The Results

What a fun 3 hours! I have just returned home (in an horrendous snowstorm!) from a morning felting with 18 second graders(8 years old). They were so good and had real fun especially with the soapy water part!! I bet their hands have never been so clean!!!

Thank you 2B!

So here is what we did

First we covered the ball with white roving

and then added the colour..

Yarn was then wrapped around to help keep the roving in place

The balls were put into tights legs, wetted and gently rolled.

Now the wool had started to felt, more gentle rolling

Now comes the hot soapy water and away they go!

Final rinse

Final roll on towels to remove some of the water

All ready to play!

Still here

Ticking along through a grey winter which finally has cheered up with the arrival of snow and colder temperatures.
I have been back in the workshop and finally getting round to completing a few projects that have been gathering dust, one for almost 2 years - another post on that one!
I have also been planning a project to do at my son's school....
Take 20 or so excited 8 year olds

each with one of these......

 

add some of this ...

and some extra bits from a goodie bag from World of Wool...

Next comes the fun bit with soap and water...

 

and we will need plenty of these........

Watch this space for the end results......................................................!!

Sold out...

Well almost - 16 Aliens, 48 pincushions, 22 Tonttu hats and 53 Alien postcards amongst other things have all gone to new homes! One very happy felter here! Just a couple of orders to complete and then time to turn my thoughts to our Christmas. The first task is to get the Christmas cards in the mail before New Year and then hunt out where I have hidden all the little gifts I have been gently stockpiling over the last couple of months!
No snow here in Southern Finland yet, just wet and grey - not very cheery I must say, however we have just put the tree up and the Children have liberally applied a great assortment of decorations which must date back at least 25-30 years. Enough to bring a smile to any face!

So May the force be with you...

and a Jolly Green Christmas from these guys!  HO HO HO!

Down the line

4 years for the little man and 10 months for me - after diagnosis day that is.
How are we doing? Well as I said to the doctor today, we are just getting on with life. The kids rushing out the door at the last minute to walk to school, me filling and the refilling the washing machine, restocking the fridge, wondering(again) what to cook for supper - life just trundles along, generally quite happily.
Yes some days are not so great, I struggle to haul myself out of bed some dark grey November mornings, blood sugar numbers do such weird things and I hate not understanding why and the milk has run out. Then there are those little victories that mean so much - finally the nine timestable makes sense to my little lady, at midnight seeing a 'spot on' 6.5mmol/l blood sugar reading and the emergence of another needle felted creature that makes me smile.
Sometimes those little things really grind you down but then so often it is also a little thing that will make you smile and make you realise life is good!

Let them eat cake....

and ice cream!

Pig cake!

It's my birthday and I will have ice cream!

Guess the carbs in that ice cream - we almost got it right!
My little man turned 8 a couple of weeks ago - still my baby!!

2 hours old!

Finally Felt!

So I haven't been totally idle these last few weeks, some experimenting, some playing and some money spinners!

Totally!

I'm glad nobody asks what I did at work today!

Practising their ho ho ho's!

Your door stop is watching you!

The alternate Christmas decoration!

The big guys!

Organised chaos I promise!

Catch up

October next week! 3 months to Christmas! It's all going too fast! So much to do , so much to tell! Felting will finally get a look in soon  - I have been busy in my chaos of a workshop and just need to take some photos of the latest creations. It has been good to get back to 'work' even though some days I struggle to motivate myself to do much at all. A 5 day craft fair a couple of months away is actually a good kick up the backside to get busy! Here's something I made this summer.

A seat pad for the bench outside the sauna -black and red representing the Karelia region

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_pennants_of_Finland

All trundling as smoothly as is even vaguely possible on the Diabetes front, HbA1c 7.4, new Enlite CGM sensors to try and also Mio infusion sets instead of Quicksets. Will let you know how we get on.
Big step - trip away for me and my dear husband, 3 nights 4 days - Olli's brother and wife are looking after the children - sounds straight forward until you throw in Diabetes as we all well know. We have already had one set change 'tutorial' and crash course in carb counting! Next task to type out some step by step instructions for the set change, not as easy as it sounds. Some things are so automatic now, you don't realise you have done them but we can do this!