Kazak Star Felting Complete

my first stranded color work and felting project is now complete! Below is the mess that resulted when I was trying to work with all 5 colors in the same row. I tried to do this with the Fair Isle method, but eventually realized that the Fair Isle technique of carrying all the colors along the entire row really only works well for 2 or maybe 3 colors, any more than that is just too much yarn to mess around with.
by the middle of the piece, I switched to using just the minimum colors needed to make the background pattern, finished the entire piece and then went back over it using the duplicate stitch method to fill in the additional colors (like the purple middle stitch and yellow outlines). Overall this worked much better.
After I got it all seamed together came the fun part of felting it. I simply put it into the washing machine hot water, put a towel in for additional agitation and balance and then let it go through the normal wash cycle. Next time I will probably put it into a mesh bag and stop it before it goes into the spin cycle, but on this go round it worked out just fine with my "let er rip" approach.

The bag came out feeling like it felted properly (no pun intended), but it was really "furry" and so I took a shaver and trimmed off the excess "fur".
this is just one side's worth of removed fur.

and Viola! the finished product, looks pretty damned good if I say so myself.

Memorial Day Weekend

The backyard landscaping is progressing at a pretty good pace in spite of our general laziness. We just cannot seem to get up and out early enough to beat the heat and then must wait until after 6pm for a tolerable temperature to work outside. We did get all the new plants in the ground. I was really worried about the 2 additional Desert Willow trees we planted. The first one that went is finally in full leaf and has some really lovely flowers, but when these new ones came out of the pot is was apparent that they didn't really put out any new roots and probably should have stayed in the pot for a bit longer. We got them into the ground and every single leaf immediately wilted and eventually fell off, in fact they got really crispy and then fell off : ( So, being a novice landscaper, I have been obsessively worried about them and checked every single day to see if there were any new signs of life. Lo and behold, the trees have risen from death's doorstep! They still look like crap, but I think they really do deserve the name of Desert Willow and will be OK.

On the other hand the first one we planted is doing splendidly, and has bloomed with these lovely pinkish purple trumpet shaped flowers. They don't seem to have any particular scent, but they look great.

The whole yard is really coming together and we are both very, very pleased. We are now looking at backyard furniture and planning for a BBQ in June or July which will be a good motivator for us to finish up the details. I think we will not be planting anything else until late fall/early winter as it's just too hot now for a tender young plant to get started.
The pergola is done and we spent a little time this weekend stringing some lights for ambiance.

Blockhead

I spent a pleasant afternoon putting the final touches on the 2 finished lace projects. Below is the swallowtail shawl before it is "blocked".
using the stainless steel welding rod for blocking wires, this is how it looks pinned out, this blocking step is necessary for getting the points to really show on the bottom edge of the shawl.

the whole thing pinned out on the guest bed, it was so hot today it only took about 15 minutes to dry.

finally, the finished shawl, lovely!because the shawl dried so fast, I also had a chance to block the Branching Out scarf. The shawl is made of wool so it was pretty stretchy and did get bigger after blocking, whereas the scarf is silk and didn't get much bigger pinned out, but it should lie flatter and show the pattern better now. Before, notice how it's kind of rumply.
now, pinned out the pattern is flat.

While I was in the house enjoying the new bedroom fan and AC, Craig and a contractor friend of ours was outside sweating over the new pergola.

getting everything nice and level, under strict supervision

about 75% done and looking good!