Conjoined Pandas and Kosher Wolves

Here's the batch we cooked up this week. . .

These panda puffs of conjoined cuteness are my favorite.

(Shhh, don't tell the others! They mutiny when favoritism is suspected.)

I love Pandas. They're just too cute to be real!

My eldest got a panda from a friend when she was born. When she became mobile it became her constant companion. Pandy (justly named when she could speak) has been on many misadventures, and would benefit us all by taking a trek to the washing machine. I'm also loving this not-so-big, not-so-bad wolf. Oh sure, he acts all tough, but I saw him sneaking cookies to the three little pigs when nobody was looking. And I'm pretty sure he's Kosher. This little cutie is sweet as could be, but it's a good thing she has a tight grip on that naughty little bird. I know what you're thinking, "How much trouble could he get in? After all he's only an inch big!" Well, I'll spare you the details, but my poor fluffy dog is riddled with tiny nests. And count yourself lucky if you've never woken up to a feathered fiend trying to tunnel into your nostril.

This silly group only says one thing:

Tah-Dah!
. . . . . . .
Here's a hexagonal update for all of you following my latest frivolity.

I've cut and pressed enough little bits for 40 flowers. That's 280 bits!

(But who's counting? Me, that's who!)

I got a bunch of flowers sewed together while waiting for soccer practices to be over and soccer games to end, and more while sitting around in the evenings, watching movies and stuff. Here's what the bottoms look like all stitched up (by hand, mind you). It's really quite addicting. . . . What's your latest frivolity?

Splashes of Red

I'm seeing red!

No, I'm not angry, just elbow deep in itty bitty red hexagons.

Thanks again (I think) to Paper Crane Heidi

for infecting. . .I mean inspiring me.

Eventually I'll have a whole bunch of flowers like these and will stitch them to green squares and make a girlie quilt.

I raided my friend's fabric stash a couple of days ago and added 50 more red hexies. I still need 40 more and I'm looking forward to our eventual trip to a real quilt shop.  I'm using a traditional English paper piecing method (kinda) which requires lots and lots of hand stitching. I'm making little ziploc baggies full of the parts of each flower so I can take them along with me to my little guy's baseball and soccer games and keep my hands entertained.

If idle hands are the devil's playground,

he'd be pretty bored around The Cart.

Speaking of anthropomorphism. . .

anthropomorphism [an-thruh-puh-mawr'-fiz-uhm] n.
1. The ascription of human characteristics to things not human.

(A sixteen-letter word!)

Here are this week's examples-

A grinning goat,
(Despite his human-like characteristics, he still enjoys a good tin can upon occasion.)
. . .

A friendly fungus,

. . .

a sweet slice of watermelony goodness,
. . .

and a lovey dovey celestial pair.
. . .

It's Tuesday morning and I still haven't begun my work on next week's offerings. I took yesterday off and indulged my zen side but cutting out, folding, and ironing a gazillion (ok, maybe more like 60) little hexagons on account of I was inspired by Heidi at My Paper Crane. It's a great way to use up scraps and maybe I'll even have some sort of quilt to show for it one of these days. I'm off today to raid my quilter friend's stash (wheee!) for more reds and greens. I want to make poppies on a green background eventually, but for now I'm delighting in all the pretty patterns and neatly-pressed stacks of hexagons.

Anthropomorphic Househeads

I just finished the latest in our anthropomorphic househead series. We called her Home Sweet Home on account of she's so darn sweet.

. . .

I didn't realize I was working on a series until I made Number 3.

(We're called Cart Before the Horse for a reason.)

I just like making these person-faced houses.

You might remeber Number 2, Treehouse.

You can click on it to see in-progress pictures.

. . . And this was the very first househead, Dream House. Someone suggested I should have called it Head of the House, but I wasn't that clever. You can click on it to see more of it and the basic house template I used.

. . .

I find that I revisit the same ideas over and over. Ideas are like friends, kinda, 'cept they don't borrow your stuff. I start to miss certain ideas if I haven't made time for them for too long, don't you?

Five Found Faces

Ever see faces in decidedly unnatural objects? I see 'em all the time, and so does MyrtleandEunice who has prompted this gathering of faces from most unlikely places. Here are her rules:

1. Absolutely, under no circumstances do ‘put together’ faces fit the bill, no matter how ‘casually’ features seem to ‘circumstantially’ happen together. I am so on to that.

2. Faces found while standing sideways or on one’s head are absolutely and clearly acceptable – and extra brownie points for spotting them the wrong way up in the first instance.

