Hello Readers!
Better get a cuppa something, I have a lot to say today. Most of it will be of little importance, but may be entertaining nonetheless. I've been busy with projects, as is usual. I've apparently been very busy with projects if all the pictures I edited for this post is any indication.
I'll download the pictures and then ramble on about them....enjoy!
I've been crocheting for about a week or so, making baskets and bags. This orange basket is about 6 inches tall, 6 inches across the top. Made from textured orange cotton yarn (it has inclusions in different colors. Not black like it appears to be on my monitor) crocheted around macrame cord.
You all saw some crossbody bags in the last post. Well, there are a few more added to the series. This one is fuzzy champagne colored yarn crocheted around yellow poly rope to form the bag. The flap is just yarn, no rope. The flap has a metal medallion that was once part of a belt sewn to it to keep the flap shut. It has a curb chain handle that was once part of a belt as well. It measures somewhere in the range of 6 inches across, 5 inches tall. I didn't measure any of them. It's all an educated guess. They're big enough to hold what you need for a night out, or a shopping spree.
The colors on this one are way off according to my monitor. The color is pastels blue, pink, yellow and green in very pale tones. It has a heavy alloy butterfly button to help keep the flap closed. The handle is reclaimed curb chain from a belt. It's probably 6 inches tall, 4 inches wide.
This crossbody bag is crocheted out of acrylic rug yarn. Then I appliqued the cat in felt directly to the bag. This one measures about 4 inches wide, 6 inches tall. Again, I didn't measure. I sent this one to my sister to use as a pouch to carry her phone around in while she's talking on the phone. That woman can talk for hours and hours if you let her! I think our longest session ever on the phone was upwards of six hours. Sometimes we have a lot to talk about!
This crossbody bag is crocheted out of the same yarn as the basket that started this post. This one is about 5 inches across, 6 inches tall. There abouts. The front flap stays closed because I sewed lead curtain weights onto the backside of the lower corners of the flap.
This bag is a bit different. It is a draw string bag. The fuzzy champagne colored yarn is crocheted around yellow poly rope to form a round basket shape and the tan yarn was added to the top to form the draw string. The handles are reclaimed chain from an old purse.
In the last post I showed you all the fence out front with the license plates on it. This time I present the fence behind the garage dedicated to fan blades of all sorts. There are a couple dozen fan blades along the top of this fence. I didn't show you all the entire fence line, cause I don't think brother wants me advertising what all is behind the garage.
This is the altered envie I sent my July partner over at AFA in the EAU group. It is markers on regular envelope. This is the front...
and this is the back.
I don't remember if I ever showed you this finished paper yarn basket or not. So here it is. About 9 inches square on the bottom, six inches tall or so. I think a crossbody bag or two will be made from the remaining paper yarn.
post card made on a paperboard photo frame. The daffodil is markers on drawing paper.
An 8 inch chipboard fish. The flowers are nail polish on black acrylic paint. I added glitter to the fins and a big googly eye as well.
I got a couple of new sets of pens and decided I would do an alphabet on 1.5x2 inch cards of cardstock. I already have one set of ATC size alphabet cards hanging in the hallway. I thought I needed a set made my hands too. this project will be ongoing till the whole alphabet materializes. The going might get slow here in the next 10 days as I am embarking on a fish picture making session and FP19 will take my entire attention until then. My deadline is the 6August16 to make good on getting FP19 done and out the door by then. You'll see some of FP19 here in a bit.
Crocheted mesh market bag made with acrylic yarn. This is the only bag I have ever made where I followed a pattern. I'm not sure I nailed the pattern perfectly, but a bag did materialize. A bag that would be quite useful for hauling home your groceries.
Another crossbody bag. This one is crocheted out of 1/4 inch cotton twill tape. It's a nice sturdy little bag, but rather plain at this point. I do believe this one will get some beading of some sort, just to jazz it up a tad. It is about 6 inches across, 5 inches tall or so.
Another work in progress, put on hold for the time being because of FP19. This will eventually become another drawstring bag. I am fairly certain this one will have leather handles with a leather string as the drawing mechanism. That all remains to be seen right now though cause the muse may change her mind and something entirely different will happen for the handles.
