Lunar Madness

First, Thanks to everybody who stopped by my humble a-blog and left such cool comments. It means a lot, especially now that I've gotten a moment to ogle at all of your really great creations too. And a huge congrats to all those who won big over at Whip Up. So many great minds at one really neat site. Thanks!

Anyhoo, what's been keeping me from my computer is a stack of pantyhose, a box of balloons and a whole lot space madness. I was asked a close friend to help out with decorations at a local arts council fund-raiser, for a free pair of tickets to event, of course. Sounded innocent enough; I figured I'd just be doing grunt volunteer work blowing up balloons and laying out table cloths. Well, it turned out to be a little more than that. In a good way. Turns out, we, that being the artist folk, were asked to experiment and create mockettes of easy-to-make table sculptures according to a theme involving other-world exploration/ zen lunar garden. Hmm....OK! So, I started bending wire and stuffing balloons in tights and soon our labratory looked a little something like this....

A couple designs were approved by the lady in charge and I suddenly find myself making many more than I'd first anticipated. At least, more than I anticipated making......by myself. I've had to ignore my husband's chants of ," ...but can you finish them all on time?...you've got to make 100!...hurry!!!" But my nerves of steel prevail and I'm having a ball with this challenge. Who wouldn't love being surrounded by this much festive lunacy? It's certainly having a postive effect on the kids, I think.

My next mission, however, upon completion of these 30 some-odd tabletoppers, will be to find a fabulous looking dress, great shoes and all the swank adornments to match, in order to attend this soiree. It might just be my own mission impossible.

Postive effects, for sure.

Mommy's Little Helper

We've been painting again.

 

Felt, Felt and AWAY!!!---Whiplash Entry**--

Yesterday, I took a small step for knitters and felted a giant leap for me. I finished knitting Rocket #2* and then I....gasp....hold breath....felted it. And I totally freaking LOVE it!! It was a bit of a mad scientist's project this time around, because I really wanted to avoid all that time spent seaming the body panels. I also wanted some extra details, like the color spikes on the body and the ridge above the engine section. So this time, I knit the body in the round with DPN's.

Once I finished it, I turned it inside out and decided that the intarsia loops were going to be too tight for the felting process (not that I really have a clue, mind you, as this only the second time I've felted anything), so I channeled some Eunny's steeking vibe and attempted another new process. Looks frightening, but oddly, it worked. The threads loosened and the body opened up like an orange peel. Some day it might be interesting to felt something like that inside out. Hmmm....

So anyway, because I hadn't planned the steeking thing from the beginning, I didn't leave myself extra loopage to cut and ended up some very short threads holding a critical portion of the body together. Once the whole thing was assembled, I thought the best thing to do, would be to hand-felt the whole thing a little, to see if the joins would even hold. Here's a photo of my sad, wet rocket lying in limbo before being put in a pillowcase and thrown to washing machine gods. When I pulled it from the machine and pulled it from the pillowcase, it was the eeniest, teeniest version of itself...in a pefect felted state. I couldn't help laughing out loud. It feels virtually indestructable, which I was going for, since it's going a little boy of 5. I just hope he likes it as much as I do.

*Yes, it is my pattern. I free-handed the body, but I actually remembered to write down the pattern for the leg parts as I knitted the first one, so that they'd all match this time. They were garter stitched short rows. Worked great.

**I wasn't going to enter, but here goes. Whiplash Entry, if they'll take it.