So, using those guidelines,

I began my quest to capture the ellusive inanimate face. (You'll just have to forgive my serious lack of picture-taking skills. Dylan is the photo guy around The Cart.) .

Comedy!

My super goofy, super smiley, super beat-up headphones:

Here's a amiable little fellow:

. . .

And a very grumpy Guardian of the Trunk:

. . .

And this one has obviously spotted something of interest off to the left.

. . .

Your turn!

Where do you start?

A friend just asked a bunch of us arty types where we start in our creation process. I love hearing people's answers to this, so I'm passing the question (and my answer) along.

I make mostly dolls (kinda), so I'll talk about how I start that.

I have a big box of templates made of posterboard or cereal-box cardboard, like this moon one-I try upon ocasion to organize them, but Dylan does all the sewing so he always just throws them back in the box. sigh. Anyway, I usually start there and pick templates I've used before or use them as a jumping off point to make new ones. Sometimes Dylan picks which templates he wants to make too. Then Dylan traces them, sews them, stuffs them, and gives them to me. Sometimes I have a little sketch of want I want to make before this whole process, especially if I've just designed new templates. I keep the sketches very small and simple, so I don't feel compelled to follow some preconceived notion of what it is I'm making. But more often than not, I look at that pile of blank bits and decide what they'll be from there.. . .

Where do you start?

Lemon Life

If life gives you lemons,

then you're a lucky duck.

. . .

Angel, Mushroom, Roller Squirrel

Some of my favorites this week are these teeny quilted paintings. They're not too teeny really, about the size of a postcard. I've had these blank wooden frames hanging around for quite awhile. I'm sure I got them on clearance at some point. I tackled the edges with an X-acto knife, painted them with a crackle finish, and sanded them up a bit.

I think they turned out just right.

This little angel is a snapshot of sorts of a new painty quilt I'm working on. You'll probably recognize Amanita from her debut a couple of weeks ago. The tiniest of those buttons are only about the size of an aphid. (For those of you who don't know how big a ladybug's favorite snack is, that's about 3 millimeters.)

We had to leave big fluffy-tailed squirrels behind when we moved from Florida out to the Oregon Coast. Here the squirrels have pitiful little tails, and are quite small themselves. So it's been awhile since I've seen a bushy-tailed one. They do have wheels, right?

Spring is Springing

It's been an elbows-deep-in-art week around the ole Cart.

Little snips of thread and fabric piled up. Paint flew. Buttons buttoned.

Erasers erased. Stitches were stitched. Messes were made.

. . .

Here is a peek at the fruits of our labors-

Spring is surely springing around our neck of the woods, although it has been hiding its pretty flowery head amongst storm clouds and downpours. Still, it's there, ever hopeful, awaiting a break in Mother Nature's tantrum.

But wait. . .is that a sun ray I see??

Oh joyful Spring!

Happy Easter

Hope this special Sunday finds you delighting in all kinds of miracles.

Celebrating Spring (amongst other things)

All this Easter egg hunting really put me in a Springtime mood.

I almost want to clean out my closests. Almost.

Instead, I stitched up a couple of new quilty paintings.

Spring makes me think of baby animals, so there you go.

Bunnies and Kitties and Bears, oh my!

Then, lest Easter be lonely, I stitched up a big ole group of holidays.

Oh sure, they're quiet right now, posing for their portraits and all, but it has been pure mayhem around here for the past week. When all those holidays get together, celebration is taken to a new level. It's that naughty little St. Patty that really stirs up the mischief. I keep telling her that she's much too young to drink. Plus, she keeps trying to slip green food coloring into the silliest of things.

And don't even get me started on that Easter bunny! Apparently, it's not just eggs he likes to hide. I still can't find my keys.

You'd think Halloween would be the trouble maker, but no. Besides eating all my candy and getting a little tummy ache, he's been quiet as a lamb. Come to think of it, maybe too quiet. . .

. . .

I hope all your days hold at least a small moment of celebration.

Now!

This is over now.

Thanks for playing!

CLICK to visit the Prim & Whimsy Girls'

Easter Egg Parade and Give-away.

Lots of the Girls made original Easter eggs for this fun challenge.

Here's a little sneak peek at mine-

OK, so it's not exactly a bunny rabbit or anything.

But wolves like Easter too, right?

. . .

Good luck!

Spread the word.

Hope you win a fabulous

goody basket!

Tomorrow. . .

Yay for Give-Aways!

Soon. . .

Feel free to grab this banner in you want to advertise our Easter Basket give-away on your blog. It's a good one, especially for you arty types!