Thanksgiving

I've been knitting the soon-to-be-felted backpack all day (when not preparing a full turkey dinner). I looked online to see if I could find any tips on making a needlefelted pumpkin and came across a blog that had a great recipe for an apple crisp. Silly me, though; instead of apples, I used pears. Pears are much moister than apples. It ended like most of my adventures in baking.
It's not exactly a crisp, as much as a soft. My own fault though. I used to do the same thing that aniexma used to do - sprinkle the topping rather than pressing it, so the juices cook the topping. Her blog name is Madly Off in All Directions...I thought she must be a Canadian by the blog's name.
I still haven't found any tips on making a needlefelted pumpkin. I just don't know if you're supposed to work around a base or not. Back to searching....

What's new

I haven't written in a bit or uploaded any new pictures. I'm just not a superblogger with talent like Jayne Bingler. She writes See Jayne Blog and I was idly googling her last name when looking at old family photos, as her grandparents were great friends of my grandparents. I was looking for someone it turned out was her aunt's cousin, who I thought was in a photo with my mom as little girls. I found out the little girl in the picture was her aunt. If I have this right, her great aunt was my mom's godmother. When I first ran across her blog, she lived in Amsterdam, but is now back in Toronto. I'd also met neighbours of hers in the last year...strange coincidences.
So...what have I been up to? I couldn't resist the temptation to buy a needlefelting machine and I'm having a blast with it! I got a Huskystar ER10 and sat down right away and started playing.
I had a scrap of batting and material cut off from Retreat Leaves (see below) and since I'd also gone to the cool knitting store, Spun, next to Sewing Machines Etc., where I bought my needlefelter. I got some great rovings in there. I'm so envious of wonderful knitters. I can knit, but it's not an art form with me.

I've also been playing with postcards again for a swap. I've been using them as a way to practice my machine quilting, which has never made me happy. I practiced on some really old navy blue silk I'd made a lovely jacket from in high school, then layered it with some scraps, some gold organza, then took a heat gun to it. Some of the organza melted away. I got lots of good comments on it at guild last week.
For another, I simply practiced stitches. I'll be darned if I can get the gorgeous, tight circles other quilters seem to manage.
I used expandable paint to do the cross and what I think of as Baroque wallpaper image.

I'm looking forward to the retreat at the end of October, as I'll be able to do 4 straight days of fabric art. Of course, seeing as I have two midterm exams the week after, I'll also have to do some heavy duty studying as well. Taking two courses in one term is silly, but I'll get through them and have done with it.
I'm putting together another one of those wacky nine patches Heather Black showed me - pictures to follow if I get the borders on. I've ordered a whack of material from Hancock's of Paducah to make throws for friends' little girls. I wonder if their brothers will get ticked....