Schnauzer

Here’s my latest addition. He’s 4” tall and almost 3” from front to back.

For some reason as he was coming alive there was absolutely no resemblance to anything until the nose was in place. Then he really came together. Most of my other creations start taking on a persona much earlier in the process. I’m glad I kept on; before the nose I was considering starting over.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Don't tell my cat...

that I'm making needle felted dogs instead of cats.

I've made another needle felted creation. I finally dug up the Fleece Dog needle felting book I bought at this May’s Doll and Teddy Bear Show so I could get started on some new projects. Here’s my first creation from that book. It’s supposed to be a French bulldog, I hope it’s recognizable to all you dog lovers. It resembles the photo in the book. From the heading of this post you can guess I am a cat lover so any resemblance my needle felted dogs is purely coincidental. J It’s not that I do not like dogs, I just like cats better. Actually I’ve been going to Nancy’s blog again and I am amazed at her needle felted creatures.

He’s 3” tall and 3” from nose to rump… a square dog???

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Back again

Hello again to all you bloggers. I have been away for quite some time and hope to restart my needle felting and mohair projects again.

I attended a doll and bear show this past May and I am able to make expenses by attending a show at home. I got lots of compliments on my mohair teddy bears but not very many went to new homes. I did get a few ideas at the show for making new needle felted projects for dolls; dogs and cats in particular. I still am playing around with different animals in the mean time.

I finally found a place in the Etsy world that sells mohair and Cotswold sheep locks for needle felted projects. Go to http://www.etsy.com/shop/LaTeaDaDesigns for locks. Marti was very helpful putting together a small sampler package of the different kinds of locks she has available. I also picked up a package of her natural dark reddish brown llama roving. All the items I received are great to work with. At this time I have put together another owl using the mohair locks. The only reason I have not used the Cotswold lock is the color, grays and blacks didn’t work into my owl. An excuse for more projects...

This owl is 7” tall and 4” wide. As of yet he/she doesn’t have a name.

Thank you for stopping by,

Mark

Belated Happy New Year!

I'm only a week late... I hope everybody is having a great start to the New Year. From watching the weather lately it looks like it’s kind of tough in the Eastern half of the country. We are supposed to get some of the effects of the cold here but at this point it has not arrived yet, I am thankful for that.

I took some extra time off from work to unwind knowing that the start of the new year will be hectic. Thinking that I would be able to relax and do a few things for fun didn’t always work out. I got to replace the automatic garage door opener and help a plumber dig out our water line from the street to the house since the 52 year old galvanized water line decided to rupture a couple days ago. It’s a good thing I remembered how to run a shovel. The plumber’s helpers showed up when we had about 1’ of trench left to dig. I couldn’t have planned that timing any better myself. As of this morning we have running water back in the house. The first thing I did was jump in the shower. I don’t know how those pioneers did without running water. No doubt they were a tougher, smellier group than us!

I did have time to enjoy the birds in our back yard while having the time off. We have 6 bird feeders going in the back. I saw several different birds that I have not seen in the yard before; gold finches, a mountain chickadee and either a sharp-shinned hawk or Coopers hawk. This is in addition to all the doves, robins, sparrows, finches, hairy woodpeckers, juncos, scrub jays, towhees and flickers. I did get a few good photos of some of them. I was surprised at the hawk. We live I the middle of the city and never expected to see a hawk. When I go in the back yard I usually scare the doves and hear them taking off in a frenzy. One time I heard the doves take off even faster like there was something after them, and yes I saw the hawk sitting on the power line above the bird feeders.

I was also successful in finding a nifty kitty toy for Babee. It is a refillable catnip field mouse, by Kong. She’s still playing with it! She usually quits playing with her toys even sooner than kids wear out the batteries on their own toys. Occasionally I have to hunt around the house to find the mouse because Babee seems to lose it but once it makes its appearance she starts playing with it again.

I have been busy with needle felting and have included a couple of photos of my latest bears. They are 4” and 6” tall when standing.

I wish everyone a healthy and happy 2010

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark

Show time

I did the Albuquerque Doll and Bear show on Saturday. It went quite well, I adopted out two of my mohair teddy bears and two of my needle felted pieces; Hootie the owl, and my very small 2 ½” cat. I’ve included a few photos from the show.

Since this is a doll, accent on doll, and bear show most of the vendors are selling dolls and doll related items. There were only four bear artists, out of the approximate 40 spaces total. All the bear people were put together so we could sit and talk about the doll people :-)

It seems that there still is money around for those people that have such strong urges to add to their collection(s). I spoke with the promoters and they said the attendance was up over 25% over last year’s show. I don’t know if 25% more money was spent but we were busy most of the time with browsers.

We, the bear people, were kind of creeped out by some of the dolls that were there. Some of them looked exactly like newborn babies. If I didn’t seem them unpacked from the boxes and placed in baskets on the display tables I would have bet they were the real thing. We saw several customers walking through the show carrying these ‘infants’ around as though they were real.

