Joyfulabodes rescue dog mission

Talking to someone on etsy chat tonight I found out she has rescued a poor stray dog

She is needing money to help with the vets bills and a loving forever home for the happy looking boy

There will be a raffle in a couple of weeks so I am gonna make a wee fuzzy of him. Anyone else with ideas please contact her at her blog

http://www.joyfulabode.com/blog/2008/08/31/our-rescue-dog-how-you-can-help/

Who cant love his little face

What is dog agility??

I have been asked a couple of times 'what is dog agility?' so I thought I would put something up

Basically it is a sport where the handler directs the dog on a course with jumps and obsticles (A-frame, dogwalk, sea saw) Like horse jumping the fastest round with the least faults is the winner.

It is a huge sport with many people off to shows every weekend. Its exciting to watch and the dogs totaly love it.

Visit the clear run website (link on the right) to find out more

Heres a couple of vids of dogs in training (thanks to Carol of Clear run)

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r57/clearrunagility/?action=view&current=beginnersagilityOct2007-1.flv

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r57/clearrunagility/?action=view&current=weave.flv

Haloween and big cats

Heres the latest batch

Including a wee haloween treat :o) Jack Skellington from nighmare before christmas

He is for the NFEST August challange

He was fun to make but there are some really great other peices out there so I dont think he will do to great

The other entries can be found on the needle felting forum link on the sidebar

I also spent a bit of time reshoting some other fotos, this, I think, is much better than before.

As he is a panda, and a teeny one at that (less than 2 inches tall) I thought that I would look cute on some of my chineese dishes. so I sat him infront and balanced him on some chopsticks. I think this gave him a bit more cheek :o)

Hopefully other people will think so too. I have never really done photography and so I am trying to learn all the time

Didnt manage to get a Friday Feature this week as I didnt give people enough time to reply to my questions but hopefully soon I will have that up and running.

It will be fun to feature other peoples work a bit more. Makes this more interesting than just looking at my stuff all the time!

Last night as a beginner

Well today was lots of weaving practise

Ben was totaly excited and bouncing and barking everywhere.

We only have 5 weaves in the house so I am chuffed he can do the 12, not 100% yet, 1, 2, miss a few, but he knows where to go in and that he has to wiggle

Darwin has got quite a turn of speed on the weaves - well done him

and of course looby is like a rocket, and ruddy was doing really well too.. Its good that all that dogs are really getting it

Then some jumping and turns - no prob - Ben was a star and didnt put a paw wrong

Teddies

Thought I would have a wee go at teddies

I am not nonmaly a pink person but this wool was so bright I thought it would be interesting to see.

Never tried bears before but I am fairly happy how this one turned out
this little girl is up for sale right now in the shop
I have called her Suzi the wellcome home bear as I think she just looks so happy to see you

the others are comming soon

I had planned on more gothy scare bares but the wool had other ideas and wanted to be megga happy!

K and Js wedding

Thinking about what to get K and J I had a look on Etsy for something with the frog prince theme

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5581699

The story is that K didnt think much of J when she 1st met him, it wasnt until she had had a few beers and shared a wee kiss with him that he changed from a frog to her prince

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5601157

Found these two on etsy - will speak to the bloke and see which he thinks

Elephants

I decided to have a go at some elephants using the new colourful wool I have.

I did the bigger purple one 1st, the trunk took ages cos I didnt use wire or anything and alll them wrinkles but I am fairly happy with how it worked out

It looks nice and happy

and then I tried the small one with my expensive silky fleece. owww, lots more fiddly finger jabbing (no blood just pain) but he seems to have a happy character too

Bens agility

We next week is the last week we will be in beginner class - we are moving up

So is Bens pall Darwin - I am really glad about that

Today he did great

I stopped trying to copy the collie handlers and ran like I was running my dog and it worked perfect

almost no mistakes

row of jumps and a tight turn to the weaves - no way things I but the little star runs all the jumps (well plods but I am sure speed will come) then sticks with me for the turn and off out to the weaves

the only thing carol could say was that after about 8 weaves he did look up but then kept going - looking for some reasurance, so we put him in again and when he looked up (at the exact same place) I said 'weave' again in a happy voice and he carried on.

A frame much better today. Last time he was jumping off the contacts (we do a down at the end of the contaccts) then I realised it was because I was stooping down and pointing down and he was jumping over my arm. This time I just stood upright past the A-frame and said down and he ran to the floor and lay down - what a clever boy and a rubbish handler

Wall hanging

With the lovely colours I have got my hands on I thought I would have a go at a 2d peice of art!

