Finger knitting

February Little Van Goghs meeting. This month we did finger knitting. The kids loved it! We tried single strand and double strand. The older kids helped the younger. One of the moms joined it. It was fun! Check out this video to learn how to finger knit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3LKAlDz9ig

I finally finished my Mother Bear Project bear. He is my very first bear, so be kind. I've never made a stuffed animal before. I love doing this and feel so stoked that a child in Africa will get my little bear and love him. He is very flamboyant, isn't he?

Haven't been doing much weaving. Been really busy. But I did finish the color variation project and I hope to make that into a bag. I've been toying with the idea of adding freeform knit scrumbles as decoration to the outside of the bag but I'm not loving it right now.

This little dude was hanging out in our yard the other day. I love cardinals! They are so RED! We put some seeds out for him and his wife.

Trip to St. Augustine

The trip was fun. But it was way too cold. I've come to the conclusion that I really hate the cold. The camper has no heat, so 39 degrees really sucked. We had the sleeping bag that goes down to 25 degrees and that helped. It does sort of feel like a large dead animal is laying on top of you, but I was really glad to have it. We would have froze. Hell, we would have gone to a B&B.

I took a bunch of pictures...mostly of rocks. I just got attached to these rocks. They were by the St. Augustine pier.

I know...you're saying, "please for the love of God, enough with the rocks!" They were very cool though.

Oh yeah...brains the size of my pinky toe. For those of you who don't surf, I'll explain. "Locals only" is a term used by really stupid, small minded people who think they own a certain 50 feet or so of ocean. They only allow, (or imagine they have that power), those of their mental gene pool to surf in their little 50 feet of the world. People like this are sad. They are the reason surfers have a reputation for being total dim bulbs.

I was real into patterns this day.

Here's Gerry sort of cold. He is able to take it better than me.

Here's me totally freezing my butt off. Did I mention how much I hate the cold?

A courtyard in St. Augustine.

Here's Gerry all frisky in the cold.

And here's me totally done with it. All I wanted at this point was a warm restaurant and a bowl of soup. Which we did find. An Irish place with the most incredible clam chowder I've ever had. New England clam. It had fresh rosemary in it along with a bayleaf and butter. It was incredible.

We also went to an arts and crafts show. Have to support my fellow handmade folks. Bought a really cool little purse made from recycled fabric for Che and a really neat hummingbird wall hanging for Bridget. The artist who made the hummingbird's name is Bruce Cook. We talked for a while with him and his wife. Real nice people. That's one of my favorite things about camping. We always meet interesting people.

Honey combs and color variations

I finally got the tie on done...sort of. It was still a little wonky but I said the hell with it. This is a learning piece anyway. I could have fiddled with it for days. The warp was doing some weird stuff after I started weaving too. When I put the heddle in the up position, the bottom warp was all loose. After I started working the pattern with the pick up stick, it started to normal out some.
This honey comb pattern is really fun. I love watching it take shape. I'm using a single ply funky cotton for the weft. It has like an uneven spin. I love purple and green together. Orange too. Big fan of the "secondaries" I guess.