Wordless Wednesday

Work and Play

We had a great Memorial Day weekend with a nice balance of activities. Both kids had time for sleepovers, we had two llama treks and we sold a junior herdsire (read about all that here, and see some great photos of llamas with kids). Yesterday we did some yard work (Paul and Mirian even put up my Mother's day gift, a hammock, AND washed my car!) and spent the afternoon yesterday on the Kentucky River.
Last year we never even made it out to the river, as it was such a wet and cool summer. Our only boating experience was a disaster; we hauled the boat all the way to Taylorsville Lake, launched it, and discovered that the steering wasn't working-yikes! After one quick scare when the motor wouldn't start yesterday, all was smooth sailing. Robert did a great job learning to drive the boat.
The river was really beautiful, and despite some backlogs of junk here and there from the recent flooding, it was pretty clean. One exception was this hot tub that was caught in the crook of a tree!
We did have to chase off a few varmints that decided that the parked boat would make a nice home- a garter snake in the trailer wheel, a mouse, a small nest of wasps, lots of ants and this cute little tree frog.
We rode down to Benson's Marina in Frankfort and had a drink and appetizer at their Tiki Bar. It's a fun and friendly little spot that makes you feel like you're on vacation!

Fiber Friday

Felted Pillows

Even when my time is short, I love taking pictures. A friend suggested that I participate in Wordless Wednesdays (photos only, no words), and it occurred to me that this would be a great way to keep up blogging without having to spend a lot of time or thought in composing an entry (hence, the recent frog and water lily photo).
I've decided to begin Fiber Friday as well, where I post either works in progress or recently completed projects. Sometimes I may not explain much about the product, but feel free to comment or ask questions! I've recently been making pillows from felt, and am having a lot of fun with it. (By the way, you can check out our upcoming felting class schedule here- they're filling up quickly!)

I was just going to show the above pillow in progress and complete, but really liked the image of swirls on this one and it led me to playing around with the design in PhotoShop. Which effect do you like best?

Pillow in Progress
PointillismMezzotint
Stained Glass (my favorite)Palette Knife
Mosaic

Wordless Wednesday

My Internet World

Lovely nest received from an internet friend

.... is getting ever smaller! I could wax eloquently about my ability to keep up with long-lost and current friends via Facebook, talk about tweeting, and detail how even our daughter who had never been exposed to a computer in Peru can now Google information on the most obscure things with the best of 'em or locate a favorite YouTube video in seconds. We all know the many, many wonders of the internet which continues to expand exponentially every day.

But my world got smaller yet through my recent participation in a "swap" that was organized by a fiber artist/felter in Ireland that I admire. I read the Clasheen blog, and discovered that Nicola was organizing a spring swap among felters, and I decided to participate. I was paired with Chrissie from England, and we each shared some color preferences and likes and dislikes with each other.Chrissie's photos of the scarf I made for her

I made her a nuno-felted scarf in the blues and greys that she enjoys, and also added a box of tea, muffin mixes from local Weisenberger Mill, a felted soap, and a "felter's paintbox" of dyed alpaca fibers from our farm. As I shipped it off to her address in England, I hoped that she would like everything!Right before my birthday, I received my package from Chrissie. It was filled with tiny packages wrapped in tissue paper patterns and tied with colorful twine, oh how fun! Each package revealed a special little treasure- beautiful lace which I'll incorporate into my felting, handmade lavender sachets, a needle-felted nest with eggs, handmade tags, and a decorated mini box with vintage buttons inside.
It also held this awesome necklace, made in some of my favorite colors and incorporating felted wool beads!

Thanks, Chrissie, I love each and every item that you made! Thanks, too, to Nicola for organizing the swap! The world just got a little bit smaller....

A Colorful Month

My right-hand salesperson at the Festival

Phew, it's been a run of one thing to the next lately, and I'm really relieved that I'm skipping out on the AOBA Alpaca Nationals this coming weekend! Most recently, the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival kept me on my toes. It turned out to be a great event, especially for the first year, and was really well-attended. I met lots of fun people, and had great interest in felting classes. Check out my new class schedule here.The animals drew a lot of interest- these three little girls were soooo cute with Jasper!

I had great sales at the Fiber Festival (THANKS to everyone!), but I had plenty of dyed rovings left. Darn, now I'm gonna have to use them myself! Here's a skein of yarn I spun up from some hand-dyed baby alpaca.And some felting projects... I'm getting new things ready for this Saturday's Art in the Park at Big Spring Park in Versailles. Hope to see you there!

After the Storms

View from the studio window

We ended up having around 10 inches of rain here over two days of Derby weekend, and with it came the flash flooding over our local roads, water running through our older barns, and general soppiness that comes with it.And now, under the most pristine of blue skies, the Kentucky River is still rising as all of the little creeks and ponds overflow into it, and is expected to crest at noon today at around 41 feet. We are on the same pool as Frankfort, and the people there and in the small communities on either side of us are dealing with the miserable reality of having a muddy river invade their homes. Our hearts go out to them, as well as people we know in the Nashville, TN area that are dealing with even worse devastation.

We have experienced this here before, and knew to keep an eye on the small bridge approaching our home as it has been underwater from the river backing up during previous floods. Mirian was home sick yesterday, and we went down hourly to watch the water rise by our bridge, finding it really intriguing but also being aware of it's perils. Paul and I parked our vehicles on the opposite side, and brought over our ATV for crossing the small creek further upstream to get across. Here's what it looked like just before the water got to the top of the bridge:
And here's what it looks like this morning. (These were taken from opposite sides- note the tree standing alone is the same one in both photos).The pastures in front of our house are about half-covered in water from the river, with the water nearly to the top of the farthest gate opposite our house, as has happened once before. The llama that was alone in the paddock on the right was beside himself watching the murky water, and we let him join his alpaca friends in the larger field with more high ground.We aren't complaining, for us it's the most minor of inconvenience and our prayers go out for those who have had their homes flooded. And to think that a month ago we were experiencing half of our normal rainfall and were in a significant drought!