Oh Shoot!

I have a saddle pad that I made for Janow. I made the batik myself, on denim, and then built the pad from there. It has two layers of 100% cotton bat and one thin layer of needle felted poly to help give it some hand. I have a picture of Janow with the pad, but it was from a time when he, as well as I, were feeling a bit peeked. SO.......................


I needed another one! Barb was at the barn at the right time and took some pictures for me.


This is our whole photo shoot. In the old days, you figured how many treats you needed for the roll of film. The new digital cams can store many more pictures than that!
You always run out of treats before you run out of memory.

This is the one I picked. Barb positioned herself even with the shoulder, and I did not notice. It would have been better to choose a position even with the hindquarters. It makes the but look bigger and the head look smaller. It doesn't help that Janow has a big Lipizzan head. Photoshop helped, as you can see.

Decide Already!

I worked on this yesterday. It look a while to get it the way I liked it. By taking a picture, I can see how it looks from far away, even if it is flat out on the table.snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnap

Janow is a rock star

I took this quiz for Janow. The answer is not surprisng!

"Your horse is a ... DECF - The Rock Star
The Rock Stars are confident and charismatic. They are expressive and strong minded. They love to show you what they know but are hard to get to focus on the small details of the task. They are found in many competitive arenas, usually at the top of their field."

This quiz is on this site.

I found it on Horse and a Half blog.

and while I'm sending you to other pepoles blogs, go here for a recipe for fried oreos on sept 25.

Happy Dance

So I did all this embroidery.

The reason was so that I could sew it onto the sweatshirts that I dyed last month.

So I'm laying it out and so far I'm not liking this too much.


And then there was this online contest. DO this and get a chance for a prize in a drawing. I almost never do them. This one was easy, and one of the prizes was an art card. Art cards are standard baseball card size. Usually original art, sometimes prints. I like art cards, so I did this one. And I won! So I was hoping to get the art card.


A package came in the mail today, from Canada, in a matter of DAYS, must be my prize, hope it's the art card.

Well....it IS the art card, and ALL THE OTHER STUFF! Wow!
Three little notepads of blank paper, two bactieriology notecards--hand drawn! Really nice earrings. Subtle in color, not really long, very lightweight, with one bead that sparkles Iridescently when the light is just so. Very very fun!

If you like any of this small stuff, you can see more and bigger stuff at Ulixis.etsy



BTW, Mama, the answer is "Yes." That fingernail WAS dirty, but I cleaned it for the picture because I know you read my blog and I KNEW you would notice!

Mistakes can be good, really!

Here is flag ceremony at Milpitas City Hall. Troop 92 does this for the city council meetings. This time, somehow, they got the flags in the wrong order! They will NEVER get it wrong again. The thing about making is mistake is that it is embarrassing. But if your whole group makes the mistake together, it can bring you closer.








...and here is one of the new cornerstones in the mystery quilt. I had two cornerstones and two mitered corners because I didnt have enough fabric to maek all mitered corneres. THen I decided the cornerstones looked better so I changed them to all cornerstones. It was a mistake that that made the quilt turn out better.

That's the part I like best about quilts. Mistakes can be good.

Monkeys are done

I finished the sock monkeys and the pants. Here they are, all dressed up and ready for the BSA Troop 92 Court Of Honor Silent Auction. It is today, right?

I don't know what amount I should start them for the auction. I don't want them to go for $1.00 each. I should figure that if they don't sell at the Court of Honor, I can put them on ETSY and put the proceeds in the scout fund.

Here in the back, you can see I left tail accommodations, and the little tail vents are sewn down nicely, not just unsewn seams or raw edges. They are just tail vents, what else could vent from the back of a sock monkey?


I put the pants making in reverse order, blogs kind of do that anyway. I mean, yesterday's (?) entry is below this but comes before it....
Here is the final pants, with slight, very slight, modifications to the second prototype. Modifications like leg length. You can see three prototype pants on the left, the final pants mid construction are in three fabrics on the right side of the photo.



Here is the second prototype, not quite right but better than the first. Sock Monkeys are easy to dress because they have no joints and bend anywhere. And they don't complain or try to get away.

This is the first pants prototype. As you can see, it is a bad fit. Even for a sock monkey who isn't going to hop around much by himself or complain of riding up. But, if you're going to go commando, you better have good pants.

Batik Egg

Melanie asks: "What is Batik?"

That's a good question. The birdhouse picture I posted on September 6th is batik on 10oz duck canvas and it's about 2'x3'.

