RAIN...Day Three.....

      Yes, my lovelies, it's been raining here for three days now. I am tempted to post pictures of our grumpy wet hens, but they look so pathetic it might spoil your appetite. Not that they were thrilled with the drought this summer either, but they seem to like the steady downpour even less. 

     Instead I will post pictures of an old friend. I cannot remember when it was that we got Blue Bunny for Daniel, but he has been getting alternately chewed and resewn, patched and repatched for several years now. He is starting to look like art. Recently he was found by Silly Puppy and somehow lost his eye and a good portion of his face. Luckily my scrap basket is always at the ready and I recently received a box from Smallest Child that held the perfect stuffing for dolls and creatures.  (Thank you Dollbaby!)

    When she is not busy being an adoring wife and affectionate kitty-mama or dressing up as a young man and firing cannons at historical reinactments, or lindy hopping in the street with her mister, Smallest Child is New Orleans finest shop girl, and she sells shoes among other things, (Check out Trashy Diva online for vintage inspired adorableness.)  In the shoe shop they use little nylon footie stockings for trying-on, and on account of germs they're used once and thrown away.   Smallest sweetly installed a bag for collecting them for me. Queen Dorothy (my father's sister) often used her old worn out stockings to stuff rag dolls, and now I've got a fine collection of them to use myself. They're much nicer to work with than that nasty fiber-fluff stuff that is sold for stuffing things. Stockings can be packed in firmly which makes a much less floppy creature and that is most important if the doll is going to be embroidered and otherwise embellished or the creature is going to be hauled all around the house and out into the forest by rough and tumbly dogs.

Here's bunny with his face patch, and I'm putting in footie stockings to fill out the shape of his face and replace the original fluff (which was all over the lawn). Does the fabric I'm patching his face with look familiar?

  

When Professor B.  designed his series of three dimensional angels he hired me to hand sew the fabric panels he printed onto the welded frames.  The blue one is just behind me, you can see the wing over my right shoulder. Naturally I saved the scraps because the fabric he made is so interesting, based on a scan of a pile of glistening glass shards.  While I think it would be unethical to use another artists art to make my own art..... I figure it's ok to use it for a patch on something that will only be seen here at home.  It's a very sturdily woven cloth, so the patch may outlast the rest of the bunny.

Looking better, but needs a smile.

That's better!

All spruced up and ready to face the world again.  His eye is needle tatted, his neck is Grandpa's old chambray work shirt and his ear is a scrap from Grandma's old muu muu.  It looks better on the bunny.

While I'm thinking blue, here's the lovely yogurt cups the Manimal brought back from Paris. We use them to drink out of, which is something you wouldn't want to do with American yogurt cups.

This is the afghan I'm making for Onlyest Son.  His old one was wearing out (I think I made it a decade ago).  I happily crocheted the squares on my lunch breaks all summer, then procrastinated putting them together. In a drought with temps above 100 it is too hot to have a lot of afghan on your lap stitching it together. Three days of gray, chilly rain has been perfect for stitching all the squares together. I'm working on the edging now and hope to mail it this weekend.  He's probably not reading this, so don't tell him ; )

The Manimal leaves for London on Saturday morning very early.  I'll be working my usual three day weekend, but come Tuesday I'll be up in the loft sorting and packing joyously.  I'll return and report!