living in the woods and making stuff

This is for my friend Sankari and her two adorable kiddies.

Turtle’s Adventure to the Pond

It is the time of year when last fall’s garden leftovers start to pop up. Parsley,

some forgotten onions,

a burst of thyme,

and little turtle!

He pops up, and passes the wood pile.

Some of the logs are tricky to maneuver over.

Little turtle ends up on his back!

After lots of frantic flailing around,

turtle works a flip.

And ducks immediately under his shell. Tail and all!

Turtle decides that it is about time to get to the safety of the pond. He grabs a sip of water,

and starts his journey. First thing is to pass the gravel patch.

Safely over the gravel patch, Turtle reaches woods, and encounters the wildflowers!

He takes a nibble of the dogtooth violet,

hides under the lacy shadow of the dutchman’s britches,

and sees a beautiful patch of blue flowers! While turtle is gazing at the pretty patch, he sniffs a particularly delicious mossy, muddy smell. Over his shoulder he sees…

the pond! Turtle picks up his pace and hurries down the hill.

He is pretty excited,

and jumps right in. Pretty soon, all that is left of turtle is a ripple on the water.

I went over to my friend Chloe’s  house last night with my full tray of needle felting wool. I was inspired to make something, but not sure exactly what. She was working on a crafty project, and said that she had some duck eggs in the fridge for decorating later…

And then I knew that I needed to make Humpty Dumpty (pre-fall). I hollowed out the egg, drilled holes, and stuck pipe cleaners through for arms and legs. I wrapped white wool around the pipe cleaners to shape the arms and legs, and then added the vest and pants. Then suspenders, buttons, and trim.

Finally, I made the coat and felted it on.

The finished H. D. likes spending time in the daffodil patch,

balancing high up on bricks and other hard, sharp, potentially dangerous objects,

and taking trips around the garden for leisure on Mama Hen.

From the looks of things, you might say that he is quite the little adventurer!

We have a beautiful plant dyed assorted package of wool at the store for needle felting. We order it by mail from Germany, sending a wire transfer, and receiving our box sometime down the line…it is always exciting to receive. The wool comes tightly stuffed, 13 beautiful colors, into a clear bag. Organic wool. Plant dyes. Rainbow of color. You can’t go wrong.

My friends Reni and Joy have been making some really cute Easter eggs with wool, decorating them with colors, patterns, animals and leaving some just brown. I kept wanting to make some, and finally, today, I grabbed a bag of wool, some white wool batting, and a package of needles, and took it home after lunch to experiment.

Step one is to make a white egg like shape. I got out an egg from the fridge to make sure that I was coming up with the right shapes. I used little felting needles, which are sharp pieces of metal with little barbs sticking out the sides that catch the wool and pull it together.

After the initial egg was shaped, I added strips of color, tacking the strips down as I went with the needle.

I started in the middle of the eggs, and worked towards both ends, covering the whole thing.