Why, would any of you sane people ask, would the Crafter need a new hobby? She can barely meet her present-day obligations: feeding and raising her progeny and making soap to coddle and make you happy. Nonetheless, as part of her relaxation and meditation she continues to pursue new avenues of creating (crafting for us is a strange dichotomy: part rehab, part illness). So this past summer she picked up a few kits, a few needles and started needle felting. Here are the first attempts:
a crazy bunny-creature for the niece’s 2nd birthday
a sheep to hang out in the spinning basket
And since she couldn’t stop there, she is now surrounded by a flock of felted ptarmigan in their winter plumage: waiting for the first flakes to stick around! Roz at the ‘Down to Earth Gallery‘ has kindly agreed to carry the critters alongside our soaps. It will be hard to part with them, but the workshop is already filling up with curing soap and they keep getting in the way.
the willow ptarmigan hanging out
the felted flock
a mating-felted pair?
Now the next felting project will be a pair of slippers…. That bathroom floor gets awfully cold come winter!
Naturally that wasn’t all we’ve been up to. A few dishcloths later, we have refreshed our rusty crochet skills too. Truthfully though, I would rather stick to spinning it.
it’s the colours…. they are irresistible!
Finally, our Northern garden is all cleaned up and put to bed. We harvested a bumper crop of calendula petals (all grown in pots on the deck), and have already infused them into our ‘Where the Northern Folk Rock’ soap. The soothing petals are so much more vibrant collected and dried from our own garden than bought through our usual supplier. Oh, and see our lovely new soap stamp?
Calendula officinalis
‘Where the Northern Folk Rock’
I’d love to tell you that is all the Crafter has been up to. But I would be wrong.
More to come in a future post….