felting....

i'm working on my first real ambitious hand felting project. it's pretty entry level, but i'm enjoying it so far.
i've felted a lot of bracelets by hand, but working with my hands with the fibers before they're at a yarn level is pretty new to me. i got up early this morning at started at it, so as to work with a little less interruption, but it was only marginally successful. i have all the colored balls i'm going to make for this project, i think (depending on how big i'm going to make it) and am about to move onto making smaller brown ones. i got new roving this week and am proud to be in the minority of people who are really really excited about getting something like wool roving.

working with it wet is another matter, as most of it is silky, fine merino. it's worse than dealing with wet human hair- sticky, and when i went to fix balls or add contrast color to them i had little fine strands of wool sticking to my hands/wrists more than the ball. add to that also having drips of water running either down my hands or up my forearms (one of my number one unfavorite feelings) and it is super time for a break.

am still working on pictures from the lightbox, i stumbled across a few the other day that better represent the neck pieces i'd made. and in my recycle bin (always check the recycle bin on the computer before emptying, especially if you're prone to temperamental picture deletion!) i found a good one of me modeling the neck piece i gave myself as a little gift. (it was a chilly hiking day and i couldn't resist.)

one of the downsides of the lightbox has revealed itself, which is kind of a fear of shooting "outside the box" - i'm pretty sure this felted ball project will be a hung one, and therefore not lend itself to easy photography in a light box. natural light = scary at this point. it's a good thing that it's not anywhere near finished, so i've got a minute to figure out how to handle that.

another project for the day- working on the custom afghan i'd made for a lovely customer. it'd been a long time in the making and it made its way to its new home, but then needed to be bigger. so there's a whole thing with measuring and growing it. i'm working with a fantastic supplier on this one, who even called brown sheep to ensure we have access to the same dye lot of yarn that the blanket was originally made with. incredible customer service. outstanding. really. i've dealt with yarn shops in person who've been less accommodating, and regarding the same yarn company, no less. this is a benefit of dealing on a really really small scale, this whole chain of uberprofessionalism. if you took a blanket back to macys (etc) and said it needed to be bigger, chances are they'd ask if you had a receipt and if you'd prefer an exchange or a store credit refund. regardless of how much you'd like just that same blanket, only bigger.

but i suppose that's an obvious point, and i'm just procrastinating editing pictures. again.