I was playing with the camera microscope the other night. This is the little Bic guy you find on lighters and ink pens. Here he is 30x magnified. Just in case you needed a close up look at the little fella.
4 stoned cats.
going clockwise....Fluffy Frank, Lola, Obee and Murray. I had given them all a dose of catnip. You all saw Frank in the last post. He's settled in, though I can't say he's settled in nicely. The vet has confirmed, Frank is a crazy cat, messed up in his head! I declined the medication suggested to try to make Frank less crazy as I don't think he's THAT crazy that I can't live with his craziness. He may end up being an outside cat again as I may give him back to my grand daughter. We shall see how he behaves in the next 10 days as to whether he goes back to his life as an outside cat or he stays with me and lives inside. I'm giving him 10 days because that's about how long it will be till I see my son and his little family again.
You all haven't met Obee unless you follow me on Instagram. You'll hear more about Obee later in this post.
Another crossbody bag. This one is about 5 inches across, 6 inches tall or so. It is crocheted from some fleece-like material that I cut into yarn and darker blue acrylic yarn. The knob on the front of the bag is a hollow ball crocheted from the fleece. I'm not crazy about this bag's handle but it will suffice. I am not the judge of these things. Those who want them are the judge.
And yet another crossbody bag in the works. This one is just a pouch right now. It needs a handle. I have yet to figure out a handle for it. I would like to put chain on it for a handle but I am flush out of curb chain for handles...waiting on a package to arrive in the mail that may contain some chain that will work for this bag. The knob on the front of this one is a button 1.5 inches across that I crocheted around. This one is made from fuzzy tan yarn, green and blue acrylic yarn. It is about 6 x 5 inches, there abouts.
Playing with the microscope some more...this is textured foil paper from packaging.
Crocheting was hot and heavy on the radar...this is a hot pot mat crocheted with nylon cord around macrame cord. I didn't really think that through....nylon cord for hot pots? This one is about 7 inches across.
I've been working on the cover of Annie's Kitty Book also. My deadline for this is looming also. I put out a call for kitties back in March of this year and there were tons of offers for kitties! The cross stitched kitties on the cover were done by xstitcher over at AFA. She contributed more cross stitched kitties than this piece. Thanks to everyone who contributed kitties to the book. I plan on incorporating a page in the book to acknowledge all of the people who so generously contributed.
The inside pages of the kitty book are almost completed. I still need to do another flip through the book and add some tiny kitties here and there to fill up empty spaces. I'll be working on the Kitty Book while waiting for glue to dry on FP19.
I made lime jello the other night and promptly made the box into a book cover. I even cut the pages for the book. The kitten is drawn on drawing paper with markers, cut out and taped to the front cover of the book. The stripes beneath the kitten are washi tape of various colors. It will be at least 10 days before I will have time to sew the book together.
Another work in progress... a beaded market bag done is crochet cotton with wooden beads. This one will take awhile to complete. I shall pick it up again later.
I really wish I had of had more of this ribbon! I love the color and texture of this crossbody bag!
the bag is crocheted from 1/2 inch satin ribbon with a slightly different shade of green picots along either edge. This bag is about 4 inches wide, 5 inches tall or so.
You all saw these fishes last post also if memory serves me correctly. They are done now except for the magnets I will slap on the backside once the gel medium dries completely.
I could have sworn there were 14 of the little devils when I started this project weeks ago but all we end up with is a dozen of them. They are fishes, drawn in marker on fairly stout chipboard, then glittered to make sparkly fishes. They measure 1 x 1.5 inches. Sorry for the crappy pictures! That is what we get when I decide to take pictures at 3 o'clock in the morning....
Mr. Spider is finished as far as I am concerned. I made a few mistakes with his fella. He has no fangs! I should added fangs before I glittered him. I should have painted him black before glittering him. He was masking tape tan before I glittered him and the black glitter needed three rounds of touch ups before I actually got the majority of the tan covered with black glitter. His eyes are tiny plastic flat back gemstones that were originally purple and red. I painted them bronze colored with some fingernail polish. The white spots on his knees is also fingernail polish. Other than him having no fangs, I'm pretty happy with him.
