Felted Birds and Gray Days

I had a fun time today learning to felt birdies! This is my attempt #1 - I particularly like his hairdoo.

My felty good times were had at the first inaugural meeting of the IHLA. Hangin' out with my bitchez in the Idle Hands Ladies Auxiliary was awesome. Talk about making the best of a gray Portland day - this colorful felty fun was just what I needed! I made couple of birds, a cozy for felting needles (thanx for letting me keep a couple Maggie!!) and an orange chick rattle. I can't help myself but produce - my crafty hands just kept making one cool felted thing after another.

Check it out - the rattle is awesome, I used one of my Chinese medicine pill containers as the center of the chick, and I left just a couple of pills inside the ball (so it would rattle) and then felted the orange around the plastic container. Here is what the pill container looks like: (the larger ball is a wax covered plastic ball that you have to crack open to get at the inner plastic ball that contains the pills, the inner ball has a plastic cap that is not in the picture)And then this is what the rattle looked like in the end:

So morning-time was super fun, felty goodness with my beautiful friends.

This afternoon was Mac n' Cheese night at the glass studio, I brought broccoli n' cheese - it was delicious (although sorta soupy). Not only did I manage to eat many many cookies (I am growing a gut?! too much indulgence!) but I did manage to get some work done. I cut 140 glass circles and got them ready for the kiln, and Aimee came in today (I LOVE good help - and Aimee is the bestest!) and helped me continue to get ready for the holidays, converting my scrap piles into miniature mobiles, its a multi-step process!

I also got to meet Anne Marie of Glass Heart Studio. She makes amazingly beautiful boro glass plug earrings, swirls and curlies and swoops, in different plug diameters and different colors. They are really exquisite(check out her Etsy shop). She is moving into the train barn a few doors down from the Aquila Studio - it was really awesome to get to meet her tonight. Its an honor to have such good neighbors up there in N. Portland.

It may be raining, cold and gray here in Portland - but hey - I love this city and the people in it make the gray days pretty darned cool.