According to my stats, this is my 700th post… wow, who’d a thunk it.

I was down in Providence on Thursday to do my shift. It started to snow around noon. The store got quiet. The roads got progressively worse all afternoon. Getting home was a much bigger adventure then I like, although better for me then many. My waiting time was spent in a train station and not in a car on the highway. It makes me glad once again that I normally don’t have to commute.

We (well, mostly Ben) got the sidewalks and driveway cleared up, just in time for another hit.

Hmm, is the front door going to be frozen closed/open for the winter?

The compost pile has a peaked hat- it usually doesn’t match the garage roof.

And some other white stuff.

On a recent trip to the thrift store I found 4 very large Mens alpaca sweaters. It is one of those things where obviously a store or manufacturer or someone donated a lot of them. They are all never worn and some were obviously seconds. And scratchy. No wonder nobody bought them. $2 each for me!

So, I tried some shibori felting yesterday. This was a test. I removed the sleeves from the white sweater. On the left- I used buttons (mens shirt buttons- you know the size) and put a little rubber band to hold them in place. If I decide to do more of this, I need to find a supply of those tiny rubber bands that are used with braces. They are perfect for this- unfortunately I used up all I had.

On the right, I clipped the fabric with bull clips. Not a success. It doesn’t look like anything. I assume if I throw it back in the washing machine, it will felt up evenly, but we’ll see.

And Christmas production.  I am making everyone who gets presents from this house, reusable shopping bags.  I have loads of fabric that I will never find a better use for.  This is a two-fer good thing.  1. I am using rescued fabric- would have gotten tossed if I hadn’t taken it.  2.  I am making bags which will hopefully keep plastic out of the waste stream.  Well, and then there is 3.  If I use up enough fabric, I will have space to replenish my stash…  that’s the dessert!

Well, it’s over… we had our first frost last night.  I’m glad I got the photo of the nasturtiums last week.

This baby has been a hard one- why do I keep thinking of it as the colicky baby.  It is the baby I started with but kept having to put aside.  The base fabric is a rather loosely knit sweater.  It didn’t felt when I washed it, but I still wanted to use it- I like the texture and the color.  It was very hard to work with.  The wool fabric just didn’t hold it’s shape and I felt like I was wrestling it to get the right shape.  In retrospect, I should have used an inner-lining as a stabilizer.  And, actually that was just one of the problems.  Originally, this baby had a brown face.  When I was close to finishing, I stepped back and realized there was not enough contrast.  The brown face disappeared into the pile of leaves- so… face-ectomy (that’s a little gruesome pandering to the whole Halloween week heehee).  And I won’t go into the problems of getting the face right.  But, now it is done-

I loved embroidering the leaves.  Every time I went for a walk, I would bring some leaves home for inspiration.  Now I have a pile on my desk.

Bunny on the bottom-

I took the extra face and made a new body for it, so it has worked out for the best.  I have 2 more babies to finish before moving on.