Modern Nuno Baby Quilt!

Painting by Paul Klee

It still feels strange to say it (since I feel so young and all!), but I'm going to be a grandparent soon! My stepson and his wife are expecting their first child, and I wanted to make something special that they'll hopefully use and keep.  I decided that a quilt-like, lightweight blanket would be fun to make with felt, and I was inspired by the painting above...

First I died some big pieces of silk paj in varying shades of blues and green, along with two huge pieces of hand-dyed silk chiffon that I overlapped slightly before laying on fine merino wool and tussah silk.  I cut and tore the silk paj into 5 x 5" pieces (132 of them, to be exact!), and laid them out so that the colors varied randomly.  I then wet it out and used the tumble-dryer method to felt it, then threw and scrunched it to full it.  The turquoise tussah silk seemed to run forever, but I finally got it to rinse clear!  (Turquoise always runs for a while, and my hands sure showed it!)

Silk pieces laid out on the base of chiffon, merino and tussah silk

Back of finished blanket

Close-up of finished blanket

The final product, a modern nuno baby quilt!  I sewed on a little tag, and tied on one of my sheep cards.  I think they liked it, and I can't wait to see that new little bundle of joy wrapped up in this!

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A Long Summer....

I haven't felt much like writing this summer, and I've been pretty busy with the kids, but since I'm tired of looking at that last post I thought I'd at least put up some photos!  These are a little self-serving, they'll be a good reminder to me of some of the past few months...  

I've been a bit tied down, and have especially enjoyed playing around with photography this summer...  there is always a lot of good content here on the farm, and I have gotten addicted to Instagram (you can follow me- I'm Alpacalindy) and various mobile photo apps, so fun!  I recently bought my first DSLR camera, a Canon Rebel 550D 2ti.  I'm loving it, and I hope to improve greatly on the photos I post here!  

I've also done quite a bit of felting, and I plan to share some of recent big projects soon, including a couple of butterfly shawls and a special baby blanket.

Mirian with Plum Pretty at AOBA Nationals in late May- she is available for sale!  (PP, not Mirian!)

We've had a lot of good family time.....

I've gotten some trail riding in despite the horrible heat! It's been fun to have Hoss come along.

We got to meet my new grand-nephew! Robert is practicing to be an uncle soon (and Paul and I are going to be grandparents!)

Nearby horse farms provide great subjects for playing with photo apps!

Jeffrey the lamb is finally off his bottle!

Everybody is growing... kids, lambs, and Hoss who is almost not a pup anymore!

We've had quite a few llama treks, despite the hot weather!  Here, Bob and Leo...

I've been making some big art shawls!

I hope that you have had a good summer, too!  

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