Batik is a method of fabric dying in which hot wax is put onto the fabric in the desired design. Then the fabric is dyed. The dye will color the fabric where it is not covered with wax. On the wax covered part, it will bead up and not get on the fabric. After the fabric is rinsed, the wax is removed, leaving the design in the original color of the fabric and the rest in the color of the fabric when dyed.

Different colors can be built up by applying wax again, adding to the design, and then dying again. The second part of the design will be in the first dyed color, the part still unwaxed will be the color of the fabric with two dye applications. The dye is additive, so it gets darker, or, if the first application is yellow and the second application is red, the second color on the fabric is orange(if the fabric was white to start).

This is a traditional method of dying fabric in Malaysia, India, and Africa. In Africa, mud is sometimes used instead of wax and the fabric is called mud cloth.
This dye method is also used to dye egg shells that have been blown out and are hollow. Ostrich eggs, as well as chicken eggs are used.
This is not what my father did with the Ostrich egg I had shipped from The O.K. Corral Ostrich Farm in Rancho Oro California. The egg arrived in Nevada, in great shape.

I highly recommend OK Corral for their product and great service.
My father was not home when it arrived. I called and my mother asked me what she should do with it. I said:
"Put it in the refrigerator." She replied:
"Oh."
He hard boiled it and my mother made egg salad.




A lot of egg salad.

batik

More batik pads. I have three more to finish up before I pack up my batik stuff for the winter. If I get the pads done in time, I may make a few more art cards. Batik is fun, it's hard to stop.

Sticky Buns

There is a rabbit activity going on in the Bunny Blog world. It's called Sticky Buns. What you do is:
Take a picture of your rabbit.
Print it on an 8x11 sheet of sticky label paper.
Cut it out.
Go out in the world and stick it somewhere.
Take a photograph of your rabbit sticker.
Take the sticker off--no defacing property!
Post the picture on your rabbit blog.
Leave a comment on Rabbit Guy's blog.

What happens then is that Rabbit Guy will put your photo up on the official Sticky Buns site.

So I took the picture.

I cut it out in photoshop.



I put it on a flash drive and took it to staples where they treated it like any other important business copy job.


Then I stuck it here:









Go to Silver's Buns of Silver blog to see it.

monkeys need pants

Janow's fetlock is fine today. I was going to ride, but Dave it turned out that Dave didn't put my saddle back after the weekend. Boy, is he gonna feel rotten!

I finished the monkeys, but it turns out that the Court of Honour is next Monday. That gives me a week to make them all some pants. The first monkey has had his nose changed from buttons to French knots and now he has a smile. The second two are made with the sock inside out. The insides of the soles of the socks are terry, and the sole becomes the monkey's back. I thought they would look better with hairy backs, so I made them with the socks inside out.

Here are the other two cornerstones for the quilt I made at camp. I haven't put them in the quilt.


Then I made more of these. I didn't need them, but I made them.

The first coat of poly went on this birdhouse canvas today.





Paula supervised.

Monkey Honor Court

These monkeys are getting closer to done. I am making thme for the silent auction at Troop 92's Court of Honor, which is tonight. I better get busy.
I also want to make cornerstones for the quilt top I made in Camp Stitches. I put a pic of it here yesterday. I like the cornerstones better than the mitered corners, and they are easy to change.

I also plan on putting another coat of polyurethane on the bird canvas, and hopefully to iron the birdhouse canvas today so I am ready to put poly on it as soon as the bird one is done.

That's about all I expect to achive today, between an appointment in Cupertino, Joseph in and out of school, Janow whose fetlock may be swollen again today, and making a dish for the Court of Honor potluck.

Back from Camp

I returned from camp stitches last night. I was going to come home at noon, but I was "almost" finished. I made this quilt top. It was the Mystery Quilt. There were about 20 people who made the same one, but they are all so different because of the fabric choices.

Today was some unpacking from camp. This canvas batik got it's first coat of poly.

Silver and I had some sling time this morning. I fixed a new cardboard mat for her platform. I peel back the first layer of corrugated and it keeps her feet from slipping on the plastic. I also made a bigger one for the whole cage bottom this time.

I got to the barn and Janow had a swollen rear fetlock. Two grams of bute, 15 minutes of hydrotherapy and 20 minutes of hand walking and it was Nealy normal sized. It might be swollen again tomorrow, but it might not.

I'm still pooped from camp so I'm having my own private Battlestar Galactica marathon today.