Crocus Time, Plus Ducks

Yesterday we were out walking and realised that the crocuses are out in full splendour. There are a couple of houses in our neighbourhood where the lawns are completely covered in them! So pretty. However you're going to have to take my word because Bad Blogger forgot to take a picture. Smack!

Meanwhile, I also forgot to show you the little item I whipped up at our Spectrum Study Group last week. The theme was needle felting but I didn't want to make an animal or critter. So I dug around in the stash and found a languishing piece of wet-felted wool from a past Spectrum that hadn't yet found a purpose and I made this:

It's a needle case for double points:

I needle-felted the toggle button and the patch over the hair elastic button loop, just to be on-theme. All my stitching began and ended with obvious thread knots a la Alabama Chanin:

And, hey-presto - a Finished Object! For once. Sadly I think I hardly ever actually finish anything at our meetings. I usually end up with bits and bobs, samples and components, some of which work their way into projects and others that sit forlorn. Oh well. It's a lovely group and we have a great time anyway every month. In retrospect I think I should have lined the case with cotton fabric because it's a wee bit tricky to get the needles in without poking through. Alternatively the outer felt could have been processed harder to make it somewhat more impervious. Never mind. It's functional and funky and it'll do the job.

So today's adventure is our annual winter expedition to Reifel Bird Sanctuary with the extended fambly in honour of Nana's birthday. Hopefully any of that wet stuff will hold off until we get back to my brother-in-law's for snacks and cake. We have a huge bucket of birdseed ready to go. It's amazing how much seed the little kids can chuck at the ducks! Thom's mom enjoys this outing so much and we hope to keep up the tradition as long as she's able to walk some of the trails with everyone.

Onwards...