Crafting Update

I thought I would do a little crafting update on this blog as it is starting to become a Memebox blog.

First, I would like to introduce the two adorable doggies in my life. Panda and Po. They are both legally my dogs,but Po actually associate my brother as his owner. If you recall, Panda is the spoiled butt who dashed out of the house as I was leaving on my trip. Po on the other hand is the more obedient younger brother who listens to us because he is less spoiled.

Po (Left) & Panda (Right)

 Why are my doggies featured? Well.. It has to do with Po.
 A couple of weeks ago, I was playing with Po and realized he has a large mat on either side of his butt. Given he is my brother's dog, any responsibility regarding him goes to my brother. So naturally I scolded him for failing to take care of his dog and helped him get rid of the mats.

He looks so happy at the beginning of the de-matting

 After getting rid of the mats, I noticed I had large clumps of fur attached to my clothes and remember the felting instructor in Taipei said you can felt with dog's fur. So I decided to make my brother do his fatherly duty of brushing his dog and giving me the fur. Now PoPo is easy to separate his colours as his coat is mostly white with a little bit of black. Panda is harder as his fur tends to always come out as black and white mixed.

 My brother managed to get me a decent amount of fur to get started on felting. I brushed the fur and pulled it so the strands would lay in the same direction. This would help felting later on. Po was given a large treat for his pain and suffering. His brother got a little treat for... nothing.. Hahaha. Can you tell why he's the spoiled one?

 I started off by making a white ball as I think white is easier to fix than black. When I have the ball shape formed, I started to shape the snout out of one side of the ball. After the snout is formed. I put a layer of black fur on one side and then another layer on the other side. This forms Po's facial colouring. Then I made his ears and attached it to the head along with the nose. I like the ending result. It actually does look a little like Po. Though because this is dog fur and not wool,  it does tend to have a lot of fur sticking out of everywhere. The downside is that I was too conservative and made Po's head too small. It is about the size of a quarter. Since it is so small and Po have brown eyes, I currently do not have options for eyes. So I guess it will be eyeless Po.

It actually smells like Po. I like it :)

 I have been working on my checkerboard blanket last week. It is almost done. I am down to my last ball of yarn. Afterwards I am going to start a chevron blanket with white and lilac yarn. Hoping I can get it all done before the new year. Two months to go! Will post picture of the checkerboard blanket once I am done and fixed up all the loose yarn.

I also made another versaille kusudama for my coworker last week. She is leaving us for a better opportunity and had mentioned she would like one in bright pink. So of course I had to make it as her good bye gift! I have to admit, the bright pink really hurt my eyes. I spent most of my time curling the petals but the end result is quite pleasing :)