Inspred by some of the lovely sunsets there are I had a go at this

Sunset over loch lomand

My 1st etsy sale

Yeah, I made my v 1st etsy sale today

Its a cat I made as a trial a little while ago - I didnt really like it - shows how much I know

Seems like people like cats more than dogs just now, Brian will be happy as he is a cat man

Latest item, cute blue mini cat

Heres my latest felt pet

A tiny blue kitten

He is only about one inch tall but i think he has tonnes of characture. I had planned him to be an elegent siamees or something but he just didnt want to turn out that way - these animals are really starting to misbehave, the other day I was trying to make a monkey for Brian and I had to work really hard to prevent it becoming a lion - thats what it really wanted to be!!

Agility last night

No fotos, do wish I had a camera there when Carol was running around pretendin to be the dog
too funny

I was a bit rubbish tonight, I guess going behind Looby Lou I was imagining I had a rocket powered dog who just ran to the next obstical
Forgetting Ben is only young and I have to make sure he is commited to the obsticle before I start thinking about the others

Have to work on the weaves this week as if I move too soon he is jumping out and missing one

Latest puppy

I have been doing a bit of work on puupies

Here is my latest one, based on a real dog from dogsey. and when I showed the lady who owend the dog she did this lovely sketch of Ben as a puppy

Baccas Bowel cancer charity

Thought I sould get serious for a moment and explain one of the reasons I am making these felt pets

In April 2006 my dad lost his fight to Bowel cancer

Myself, my mum and little sis have set up a charity in his honour - BACCAS, to help educate people about the cancer and raise awareness of the desease

The links at the side will take you to the charity page

Or on ebay if you go advanced then you can donate a % of your sale price direct to baccas. Might have to search to find us 1st time but once you have done it once baccas is always on your list

But the main fundrasing idea is to have cocktail parties, any size, lovely people have had small parties in there houses, medium events in halls and we have even had someone hold their 40th brithday party for BACCAS

Please get in touch if you want more info

This blog post is part of Zemanta's "Blogging For a Cause" campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Teeny panda

I had a go at a small critter

This little boy is only about 1 inch high but the detail is almost as much as a big sculpture

Many many finger stabbings went into this one but his wee face just made it all worthwhile

Hopefully he will find a loving home and escape my workbox

Some older fotos of needle felted work

Here are some of my 1st attempts. Hopefully I will be able to see my improvments as time goes on

What is needle felting

As I cant find my camera today I thought I would post a wee descriprion of what needle felting is
(as I understand it - I am a neweb)

Felting fabrics from fleece is the oldest method of making fabric, raw fleece is agitated in water so the fibers matt together
Industry wanted to speed up and scale up this proccess so they invented the felting needle.
It is a needle with barbs on the sides that hook into the individual fibres and mat them togehter
Many many needles are used at once to create a felt

Artists then borrowed the idea of the needles to dry needle felt sculptures
Fleece is shaped by jabing the needle into the fleece thousands of times
A wire frame can be used or freehand, either way these sculptures take many hours to make (and it can be bloomin sore when you jab your finger)
By using coloured fleece, other materials (angora, mohair, dog, bamboo, silk) and different thicknesses of needle really lifelike detailed sculptures can be made

Agility

Last week I got Bens forms back from the KC

He is now officialy

Ben Mcfuzzylugs

Now all we have to do is to get him measured. I think we can do that at the end of the month and keeping all fingers and toes crossed that he will be a medium. (love this foto of us - shows how happy he is and it hides my face)

Well I thought I would start this blog to keep track of Bens agility wins (pffftthhh - well his comps anyway) and my progress with my fuzzies

My fuzzies are needle felted sculptures of dogs

I have been so lucky and amazed that people wanted to but them off of me

Above are some of the custom dogs I have made for people

How to needle felt - eyes and pawpads

Now for the final touches.

There are many ways to felt eyes, and I usualy felt them straight onto the sculpture right where I want them but it is a little easier to felt them onto the pad and then line them up on the sculpture.

Make 2 eye shapes from small balls of black fleece

- lift the peice from the foam and turn it often to prevent it becoming too embedded in the pad.

Take two small peices of white fleece and roll them between your fingers to make a small sausage shape.

Felt them into a C shape on one corner of the black eye shapes - leaving a small rim of black as this will be the edge of the eye.

Take two slightly larger peices of fleece in the eye colour - blue in this case.

Again roll them into a sausage shape and then felt on above the white C shapes on each eye.

The final effect is better if you can leave a tiny bit of black showing between the white and the blue - it looks more cartoony that way.

If this C is too fiddly you could add a circle of blue and then a smaller circle of black ontop to make the pupil.

Now take a tiny peice of white felt and to the side of the pupil area felt a small downwards pointing triangle shape - this is the glint in the eye.

Position each eye and felt it into place - you can felt it in in a slightly curved shape to make it look more eyelike.

For the pawpads roll 4 large(ish) balls of fleece and 16 smaller balls

Felt the larger balls onto the paws near the bottom

Take care here not to push the needle all the way through to the top of the paw as this will take some of the black fleece through and give you black spots on the white paw.

Add the smaller pawpads, 4 to each paw

If your paws are small or the pads quite large it can still look OK with just 3 mini pads

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