Cats + Yarn = Late-Night Shenanigans

I thought I had hidden this gigantic ball of yellow Red Heart yarn, but Taco found it last night. The trail of yarn guts goes from the kitchen to the dining room to the living room. Looks like he had some fun!

Fused Glass Adventure

It's not fiber, but it WAS cool ... we took a glass fusing or "hot glass" class at Sundancer Stained Glass last night (thanks to a deal through Living Social!). We won't get the finished product until Friday, but this is what our pieces looked like going into the kiln:

Top row: Keara, Jen, me; bottom row: Sheila

Keara and Jen used dichrotic glass pieces and textured glass. I used colored" stringers" on a white background, and Sheila made a mosaic piece with a lot of different kinds of glass in shades of green and blue.

Patrick chose to make his piece with millefiore -- tiny glass rounds with intricate patterns.

Stay tuned until Friday to see how they all turned out after firing!

Hansel & Gretel: A Witch Named Mrs. Hazel

The witch! She came together bit by creepy bit ...

Here she is, naked and blind. You can see her hair pretty well in this picture.

Then came the hat and some strange eyes. She looks almost cheerful here:

Finally, some clothes. Looks like she might have bought this as a "ruffled peasant top" in 1994.
Note the black fingernails -- a late-night detail, added when I should have gone to bed. What you can't see is a little pink crinoline underneath the grey -- which the cat loves to chew on.

Hansel & Gretel: A Skunk Named Rocco

Another denizen of the forest. The children help him turn over a stump to reveal delicious grubs!

Some in-process shots:

Hansel & Gretel: A Frog Named Jacques

I've been working on puppets for a somewhat-improvised kids' show version of Hansel & Gretel. We've re-worked the story somewhat so the children go into the woods of their own accord to look for food and meet a variety of animals along the way, who offer their own particular (unappealing) foods. This is a frog they encounter in a particularly swampy bit of the forest who catches them some flies. The tongue is rigged so it pulls out of his throat, revealing three "flies"

attached with elastic thread.

In process:

Turning the Heel on an Empty Bus

The blue sock is coming along. I'm pretty sure I'm going to run out of yarn around the ankle; is there any point in making an ankle-length wool sock? Maybe I'll look for a different yarn for the calf portion ...

The Adventures of a Blue Sock

On our road trip to New York last weekend, I began the re-make of the blue sock. Here it is, looking for parking at W 56th and 10th:
Relaxing in a Manhattan apartment:

In traffic on I-95, headed to Connecticut:

At the in-law's, in Connecticut:

At a slight detour, in front of the Polar Beverage factory in Worcester, MA:

Home again, home again: