A book .... a dream on hold....

Once upon a time, in a far-off patch of woods, near the small village of Oakton, there lived a very kind goat. Every autumn he won first place at the Red Oak Festival with his honey-and-acorn pies.Before each Festival, he would make his important journey to visit the friendly honeybees on the other side of the village to gather honey and acorns for his pies. Long ago, the honeybees had promised Mr. Goat that he could keep all of their extra honey, but only if every year he would plant some clover for them. So, Mr. Goat kept his word and every spring he planted clover. For this, the bees were very grateful.

One morning, as he was on his way to the creek with two empty gourds on his shoulders, he bumped into Mrs. Squirrel and her little mouse helpers." Good morning, Mr. Goat," she said, "I know you usually come to pick up the acorns at my burrow, but I have a tea party to attend, so I decided to bring them to you, with the aid of my little friends.""That was most thoughtful of you, Mrs. Squirrel. I shall therefore not detain you any longer." Mr. Goat then went on his way.

As he continued through the woods, Mr. Goat encountered Mrs. Opossum and her two children, out taking a little walk. She was busy holding her baby in her arms while her other child followed behind her, skipping a rope ."How glad I am to see you, Mr. Goat," exclaimed Mrs. Opossum. "I will be bringing some newly threshed wheat for your pies to your home tomorrow.""Oh, thank you Mrs. Opossum; but please, there's no need to rush, the Festival is still a whole week away," he answered considerately."Well, nevertheless, I will try to come by tomorrow."Then Mrs. Opossum waved and off she went down the forest lane.

Mr. Goat had just reached the bank of the creek when he heard two familiar voices croaking a duet in the water. He turned around to see his friends, the tree frogs, practicing their song for the upcoming Festival."My, what a lovely melody," Mr. Goat remarked. "Are you the only tree frogs participating this year, or will your entire clan perform? You did such a nice job last year!" The oldest of the frogs blushed slightly."It will be just my sister and I, this time." Smiling, Mr. Goat answered, "Well, keep up the good work," then turned and crossed the creek.

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Here are few pages of my book......

For almost five years now I have been working in and out on illustrating my first book using wool as my main palette colors. You have no idea how many forms of illustrations I have done for my story and how I change for one to another.... I have about 4 different mediums done by far and some I had other artist helping me but at the end I decided to do the entire book using the wool ( needle felted flat ) to depict my story.

Almost 2 years ago , I start working with mold making and thinking about making porcelain dolls. I had to divide my time and thoughts plus the marionette theatre was at full speed.

Crazy, Crazy but fun , fun. life is good ,no? *grin*

Well, I finished the book and got all my prices to have it printed in large quantity. I started then visiting local schools and see how they would respond if I would come to do author visitation and to my delighted surprise , most of schools were eager to have me and also the theatre.

One thing that I learned was that I would had to devote a LOT of time going here and there , school to school and all of the sudden it hit me. I realized that I am not ready to be way from my home, farm and children ( oh yes, my husband too,grin) in order to present/sell the book. I do want to do this ,but not *now*.

I am engaged -big time- with patitadolls and that it self plus the Marionette Theatre
is all I can handle right now . The book will have to wait few more years... meanwhile , I will continue read to my children .

Folk Story Tail

About three years ago , I made a mouse and some babies and gave as a gift. Recently I was request as commission work to make them once again.

They were made from 100% farm sheep's wool but the *rug* and and the book is felted alpaca.

Their tails has wire so one can easily pose it.

Here they are .... Hope you like Cheryl!smiles, Patricia~

Illustrating.....

I thought it was about time for me to share with you a little about the books that I have been working on. This particular illustration is a WIP and here you can see the progress as it comes. This process is done with 2 ideas in mind. One is a flat illustration , in which is done with clean dyed wool and the other is the sculpted characters. This is a new approach to illustrating Children's book and I sure hope that other fiber artists will follow me with the desire to grown in this area. My first book ,One sweet lesson, will be realised on mid-summer. This book was a long process for me mostly because I was *lost* many times without knowing what to do. I am confident that both story and illustrations will warm your heart as it has on mine.

Wee herbs....

If you take a leisurely stroll through a kingdom of green trees, blossoming flowers and spiced air,
you will find many busy forest-mice harvesting bundles and baskets of flowers and herbs.
Most mice-folk are fond of freshly plucked herbs to garnish their cheese and salads but many
are wise and swiftly hang their herbs to dry-usually in a knobby hollow of a tree or perhaps draped
against a large tree stump or boulder .In fact ,this is the most common way of drying herbs ( countless thousands of human-folk have passed through woods in the spring time and mistakenly believed bundles of herbs to be moss!) Such a thought…..
Rosemary is a particular favorite with forest- mice ( hence the many mice named so) as well as thyme, savory and sweet marjoram , to state a few.
For medicine tonics and balms, feverfew, and coltsfoot are among the easily recognizable in their glass jars upon the shelves. And we mustn’t forget tea time – Chamomile and Dandelion are often served in the afternoon . But perhaps the sweetest delight is not for our forest friends but for a human- folk. For the herbs that hang to dry throughout the spring give flavor to the air and life to the forest breeze. Perhaps in your next ramble through the woods, you will be able to detect the fragrances of the drying flowers and herbs and appreciate them as they were meant to be.

You can meet Mrs Mouse at my etsy store by clicking the etsy gadget

Storyteller Mouse

I have a little mouse almost ready for eBay listing and although *she* is not the one you see on the clip above , I want to share it anyways. The little mouse above lives with my friend, Paul, in Paris. He is a master in graphics and he made me this clip, isn't it sweet?

Bear's progress

Here is a picture of my bear that I have been working on... there is a lot more to do .

I love Jacob sheep's wool because its natural color and ability to felt.

The wool you see at the background is from our own sheep and was skirted and washed only. I am combing a little at a time as I need too.

Wool processing is very relaxing to me ... I really enjoy it... but making the animals is my favorite!

Making eyes and a new Bear

I know these eyes don't look the best but they were still wet when I took the pictures.



I have always uses wool alone for the eyes , but since many times making polymer sculpted fairies I would make my eyes in insert on the dolls, I decided to try it out and I can tell you that I *really* like the end results.





Last night I spent over 5 hours making my new bear. I was only able to make his head because when I needle felt I like to add thin layers at a time to allow the final sculpture to be very firm.


I made many sculptures that were much softer than what I do now , but is like .... improving... it is very hard when a needle felted artist felts a sculpture firmly , to go back to soft... at least that is the case with me. I will upload his progress.... I thought to make a fish to go with him. This will be a fairytale bear and he will be holding a hand full of worms. A gift to Mr. fish.
I Like to think that this will be a * Covenant of Peace* between these two.* grin*

Bunny Video

Ohhh , I had a lot of fun making this little video today but boy is so short. I have to try it again..... I used close to 20 pictures... can you believe it? Any way ,this set is ready , here is a picture.I will list them on ebay tonight or Tomorrow.
What do you think?

Mother's Day Bunny

Hi, I am here once again doing what I like to do the most- felt! Felting is a time consuming art but I love it so very much. Fairytales are my favorite. This bunny is part of a project that I have in mind. She is a working in progress. Right now she is tightly felted but she is missing some trimming and all her details. She will have a little girl bunny,I will be making a motion video , a *very* short one . I made a *tryout* with my fox, Silvano and I really liked it . I will be posting my progress here.

iturtle

This Turtle was needle felted and has a Roomba base.With no need to feed , he cleans up for us!grin! Take a look: