded some sample batts using the Ashford drum carder and the new Wild Carder. Lots of fun! I wish I had time to do more of this.

The top two batts are using fiber that I dyed for a Color Wheel class. Those will be fun to spin. The white batt is from Jacob wool--it is thick and soft. I have a new packer brush on the drum carder and it really lets you pack in the wool.

Last, but not least, is a pony from the Wool Pet pony kit. I love the look on his face. I am also needle felting a donkey, but she is not finished yet.

The fox and the hare

No, this isn't a fairy tale.  It's more needle felting! My friend, Claire (see Kerfuffle blog to the right for entertaining reading), and her friend, JoAnn, came by this morning. The first things that caught their eyes were all the felt kits. I wanted to finish another hummingbird so they each picked out a kit and we went to work. Here are the results:

Claire created the red fox (still needs eyes)  and JoAnn felted the bunny.

I felted this hummingbird and finished the bluebird I had felted previously.

Here is the complete ecosystem. Hmmm. I guess that's a vulture size hummingbird in the fox's world!

Following the visit and felting party I held WWW--the weekly Weaving Workshop. My friends surprised me with a birthday party! They brought cupcakes and drinks and a singing balloon. I am grateful to have good friends! I have a cute photo of Chris dancing to the balloon music, but I won't post it without permission!

My first needle felting

I have two friends who do needle felting, but until recently I hadn't tried. Do a I really need another project to finish? When I shared a booth with Shannon (see link for Kenleigh Acres at right) at OFFF I was intrigued by some kits that she was selling. I am now carrying these in my shop because I think they are so cute.  Here is my first attempt at 3-D needle felting:

I was amazed at how easy this is--not that it is easy to master completely, but the whole process is easy to learn. And it's amazing how you can "sculpt" the wool to shape it and add detail. I think I'm hooked.

So while I sat at the Farmers Market this morning for 4 hours I made two friends for my first bunny:

If you don't look too closely you won't realize that the next two bunnies might have turned into sheep before they got the long ears.

I have these kits on my website now, although I don't have the write-ups complete. But you can see the variety of kits there are. What is cool is that once you have learned to do one of them you realize that you can really make anything you want to!