Photos from KY Sheep and Fiber Festival

At the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival I took two full day classes. The first one was making Santa. The second day was a sheep. Believe it or not, the sheep is harder. I left class with a completed Santa. I left class with 4 hours left of punching those curls all over the sheep. As you can see from the photo below,
I needed some guidance on what a sheep actually looks like. I took lots of photos of the sheep, in hopes of knowing what they look like from now on.
Meet Rebecca Booth from Punkin's Patch, a wonderful blog about raising sheep.
Isn't she just the cutest sheep? I love her color.

I don't know much about sheep (as evidence look at the first sheep I needle felted -HAH!), so I don't know what type she is, but if you visit the Punkin's Patch blog I am sure Sara tells you. All you have to do is click on Rebecca Booth to see the post(s) about Rebecca.

And they sell Rebecca's curls. I bought some of Rebecca's curls, hoping I can needle felt a sheep that will remotely look like her.

Off to my knitting group meeting.
So nice to have found a group within a few miles of home.

Off to classes .... again

I am headed to the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. I am going to be taking 2 all days classes on needle felting. The first day is making Santa Claus sculptures. The second day is making sheep. Since I have never taken a class on the needle felted sculptures I hope to come away all fired up.

I also hope I will get the opportunity to visit all the booths. (Wool for needle felting!!!) The problem being the booths are just Saturday and Sunday and I am planning to come home Saturday evening. I wish the booths were open on Friday after class. Oh, well, guess I will have to walk and shop fast.

I am keeping my Etsy shop open while I am gone this time, since I will be back Saturday evening. Anthing purchased while I am gone will be shipped on Monday.

Latest needle felted purse, finished and listed

This is the purse I showed in progress
(a few post down the page if you want to see it while I was working on it).
The first picture is what I call the back of the purse,
because the flap closure is on the other side.

Once it was completed I had a hard time making up my mind if it was going on Etsy, or my shoulder. (UPDATE: I did take it off Etsy before it could sell. It is regularly on my shoulder)

I know the butterfly isn't really a Swallowtail (at least not one that I have ever photographed). Have you ever tried to needle felt a Swallowtail? It ain't easy! LOL! So this is what I decided on after looking at my own bought clothing that had butterflies. None of those butterflies look like the real thing either. Notice the tiny little bead for his eye. I was afraid to use the size I have been using for the birds, thought it would be too big. Can barely see this one in person.

The last picture is the front of the purse. Notice the green at the bottom on the front and the back. It is needle felted across the bottom and goes up just enough on each side for the flower stems to start in the grass.

When I make these and list them on Etsy my thought is if they don't sell the nieces will get purses for Christmas this year. This past year they all received scarfs, (never listed on Etsy). The purses would be a step up, don't you think? So far, they are selling, some faster than others. The last one I sold was shipped to Alaska.

Knitting Project Update

The collage has several small purses I have made, the coral colored ones are the only ones I still have. The entrelac purple and green ones (little squares) were ordered by one person for his daughters. He also purchased one of these in 2 colors of blue, and the purple peace sign one.

In Atlanta I took 2 classes taught by Gwen Bortiner on entrelac. The first class was design and I didn't even get to pick up my knitting needles. The 2nd class with Gwen was Mix and Match in Entrelac. We knit this cap while in class. For those of you that don't know anything about entrelac, it usually does not have design and different colors in each square. I really enjoyed this class and teacher. She has a new entrelac book coming out August-September 2010, Entree to Entrelac. I do plan on purchasing it.

This purse was not going to be needle felted to begin with, but after I knit and felted it something about it was crying out for some blue butterflies. I couldn't resist.

Now to what I am currently working on. Almost every purse I knit to felt is a new pattern, I keep changing my designs. And with felting you can't be sure how it is going to turn out when it is felted. The one below turned out to my favor, but I had planned on needle felting a Northern Cardinal. Something was telling me to change my mind again and I have now started needle felting Black Eyed Susans, on the front.
And on the back. This is just the beginning stage.
I will show you again when I list it on Etsy.
I have now started another purse with 'basically' the same design as the one above. I have not even thought about what I am going to needle felt on it. Seems like I change my mind by the time it comes out of the machine from the felting process, so why think about it right now?