Dragon eggs and more

How do you deliver a dragon? In an egg of course! Hence I have been practicing my papier mache skills.

Of course we then needed dragon cards as well

Finally, as it was the grand birthday weekend (my daughter shares a birthday with her son, and her daughter is two days later) of course my daughter needed a birthday cake

So all in all it has been quite a productive week. Hopefully back to some whittling next week.

Summer Hat

This weeks project is a summer hat, crocheted in a raffia yarn.

The yarn was easier to work with than I expected, although it did make my hands ache so I couldn't work on it for long stretches at a time. It was also sturdier than I was expecting and I only had one breakage whilst working with it, and that was a bit that gor damaged on the zip of my bag.

The hat fits well and I am really pleased that I will be able to wear it with my hair in a ponytail. The usual problem with sun hats is that I can't wear them with my hair up so I look forward to wearing this. Now I ust need to decide if/how I am going to stiffen the brim.

Dragon 2 - and a new spoon too

Finished the second dragon this week

I do hope they are going to be friends.

Another tow large ones to do and then a couple of baby dragons. 

Also this week another spoon.

I'm really enjoying this. I think I'm ready to go onto a piece of 'real' wood next week.

So far I have used some limewood (basswood) blocks I bought from Amazon, but now I'm going to start carving logs from the garden. All I need to remember is it doesn't matter if it goes wrong, I haven't wasted anything but a bit of time (and I'm good at that anyway!)

Woodcarving!

This week I made a heatproof table mat for my sister-in-law's birthday.

This was a nice simple project. I just took a fat quarter of fabric, backed it with a piece of heatproof table protector, and bound the edges with bias binding.

But my exciting project of the week was whittling. I've had a fancy to whittle spoons, so to that end I ordered a whittling book and some knives and some basswood to practice. Eventually I want to whittle wood from the garden.

My order arrived this week so I set too. Firstly I did a couple of exercies from the book.

The lefthand piece was practicing cuts and the right hand piece is the start of a ball. Having done these I decided to start on a spoon. I just played it by ear and I am super chuffed with the result!

I've decided it is a coffee scoop. Now it just needs oiling. I feel a lot more spoons in my future.

Two things I have learned - don't do a push cut with a hook knife! And blood makes a good brown tain for basswood. Fortunately I was able to carve the bloodstain away.