Not much to say about it, just wanted to post a picture of the gift:

I’ll let you know how we like Eddie’s Cottages, too.

I’m 1/3 of the way through a 1100+ page book right now, so no crafting.  The planning gears are turning though.

I do have a project set up with a painter friend of mine,  Wendy Jane Bantam.  She just finished her MFA at UNL and now is headed out to San Francisco.  She’s got some fun and simple lines that I think would be good for creweling.  Her MFA project has a really cool castle and landscapes that just jump into wool form in my head.

Here are some more examples.

My friend Ruth had a bridal shower this weekend, so this mid-March project can be unveiled.

The orange creweling looks more like the bottom orange stripe than this picture lets on.





The pattern is “Peace Trees” from Katherine Shaughnessy’s _The_New_Crewel_.

EXTREME CLOSEUP.

I offset the color blocks for the front and the back. They didn’t exactly match up, so this was a fun way to work with that little mistake.

The “Peace Trees” pattern was fun to stitch. It gave me some ideas about possibly designing a coiling DNA-like pattern.

Gina and AJ are getting married today. Their invite was pink, so they’re getting a pink gift.
Wool Creweling on Angora/Wool recycled sweater:

detail shot:

In the 4-5 years I’ve been reading knitting/craft blogs, it gets super annoying when the author doesn’t update the site. Of course, this is only second to, “I’ve been working on ultra-cool project X for the past three weeks and I can’t show you any of it.” The only remedy is to show a picture of a portion of the craft taken out of context.

There are any number of reasons why a project may be secretive. The best reason is because it will be gift, and the crafter doesn’t want to spoil the surprise. The other reason is because the recipe/pattern has been submitted for publishing to a site that has a strict secretive content provision.

On my site, the only way you’ll see 100% of a non-given gift, is if I’m 100% sure the recipient isn’t on the internet, AKA Grandma Shirley or Grandpa Dave. That’s it really. SOOOO….If you are a friend and/or relative trolling for gifts, you can be sure this site is safe for you to view. If you are a craft publisher (haha), I’ve got an entire backlog I’m holding back.

That being said, let’s move on to Secret Gift 2007 #2!

another view






Secret Gift 2007 #2 is 100% wool creweling on fuzzy ribbed and felted base of 40% silk and 60% wool. Still looking for the perfect device to transfer patterns with. So far, taylor’s chalk is supplying straight lines that only last for a day. Otherwise, I hate to say it, but I use fine-tipped sharpie on dark mediums like this.

Started last night on a recyled/creweling project. (Sorry I’ve been spelling CREWELING WRONG!) Can’t show any pictures yet, but I can complain about my transfer skills. Most embroidery patterns are transferred from the pattern to the medium (linen/cotton fabric) by a reusable iron-on pattern.

I was saddened to find that the pattern I wanted to incorporate did not come as an iron-on along with the kit. It is ok, I am trying to transfer it to a bulky dark red-orange silk/wool felted blend of fabric, so it wouldn’t have shown very well anyway!

Homemade gifts are always fun for me to receive, but I have to think twice about other people. I wouldn’t dream of giving crafts to some people because they don’t realize the amount of work or planning that goes into some particular gifts. Some people just think it is cheap. The intended recipient(s) have a very keen art sense and style, so I’m hoping it works out.

No pictures of that project yet, but here are some dome landscape pictures. I don’t know what these flowers are, but they are the first to come up after the crocuses:

aaaah, periwinkle! This is the mother patch for the transplants:

Finally, the redbud trees are about to explode: