Take Joy!

What I Made This Past Weekend

These three are made from the rest of the fat quarter I used for my Takealong Goddess earlier this month.

The Night Faery—she's a wall piece, with a thread loop on the back for hanging, about 12" tall. Wrapped in a piece of gold trim (from The Stash) that's anchored with dark blue and gold beads, and a few vintage star sequins. The bauble on her hip is a cat's head bead surrounded with gold and blue beads, and she has dyed mohair for hair.

Another of my Fairy Dancers; she'll have a fishing line hanging loop as soon as I find the reel of line . . . apparently I put it in a safe place. (You'd think I'd know better by now; I ought to just leave everything sitting out in plain sight so I'd have an even chance of finding things when I need them. Except there are the cats, and the need for at least a couple of square feet of working space . . . ) More of the same dyed mohair, sequins and beads, and a skirt of hand-dyed (but not by me) silk ribbon and metallic trim, and a couple of 'gold' spiral beads.

Back view, so you can see her wings, which are made from the last two leaves of a deconstructed 'gold' mesh poinsettia and held on with beads. She's about 6" tall.

Mother of Night, made from my usual goddess pattern and trimmed with dark blue beads and some of hoarded real gold seed beads. (Hoarded because I bought a small hank some years ago when I was in funds, and I shall probably not be able to afford any more.) It isn't really visible, and I wasn't able to get a decent photo, but the edging around her lower half is a piece of gold rickrack, crisscrossed with the dark blue beads. It looks a lot more elaborate than it really is. The center ornament is an earring finding with a shisha mirror underneath.

Where two rivers join, there waits Death crowned with roses

Here is my Bead Journal Project piece for June. (Yes, June. It hasn't been a very productive summer. Too hot and sticky.) I had intended something a little different, but I've been reading Sharon Kay Penman's Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy, and this is what transpired . . . there was an awful lot of death in the Middle Ages. The butterfly represents, I think, the soul; and the bee has something to do with the old custom of telling the bees when someone in the house has died, so they won't swarm and leave the household.  I had originally envisioned two roads meeting (Death at the crossroads?), but the eddying patterns I ended up with looked more like water. The Styx and the Lethe? Who knows? Mostly I deal in myth and allegory, and I don't always know why I make the things I do until they're done.

Specs: the usual ATC size, 2 1/2" x 3 1/2". The face is by Sculpted Windows. The metal roses came from ArtChix; I've had these for several years, but they probably still carry them. They have a center hole so they can be sewn on, but I put a dot of Diamond Glaze underneath just in case, since they stick up. The silver butterfly came from AC Moore or Michaels, in a package of butterflies I bought to do something else, and I think I bought the bee at Chevron Trading Post, but I'm not sure (again, I've had it for a while). The beads, other than the flat black round ones, are all seed beads of some sort: matte black, silvered glass, and the ones that form the rivers are a mix of purple, dark green and gold. Unfortunately, my camera didn't pick up the gold, but I suspect O.E.* is to blame . . . 

* You know, Operator Error. I am a number of things, but a photographer isn't one of them.

The Goat

There was a man, now please take note,
There was a man, who had a goat.
He lov’d that goat, indeed he did,
He lov’d that goat, just like a kid.

One day that goat felt frisk and fine,
Ate three red shirts from off the line.
The man he grabbed him by the back,
And tied him to a railroad track.

But when the train hove into sight,
That goat grew pale and green with fright.
He heaved a sigh, as if in pain,
Coughed up those shirts and flagged the train.

 —Unknown (or possibly ashamed to admit authorship)

Pixie

Our newest addition, Pixie (also called Arlecchino, but he's awfully small for such a mouthful of name) . . . eight weeks old, more or less. He's one of four kittens who showed up at Mom and Daddy's (with their mother); one of the others has disappeared, the other two are doing nicely, and he's the runt, so we took him home with us. Thus far, he has mostly holed up under the bed with only brief forays out to eat; yesterday, though, he came out to play . . .

 

Yes, that's cat litter all over the floor (though it wasn't him; it was Ysabeau, who acts like she's digging a hole to China every time she's in the pan) . . . he's never seen a litter pan (unlike Ysabeau, whom I believe to have been in someone's house at one time). We have had a regrettable incident or two under the bedside table, so I have resorted to a small flat litter pan at the head of the bed and blocking off the offending area with a big piece of cardboard. I noticed him watching Ysabeau in the big litter pan yesterday. I hope he's a quick study . . . 

 

Widget gave up the bottom shelf of the bookcase for a box under the plant table, so I found a new box, an old towel, and now it's one of Pixie's sleeping places. (As of last night, though, he had moved out from under the bed and out of this box into a cranny between John's working table and the stand that holds my CD player, where no one can reach him.)

Here's the only picture we have that shows his face—bisected right down the center! And he has white whiskers on the light side and dark whiskers on the dark side, too. (And I see that I am acquiring a thin spot right on top of my head. . . how annoying.)

Where beth they beforen us weren,
Houndes ladden and hawkes beren,
And hadden feld and wood?

("Where, asks the anonymous Middle English poet, are they who were here before us, who once led their hounds and carried their hawks and owned both field and wood?" from Katherine Langrish, who blogs at Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, and should definitely be read)

Moonflower

Work In Progress

My current work-in-progress: it will be a shawl, one of these days. Hopefully by the time it gets cool enough to weear one . . .

 

The pattern is Flying Diamonds by Vicki Mikulak (available here for $2.99). It's a nice simple pattern, a three-row repeat after you get it set up, and I'm enjoying working on it. The yarn is KnitPicks Imagination handpaint, in a discontinued colorway that I believe was called Woodland. I bought seven skeins when it was being phased out; I think this will probably take three and a half or so, so I'll have enough left to make some hats, or a pair of socks, or maybe some fingerless mitts for this winter . . . but first I need to finish this, I guess.

Here's the diamond pattern. I've actually done a lot more than this; these pictures were taken last week, and my plan—hahaha—is to do one three-row repeat a day until I finish. However, the rows are getting longer and longer . . . but I'm about halfway through, I think, and I shall persevere.

Monster in the Garden

. . . if you're a smaller insect, that is. This is a good-sized mantis, longer than my index finger. It's been so hot most of the summer I haven't seen many, but they seem to be emerging now that things are cooling off.

Peppers

Finished Crochet Projects

I finished a couple of projects this week—the first two are baby blankets (the first is 36"x36" and the second, 45"x45") that have been sent out to Pine Ridge Reservation, for the Head Start program. The zigzag one is made from Patons Classic Wool in three colors, and the second (aka Twilight Blanket) from odds and ends of wool and mostly-wool left from other projects, plus a skein or two of bamboo/wool that I just liked.

 

This third one is for Emma (already sent, received, and thank-you-called for); it's her very own personal Minion.

All Red Heart worsted (well, except the gray goggles rims; that's Vanna's Choice), all from The Stash. Even the felt. Directions here—well done, easy to follow, actually turned out right . . . the only thing I changed was the gloves. I had trouble seeing the stitches in black yarn, so I crocheted a separate piece for the cuff and just stitched it on.

All in all, a productive week. And for next week, I have two patterns to test for someone on Ravelry: a baby shoe and a pretty little hat, both in cotton, which can also come from The Stash. Not as much fun as going shopping for yarn, but much, much cheaper . . .