Getting there!

This doll's extra joints allow for more expressiveness and poseability - I'm considering experimenting with even more joints.....elbows, wrists and ankles. Quite difficult to achieve in cloth, but not impossible! The painting is almost complete and I'm ready to move on to the next steps toward completion.

Almost ready now to finish the wig and make some clothes.

Needlefelting fun!

A couple of months ago I found an adorable picture of a baby hedgehog that someone had posted on the Book of Faces............it was just the sweetest little thing! (Apologies for not acknowledging who took the photo - I don't know who it was)>

There is something particularly endearing about a hedgehog and I've had this picture in the back of my mind since I first saw it. So last night (rather late to be starting something!) and armed with wool, felting needles mohair (and a supply of bandaids), I started needle-felting my own version of a baby hedgehog. I had so much fun that I couldn't stop - here's what I ended up with sometime way after midnight!

Update

Been away teaching.......but I found a little time to attach the arms and finish the neck joint of this multi-jointed doll I'm working on: now she can pose and play! The painting is not quite finished, but soon she will be wigged and dressed and ready to go on her way. This doll has got me thinking about other jointing possibilities.........elbows, wrists, ankles..........for a greater range of movement possibilities. We'll see!

Multi-joints

Be better when the arms are on!

Watermelon Summer

We've never tried to grow watermelons........Tasmania's climate is just too cool to try growing things like that - we thought. A couple of months ago Bob came home from a trip to the nursery with a couple of melon seedlings....."to throw in the greenhouse and see what happens". No expectations. Well, it did happen! One day I was watering in there and a saw several large, green, globular objects.....MELONS! They had seemingly appeared overnight.

I had no idea about how to tell when they were ripe, so they just sat there looking green and smug, swelling slightly by the day. then someone told me to knock them, and when they sound hollow, they are ripe. So I did that, and with great trepidation harvested the first one last night.....and I must say it was astounding - so delicious!

Grandson Laurence about to take the first-ever bite!

And here are a couple of little projects I have completed in the last little while.

With some friends!

Did I ever mention that I love my job?