home is...

Jul 31
Originally uploaded by Dancing Crow.

I'm glad to be home. I'm glad to be home from other countries, and I'm glad to be home from the last round of visits and family and friends. I almost did my own bed again because really, falling into your own bed, with your own pillow and familiar sounds outside the window and all that? Really nothing like it. But this covers all the July postcards in one fell swoop, and now I get to think about the next thing.

Actually I got to think about something completely different today. Red Kate is making fish for juggling. It's an SCA thing. Don't ask.

Anyhow, after talking about it a good deal, we decided we should felt them, either felt a flat piece of goods and sew together fish shapes, or felt around something roughly fish shaped and juggleable.

We attempted the second path this afternoon. To start, we made little examples around little bottles. Hers came out mouse shaped, so she put more tail on it and swore she'd done it on purpose. Mine came out bottle shaped but can (and will) be manipulated into a fish shape, except I temporarily lost it.

Having (mostly) succeeded at a small size, we went straight for life size. We decided a juggling pin was roughly the correct shape and (inherently) juggleable, so we used those, and layered on the roving around and around and around, and wetted it out and soaped it up and started felting. We got tired. The pieces came apart, (on mine) or were too thin, (on hers) and we got discouraged.  Then we looked at a book, and somehow became inflamed. At least I did. I found all my old roving from a pre-school project with Aerin's class, and re-wrapped the pin and tied it all down with yards of fluffy and extremely feltable mohair, and then I got fancy, with fins and resists and even a dorsal fin. Then I put a knee-sock over it, tied it up tight, and tossed it in the washer with some jeans.

That didn't make as much noise as when I put it in the dryer with the same jeans.

When it was done, the fins had felted through the sock, some of the mohair wasn't, and therefore hadn't felted, and it all looks like this:

which could be worse. It is fusiform, it seems to be pin sized, and it seems to be holding together well enough. It even looks kind of catfishy with the bad string hanging off its head end. I'll cut it off the pin tomorrow, and see if it will hold polyester beads, and if it can be washed again. It still needs hardening up some, but I think I am encouraged.