Today’s post is a
bit shorter than usual. I figure I did
enough rambling in the 2/6/14 post to bore you to tears, so you may be
in need of a break. A few functionary
things that some of you may not already know.
For those of you who don’t want to check every day to see if I’ve posted
anything, I’m going start posting on Mondays and Thursdays. This way, you’ll know when to expect it and I
won’t become absolutely consumed by it.
Although I know you anxiously await every single post from me and rush
home from work to see if I’ve written anything new (ha, ha!), there’s an easier
way to get the posts. You can “follow”
my blog via e-mail. (Groupies! Yay!) Here’s
how. While you’re reading my blog, look
to the right of the screen where it says “Follow By E-Mail” and submit your
e-mail address. Once you do this, my
blog will…through the magic of the internet…automatically be sent to you via
e-mail as soon as I publish a post. That
way you won’t miss a minute of the exciting life that is “Virginia Real”. Also, at the very bottom of the blog, there
is a view counter to show how many “Page Views” the blog has had so far. So you and I will be able to watch my fan
base explode. In addition, I will be
adding extra “pages” to the blog. They
look like folder tabs at the top of the blog, just under the “Virginia Real”
banner. So far, I have the “Home” page
that shows all of my posts and a “Gluten-Free Recipes” page where I will add
some of my favorite gluten-free recipes for those of you who would like them. I plan to add more pages in the future. Lastly, there is a "Comments" section, shown just below each post, where you can provide feedback on the stuff I write. I take all criticism as constructive criticism, so feel free to comment.
Below is a
picture of a felting experiment that I did about six months ago. It is based on the likeness of my pup, “Max,
the Wonder Dog”. (Although his head does
resemble that of a female lion, I think it’s a fairly decent effort and similar
to the way he actually looks.) In order
to get an approximate color of Max’s fur, I carded some natural-colored wool
and brown llama fiber with two wooden “carders,” which look like a bigger
version of cat slicker brushes. You
don’t always have to card the fiber, but I was trying to get a particular color
to match Max’s fur. Using a few pipe
cleaners, I fashioned the “bone structure”.
Then I wrapped pieces of the carded fiber around the pipe cleaners in
sections and “felted” them, using a felting needle. In essence, you just repeatedly and rapidly
poke your needle into the felt. You will
soon notice that the fiber takes shape and becomes more compacted. Adding more fiber as you go and using your
imagination, you can felt almost any shape.
Images of pets or people would make lovely Christmas ornaments that
would be treasured for years to come. A
word of caution…felting needles are extremely sharp and, if you don’t have extremely
good hand-to-eye coordination, it’s easy to use up a box of Band-Aids on the
consequences. Trust me. I know this to be true.
No comments:
Post a Comment