If you want to follow along with the making of FP19, this where we will start. I forgot to take a picture of the canvas before I started on it...always happens...I get it covered and remember I forgot to take a picture. All canvases for FPs are reclaimed/recycled. This one had the words "Welcome Brasilian" on it along with a rendition of what I presume to be the flag of Brasil. All done in marker of some sort.
It is a stretched canvas, 16 x 20 inches. I covered it in a layer of torn paper from a catalog and then with torn pages from a paperback novel called The Cat Who Went In The Closet. I'll let this all dry overnight or until its completely dry....it's awful humid these days, I'm hoping it dries quickly. I may have to help it along with the heat gun.
After it all dries, I'll put some paint on it! I'm thinking yellow at the moment, but that's subject to change once I've had a sleep and this thing runs through my dreams.
Fishes are an important part of a fish picture. These guys materialized earlier this evening while watching serial killer documentaries...or was that during the junk yard videos? At any rate, I have some fish going. these were drawn on chipboard that was once a box that held plastic baggies. I cut them out and
I sometimes wonder why I go through the bother of editing my photos when blogger just does whatever it pleases with them anyway..... I painted these fishes with some wall paint in a nice subtle yellow. No clue where we'll go from here. Glitter probably. But that's aways down the line yet.
I guess there will be no more pictures of Obee Cat in this post as I didn't edit any cat pictures except the one you've already seen. I will tell you about Obee Cat though. He showed up in the burnt house on the 15th of July. Brother brought him in my house cause he knew I'd want to at least meet the boy. Oh my goodness, that cat was skinny as a rail! Skinnier than he is in the picture with the other three. He was such a sweet boy too. He was in bad shape, but friendly as he could muster. I pulled 11 ticks off his face, 1 off his hip and found 2 more in the coming days on his tail and in between the toes of one back foot. The kid needed some TLC and some groceries in him! He came home from the vet this afternoon minus his little balls, dewormed and antibiotics in him to combat that snotty nose he has. I really wasn't wanting two new cats but Obee was in dire need of a loving family. Lola cat hasn't decided if he's worthy of her love but I think she will come around. She is positive, at this point, that Fluffy Frank is not worthy of her attention, let alone any love! She snarls and hisses at Frank every time he comes anywhere near her! Murray isn't fond of Frank but she seems to care less one or another about Obee. Obee has put on some much needed weight and has made himself to home in my cutting room where he sleeps in the deepest recesses of the closet he can get to.
I gave the chickens some watermelon rind the other day and sat out on the back porch to watch the show. Chickens are quite funny creatures.
One of the chickens got hit on the highway out front of the house day before yesterday. Chickens are not smart birds at all. All of them go out on the highway. I don't know what the draw of the road is, they have almost three acres of grass to explore. At any rate, Kyle is no more! Poor Kyle! He was a gimp young pullet when he arrived a couple months ago. We weren't even sure if Kyle was a rooster or a hen at that point. He wasn't old enough to tell yet. He could barely walk when he arrived. Brother and his wife nursed Kyle back to almost good. He was walking again when he met his demise.
Kyle has been volunteered for an experiment in bone cleaning. I probably won't bore you all with that experiment. It's been three days already and I've yet to even check on the experiment.
Keeping Kyle's head for the experiment was prompted by the find under the back porch the day I took the pictures of the chickens enjoying the watermelon. Brother and I were sitting there shooting the breeze when Brother looked under the porch and discovered a bird skull. We weren't sure where it had come from nor what kind of bird it was from. It was a nice perfectly cleaned bird skull. Right up my alley! I have LOTS of animal skulls, but nothing like this one. Turns out it is a chicken skull. Probably Eric's skull. He's the only chicken to have died in the last six months. Anyway, I'm experimenting to see if we (brother and me) can get Kyle's skull as clean as Eric's by putting it in a sheltered spot and letting nature take her course with it! The dermestid beetles should show up in droves and clean the skull nicely. It will take a few months, at the least, for them to do that job. Probably won't see complete results until next summer. The next small rodent that is killed will become an experiment as well. There is money in cleaned bones. Lots of people make ornaments and what have you out of them.
I realize bone cleaning isn't for everyone. The study of nature is fascinating to me.
I hate to leave you on that note, but this is all I have to say today!
Thanks for hanging in there to the end!
Remember....
Be kind to one another!
It truly does matter...
Peace
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