Well, after a brief hiatus, I'm back with more felt fun for advent. I did give myself a bit of a break during this past busiest of weekends. Instead of felties I gave a couple of ornaments that I bought for just this prpose while we were in Siena. I love that our tree has ornaments from all the places that we have traveled as family. Here's one. It has the emblem of the Lupa (a contrada) and the black an white colors of Siena...

It makes me crazy happy. Also, taking a break from felting gave me a chance to enjoy all of the performances the lad was involved in over the weekend, plus I was able to get a toe hold on my holiday knitting (which I'm embarrassed to say, I'm just starting ~ let's just not talk about the fact that Christmas is mere days away, okay?).

I digress. Let's get back to the matter at hand...our recent visit from Mother Goose. Here she is...

I'm still loving stitching on these guys, so I decided a wreath of flowers was in order.

A quick word about my emerging felting process. I have watched a number of online tutorials on needle felting lately only to discover that I am apparently not doing it the way most people out there are doing it. I don't really care much, but I do think it's interesting. If you're interested in needle felting you should have a ramble around the web. There is lots of feltie goodness out there. Anyway, one thing I am still trying to figure out is how to add armiture wire to my felties using my current method, more or less, while still finding the process satisfying. Several of my felties hav wire skeletons, but I really don't like felting with the wire bases as much as I do without it. And because I am making these for immediate consumption, so to speak, I don't have a lot of time to experiment too much. I'm still working all of this out and it really isn't that important, but writing about it here will remind me where I was when I look back from the future.

Okay, that about does it but I just wanted to add one more thing. I had a birthday this past weekend. It was a wonderful day, and I don't mean to boast, but I did want to share one little thing with you. My darling daughter designed and made this lovely cowl for me. Isn't just perfect?...

Okay. It hasn't been blocked yet (the designer would want you to know that). I wanted to wear it right away and still need to give it back to her for blocking, but isn't it just dreamy?!!! I love it! And after being a handmade giver for most of my life, it is such a treat to be a handmade receiver.

Happy handmade to you and yours...

~xox~

alison