I tend to think that bear people are a little closer to normal, unbiased opinion :-)

Since I had a successful show I get to go back and make more bears and needle felted pieces. My next showing will be at the ToonaRoona Holiday Open House on Saturday December 12, from 10AM – 3PM. Go to www.ToonaRoona.com for more information. It’s the place to go if you collect dolls and Mark’s Bears.

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark

Groucho

Meet Groucho, my latest needle felted creation. He’s 3 ½” long from nose to rump and 2” tall at the shoulder. By looking at his face you can see why I named him Groucho. He has a full wire armature so all four legs, his tail and his head can be posed. I was starting with a cat in mind but when he showed up he looked more like a dog.

I’m getting quite a family of animals together for the Doll and Bear show on the 14th. A few bears, cats, a dog an owl and a few other critters.

I also had a wisdom tooth pulled today. I won’t include a photo of the tooth. The painful part was getting the shots to numb the area. I felt the tooth came out fairly easy, at least in my estimation. I did get a bit queasy as my head was being pulled back and forth from one side to the other as he was working on it. It wasn’t the actual extraction that made me queasy, it was thinking about what he was doing. I made sure to keep my eyes closed so I didn’t see tools he was using to remove the tooth. After seeing the tooth I’m surprised it came out so easy.

Thank you for stopping by.
Mark

Owl sighting!

Yes, believe it or not there was an owl sighting in my back yard. He is so tame I could go right up to him and take his photo! :-)

This is my latest needle felted creation. He’s 6 ½” tall with wires in his feet so the claws can be bent around different objects. It worked quite well in my maple tree. Now I plan on going out into the mountains to find a piece of wood to have him cling to for the show next month. I basically copied the idea from “Animal Felt” by Birgitte Krag Hansen a Danish needle felter.

On to my next project.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Merry Christmas

Ha, I thought I’d get it in; I’m not the first, I was up at Lowe’s last week and saw the Christmas decorations already, with people looking! Haven’t even made it to Halloween and the Christmas stuff is up.

I opened with that line because as you can see I finished another bear, this time a polar bear with his Santa hat. I swore to myself I would not go to dressing my bears although putting a hat on him isn’t really dressing him. He’s 4” tall, 5 ½” with the hat.

I felted this cat a few weeks ago, I don’t remember when though. I made sure to look through my other posts to make sure I didn’t post him already and forgot that too! That would be a real senior moment, or two. He’s 2 ½” long, 3 ½” with his tail.

I also got my confirmation package for ‘The Albuquerque Doll and Bear Show’ for Saturday November 14. Each of my newly felted animals will be making their debut at the show. They may also be coming to work for a few weeks to guard my desk from terrorists! ;-)

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

It felt good

I finally got back to needle felting after my trip planning, travelling, blog writing and slide show producing. I don’t remember working so hard after going on a trip before.

I’ve also been surfing the web way too much lately, so I decided to start with a needle felting project and as I got further along creating I really enjoyed it more and more. I had lots of bear photos from my trip so I had good models to work from. I haven’t decided on a name yet. We’ve named all my mohair bears in the past so I guess I will keep up the tradition. He’s 7” long from tail to nose and stands about 4” tall. He’s modeling with the spool of thread for scale.

I have sent a check off for exhibiting in the next doll and bear show here in Albuquerque in November so I think I will be making needle felted animals for a bit to see how they do at the show.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark

Final day

Today is my last day on Vancouver Island. I had a great time and I’m hoping to return some day to see some of these sights again as well as many others.

I had my final breakfast at Captain Hardy’s restaurant. I ordered 2 pancakes which turned out to be the size of the plate and very thick. Since I knew I would be walking a lot I made sure to finish all of my breakfast.

The flight to Vancouver was uneventful, the plane was full the flight attendant was busy again with passing out snacks, drinks and candy just like on the way up to Port Hardy.

Once I Vancouver I caught a taxi to the Buchan Hotel close to Stanley Park, Vancouver’s version of Central Park in New York. From the outside the hotel looks like an apartment building. It has old wood flooring in the hallways and the rooms are quite small but comfortable. I wasn’t there for the hotel so basic hotel run locally was just fine for me. It turned out the hotel is only a block away from the park. I followed the seawall walk around the perimeter of the park. It was quite busy because it was a Sunday; there were walkers, bikers and skaters moving constantly. All in all I walked about 8 miles to/from and around the park.

That evening I walked a half block to Denman street where I had my choice of restaurants, coffee shops, galleries and almost anything you can think of. After dinner at one of the Greek restaurants I walked several blocks to English Bay and caught the sunset. The park was packed with many people of different nationalities.

Vancouver seems to be a special place. There are over 2.2 million people that live there. I visited only a small part of the city but on the rides to and from the airport the city was very clean. People seem to take pride in their city and clean up after themselves. Even at the parks there was little to no litter.

The next day I made the trip back home to NM. I had a great time on this vacation and I’m starting to think about my next one. My only hope is that Sue will be able to get away with me.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip. I really enjoyed writing about it.

Thank you for stopping by.

Mark