Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Moy Mackay felt piece still not finished, okay, maybe now

Hello!
It's hot!   I guess it's hot just about everywhere!  Wow!  And I think I need to add that it's also DRY!  And that is probably the worse thing.  Wow, do we need rain!

Well, last week, we had this wonderfully coolish day with the most wonderfully strong wind blowing through the house, and I had a brain fart.  I have now learned.  Never listen to brain farts! 

My brain fart told me it would be a great time to paint the bathroom.  Well, I finished yesterday.  I had to patch little things here and there with Polyfiller, and you have to wait for that to dry, and then sand it, clean it and apply a sealer and wait for that to dry and then two coats of paints and wait for that to dry and then caulk it all.   OMG but that one glorious day of coolish weather with strong lovely winds lasted a whole ONE day!  Which meant that most of the work I was doing was in temperatures close to 30 C with humidex above 30 C.  I sweat buckets!  Good reason to go for ice cream afterwards tho!

It really is weird though because in painting and stuff, I got time to think and I kept going into the room where I had the Moy Mackay felted piece and I didn't think it looked finished so I found some time to look through Moy's book again.  It inspired me to go back to the piece when I had a few minutes and add some sitching and it has made a world of difference.

Anyways, it looked fine to me until I just photographed it a few minutes ago out in the yard.  Good idea to do that as I found there is a line of stitching sort of in the middle of the piece just below the sheep and it just doesn't seem to make sense of the contour of the land so I will take it out and redo it.

In any case, this is what it has evolved to.

I have also decided to change the name to "Sheep in the Sun" as I didn't think that what I did to it came close to looking like it was in moonlight.   I am really super big time having a problem though in knowing how to finish it.  I don't want to make a bag out of it.  I want to hang it on the wall but do I sew something around the edges?  I was thinking of just applying a thick type of Pellon type thing to it and then ironing on some fabric so the back looks finished and then putting in a hanger of some sort.  I have no idea.  If you know of anything, all suggestion welcome!

I also meant to take a ruler and show you how thick the piece was now.  In my last post, I showed that once I applied all the wool to it, before needle felting, it was about 2 inches thick.  Now that it is felted with my needles, it is down to a little more than half an inch or so.  The worst of it all for me, was trying to do the eyes on the sheep.   I must have tried about 5 or 6 different ways of doing the eyes.  I ended up taking some crochet cotton and just stitching them in.  When I tried to felt anything around the eyes, as Moy did in her felt work, it just didn't look right in mine, so I am lacking in some felting skills for sure.

I thought I better explain why so many felted projects all of a sudden.  On the island, we have a fair mid August called "Old Home Week".  Alot of Islanders who have gone away to work, come back to the island that week to visit family and enjoy the fair.   If you check the schedule for the 12th, I have been asked to do a needle felting demonstration by the Women's Institute who run some of the events at the fair.  We show off to the Public, our needlework, our knitting, crochet work, sewing skills, and cooking skills, gardening skills and art work, all run by the Women's Institute.  Even though I am a beginner at needle felting, they have asked me to do a bit of a demonstration, so I thought I better have some pieces ready to show what can be done with wool and a needle and a bit of thread.

I haven't done any other stitching.  I have just been too hot or too tired.

In the heat though, the grain fields are ripening very quickly.  Also very dry looking.


And the blossoms are blooming on the potato plants.  These blossoms that we drove by had purple flowers on them!  Amazing to see the field of purple!


One of the most amazing things to drive by though, is a field of blooming canola plants!  WOW!!!!


If you have a weak stomach, you may not want to look at the next photo.  I had driven to Orby Head at Cavendish National Park last week and just as I got out of the car with the camera in my hands, an eagle flew by with a Cormorant (a sea bird) in its talons.  Amazing!


I better leave on a positive note.   Flowers from one of my pots at the front of the house.

Well, hubby has put the supper tea on and is heating up the BBQ so I better get a run on.

Enjoy life and see you soon!


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