Category: Animals

This is the last fabric insect coaster that I have.  Fran sent it to me along with the Katydid coaster  I used in the pillow I made earlier this week.

I ran out of the striped quilt squares that I used on my Flying Free quilt and the Katydid Pillow, so I used some fabric samples that I have.

They’re each about 6 inches square and I cut them up and sewed them together to get the same effect of momement.  And the fabric has a shine to it which, like the irridescent brown surounding the diamond shape, dosen’t really show up in the photo.

I think this pillow has the same affect as the Katydid Pillow in that it’s like looking into another world.

My Butterfly Pillow is $95 including shipping. It’s about 25″x 25″ edge to edge.  You can buy it in my Etsy Shop.  Just click here.

Fanny and Lulu are always together, but when they were licking the same salt block this morning, their faces so intertwined, I thought it the perfect way to illustrate how close they really are.

I just got an email from Deb at the Vermont Fiber Mill.  She’s beginning to dye my wool.  That means it’s closer to being done.

I can’t remember whose wool I mixed Griselle’s with this time.  I think I may have used it to make the barber pole wool, twisted with some of Kim’s wool.  I can’t wait to see what that looks like.

Griselle is one of the Romney’s that we got from Donna, who I wrote about yesterday.

She’s one of our oldest sheep, and along with Zelda, had a hard time keeping weight on over the winter.  All summer I’ve been feeding both of them grain once a day to supplement their diet, even though there’s lots of fresh green grass still.

Since feeding her grain, Griselle has become very friendly.

She comes right up to me when I walk in the barnyard and knows to stay in the pole barn when I chase the other sheep out so I can give her and Zelda grain.

Because she’s old, I don’t get as much wool from her as the other Romneys, but what I do get is a lovely light gray color.

Griselle’s face looks a lot like Izzy’s, but she has a white spot on the bottom of her nose and Izzy has one like a third eye.

Griselle still doesn’t like me to touch her, but she’ll walk right up to me, looking for a treat.

I didn’t expect it when I made the pillow, I was thinking it would look similar to my Flying Free quilt.

But, of course, when you take something flat and make it three dimensional, it changes. Sometimes for the worse, this time for the better.

For the most part, I have come to understand how and where to place the fabric that is most important to the pillow, on it.  Anything on the edges gets lost when looking at the pillow head-on and it’s better to put a center image higher up than lower down on the pillow.

But I never made a pillow with a delineating line and solid edges or placed the center in a diamond shape.  And what a lovely effect it is.

With the movement and depth of the pattern in the center of the pillow and the solid colors on the outside, it’s like peering into another world from the outside. The black line becomes soft and rounded.  It’s  like looking under a microscope, through a telescope.

My Katydid Pillow is  Sold for sale in my Etsy Shop or you can email me at [email protected]   It’s $95 including shipping and is 26″x27″ edge to edge.  You can see more photos of it and buy it here. 

Fate’s doing really well in her therapy work with Jon, but sheepherding?

Jon is trying again.  When Fate was a puppy,  Jon tried to train her to herd sheep.  But she never seemed to be able to move them around, didn’t have the eye, as trainers say.  Fate  would retreat if the sheep so much as looked at her.

When Jon heard the words “I’m not Red” one day while trying to teach Fate to herd, he let go of the idea that she would be moving the sheep like Red did.  Then he let her do what she became known for, running around them, endlessly.

When Red died Jon thought he’s try again.  Fate was always so focused on Red when he was herding, maybe without him there, she’d focus more on the sheep.

So every morning and afternoon for the past few days, Jon takes Fate out to the sheep and mostly, just has her sit near them.  He’s trying to calm her down enough to pay attention to him and break her of her habit of running in a circles around the sheep.

Sometimes he has her walk up to them, and a couple of times they even moved.  Although I’m not sure if they were responding to Fate or Jon (or Bud).

This morning Fate sat calmly with the sheep, until she didn’t and then Jon made her lay down again and again.

As in her therapy work, Fate’s enthusiasm often makes her lose focus. ( I get that, I can be the same way.)

Bud, of course, loves to join in the herding lessons, when he’s not wandering the pastures, looking for something to chase.  He can move the sheep, but has even less of an attention span for the work than Fate.

Since Fate no longer gets to run around the sheep in the morning, I throw the ball for her instead.  And I have to say, she’s as enthusiastic chasing the ball, as she is circling the sheep.

I admire Jon’s patience and his willingness to try training Fate again.  I think you can see their connection to each other in the photo I took this morning.

Part of training Fate is about breaking old habits and obsessions and creating new ones.  (I get that too.)

I’m curious to see what happens…

These August mornings have been cool, so Flo has been joining Minnie on the backporch to sleep in the early sunshine.  Minnie’s always in my Rapunzel Chair and Flo prefers the top of the old crate.

After making four more potholders using up all the illustrations in the from the fabric book that Cindy gave me, I started making a pillow.

Just yesterday, I got a package of fabric from Fran, all the way from Canada, with two more insect coasters in them.  The same coasters I used to make my Flying Free quilt.  I had a few more squares of striped fabric that Hannah sent me and enough of the blue iridescent fabric left to make a pillow.

Tomorrow I’ll use the green silk to make a edge around the pillow.  I know it will drape nicely.

I’m not completely certain, but I think the insect in the pillow is a Katydid.

I hope to finish the pillow tomorrow then will be selling it.