needle & thREAD - June 28, 2012

I know I haven't participated in needle and thREAD for quite a while, but now that it's summer my reading time has increased. More time spent in outside play for the girls means more reading time for the Mama!

Right now I'm reading Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter. I'm not a huge fan of vampire literature - for instance I didn't read one.single.book in the Twighlight series - but this book seemed to have the right blend of historical fiction and fantasy to draw me in. It's also notable to mention that I bought this book new, which is another very rare event for me. I more often buy my books used from thrift stores, used book stores, or garage sales.

My sewing this week is some more Wee Mice. These two are destined for a customer and I have one more yet begun for that custom order. I love sewing these little mice and hand sewing is such a relaxing process for me. I can sit and sew while the girls play or turn on a movie or music and listen to it in the background while I sew.

more wool

The last few days have seen me carding, washing, and dyeing more wool. It's really nice to see the rainbow of colors growing and I love having more variety in the shades/tones of color.

inspiration from books

Sometimes people ask me where I find inspiration for my creative work and I actually draw inspiration from a lot of different sources. It might be a color or pattern, a natural item, or a suggestion from one of my children. I also draw a lot of inspiration from books and illustrations.

Recently I completed a playset that was inspired by Sibylle von Olfers book, The Story of the Root Children.



It's a charming story that features Mother Earth awakening the Root Children. They get cleaned up and dressed and "become" flowers and grasses. The story begins at the end of Winter and we watch as the season changes into Spring.

This is the illustration that was the basis of inspiration for my latest needle felted playset.



And here is my interpretation:







On a related note, how cute are those blueberry boys! This is taken from Elsa Beskow's book, Peter in Blueberry Land.

right now

Right now the girls are practicing writing letters.




On the other side of the table I'm carding more wool.

more wool and water

I can stop whining about the lack of rain! We had a fabulous downpour on Saturday and a nice little thunderstorm this morning.

On Friday I did a bit more carding and dyeing. I ended up with four fabulous shades of green and one orange.



I also forgot to show you the silk scarf that I dyed on Thursday. Here is the baby girl modeling it. The scarf was a freebie that Dharma Trading Co. threw in with one of my dye orders. Gotta love free playsilks!

busy with wool and water

We're having yet another drought here and the plants were suffering. We've exhausted the contents of our three water barrels (165 gallons total) and I've been having to use city water to keep the poor little veggie plants going. I have a strong dislike of having to pay for water to water our plants and the lack of rain is making me a wee bit grumpy. I should be grateful we have that option because without it we'd have very few vegetables this year. We haven't had rain in well over a week and none is forecast for the next five days as well.

To take my mind off of the water issue I've also been carding and dyeing some wool. Both yesterday and today I managed to card and dye five batts. That makes a total of ten batts finished.

Here are the five from yesterday - one gold, one purple, one salmon pink, and two brown. The brown are supposed to be two different shades, but to be honest they look about the same to me.



I'm especially fond of the golden color and the salmon pink color. Today's batts were four different shades of green and one orange. Maybe I'll remember to snap a photo and share it with you when they're all dry.