My Not-So Smoke Free Studio

The LA fires tripled in size on Saturday. And my once smoke-free studio is not so smoke free anymore. I took these photos last Saturday at about 2 in the afternoon. The sun was nearly blocked out and was an eerie blood red. The fires are over 100 miles away from where I live. But the mountains and foothills seem to trap all of the smoke here. The smoke seems like a minor inconveinence compared to what folks living in and near the fires are going through. I pray for their and the fire fighters' safety.

What Red Mountain looks like now.

This is what it normally looks like.

Me Pages & a New Work Sold

Well this week has been very busy! Since it seems that I can't seem to get back on my Sunday listing schedule, I decided to go into my ME page (big mistake) and change it to read that I genrally list on Tuesdays at 6:45 PM PDT. Well, when I went in to save the changes, my whole page just disappeared. The html for my page vanished into thin air with no trace. I'm no html whiz. It took me all of yesterday to get a new Me page up and running. I spent most of the time trying to figure out what colors to use. Then I got hung up on how I was going to arrange the table. In the end simple won out. It still is a work in progress, though. I would love to know your opinion of it. You can click here to view my ME page.

I spent most of last week needle & wet felting a hollow pumpkin to fit a little piggy into. It was quite a bit of work to get it firm enough and to get the top so it fit snuggly. I've done hollow items before. But this one was much bigger than usual. Consequently, I only had one item for this week and much to my surprise, it sold the very next morning!

At present, I'm working on a standing bear. He's been weighted with steel shot to help him stand up. But he needs a bit of coxing to get him to do that. I also made him some very tiny claws with Apoxy Sculpt. There's another item for him that I'm working on. But it's a surprise. I'll post more on him when he's finished.

Nuno Felting & Two New Works.

Sorry, I've been kind of avoiding posting in my blog. My internet connection has been extremely slow. it's been like slogging through deep mud just to try to get anything done. I've checked for viruses, worms and adware and nothing has come up. I thought it might be a Vista update. But restoring to last week did nothing. It may be my server. But enough of this boring stuff.

I finished two pieces and have them on eBay now. I tried a new technique that I learned about on Chrissy P's blog, "The Felted Chicken". It's called nuno felting. Nuno felting is a wet felting technique that involes wet felting over a sheer piece of fabric. Chrissy is in the process fof making a very awesome jellyfish using this technique. I can hardly wait to see it finished.

Nuno felting is so much fun! You get to play in water and you get to slam things against the counter. How cool is that? I've also been going crazy dyeing my wool with Koolaid. (Thanks again, Chrissy for inspiring me) I just love art! You get to play and you end up with a really neat thing.


So what was it that I nuno felted? Some fall leaves (dyed with Koolaid) for my squirrel and the leaf for the little mousie's pumpkin and her fairy wings. So here are my latest two. They both end on Tuesday night at 6:45 PM PDT. The reserve price for each is $145.00.

Iris, the Amazing Little Flutter Pig

Ok this one has another weird end time. I keep forgetting to schedule it. She ends next Tuesday at 11:38 am PDT. There are a few things different about this little piggy. She's the first weighted felty that I've done and her wings are embroidered and hand dyed with koolaid. I really like the way they turned out.

Iris was weighted with steel shot to give her some heft and a real feel. I like the dichotomy between the lightness of her wings and her weight. It speaks to me of the sheer impossibility of a pig's flight. Her delicate antennas are thin beading wire that has been felted with black llama wool and a black onyx bead was attached to the end.

Her reserve price is $145.00 and her Buy it Now price is $224.00. The starting bid is $9.95.

Please click here to visit her auction.

My Dormouse and Fox

Well unfortunately or fortunately, depending how you look at it, Henry didn't sell. So back to Etsy he goes. I kind of like having him around. He makes me laugh. I think he didn't sell because he was maybe a bit too weird and out of the norm for my work. But I like him that way. Henry's the second only item that I've had on eBay that didn't sell. I've been very fortunate. The first unsold item was in April of 2008. It was a needle felted mouse that I used hematite beads for eyes. I think her eyes were a bit creepy. Plus she was a little too fuzzy. I made her when I first started needle felting and hadn't got the hang of working with llama wool. She ended up being adopted by a woman here in town.



I just listed two new works yesterday. One is Mr. Finnegan Foxworthy and the other is Dora, the sleepy little dormouse. I kind of jumped the gun and forgot to schedule Finnegan to go on at 6:45 PM PDT. So he's got an odd ending time at 3:13 PM PDT. But Dora ends at the regular time. Dora was a bit of work. Her teapot was completely needle felted and is hollow. I also needle felted two sugar cubes and made a tea bag filled with wool. The tag on the tea bag reads sleepy time tea bags, decaffeinated. Her reserve price is $145 while Finegan's is $95.

Please click here to bid or view their auctions.

Thanks so much for reading!