This is how I felt last night...

My daughter Bridget is knitting things...lots of things...and one thing is a little sweater that has a front panel that can be removed, rather than just a single placket for the buttons and corresponding holes. Anyway, we thought it would lend itself to two or three DIFFERENT panels for different times of the year - autumn, holiday, snowy January days, etc. As an experiment towards that end, Bridget knitted a gold panel and felted it in preparation for my needle-felting class. The class was last night and here is the finished panel - though I think I need to "needle" it a bit more, and I may add a few more long leaves. I had a great time at the class and will soon be felting everything - no sweater is safe! Purses, slippers, headbands, beware! The instructor also showed me how to make 3-dimensional felt sculptures - we did a fish and a jelly-fish. She told about a woman who will needle-felt-sculpt your dog from a picture you send her - and she gets $80 per 6-8 inch felt rendering of the pooch! what a way to make a living!

Birthday Cakes

This is a Bridget, in a first time guest post at Prairie Rants. We spent last week here at home and we're home for a little one day encore before going back to Orrin's family on their island in the Tippecanoe River for a couple days. But before we did we made some little bug birthday cakes for Silas and his cousins. When Mom visited Lucy in Colorado they stopped in at Williams Sonoma and bought this pan. So here's a little photo essay of mixing, baking, and decorating the birthday cakes. Stop by here in a few days (ok, maybe a week, I'll be jet lagged you know) to see more pictures of eating, smearing, and throwing birthday cakes.