Whimsical and Homespun Art Creations with a Little Rural Living Thrown In





Friday, September 30, 2011

Harvesting Sweet Corn & Felting Sweaters

In the midst of my commission work posted on my "Sketches" blog, I am late blogging about some of the happenings from September and hope to get them caught up this week.  One of my first endeavors came from the cornfield during the first weekend of September... courtesy of my son. 

My little farmer boy planted a field of sweet corn on a vacant lot that we own in town.  (He has the best luck for not getting any hungry critters invading and stealing the harvest.)  To my surprise, he called me on my way home from the Edgerton Thresheree (promise to get those pics up this week) and told me that he was picking all the sweet corn.  Aaaaagh!  So, I put aside my afternoon work and began to shuck some corn.  Thirty-seven quarts later... I decided to throw in the towel.  After all, there is only three of us in the household.  And although we love corn, that figures to approximately 3 quarts a month.  I packed the quarts for freezing and can get two days worth of veggies from each one... plenty for our family!  After gifting a couple of grocery bags full to friends, setting some aside for the week, and coaxing the hutch bunny to eat a few small ears (how desperate it that?! LOL), we were still left with a third of the ears still in the trailer.  Thank heavens for the neighbors!  Farmer boy told them of his harvest, and they came over the next afternoon and carried them off to put up for the winter.   We fed the remnants to neighboring farm animals, so there wasn't waste. Yay!  It went so smoothly that one would have thought it was carefully planned. ;) LOL    




Winter sweaters from the thrift store... Yay!!   Along with wool clothing and jackets, wool sweaters are on my list.  Here are some of the sweaters (already felted) that I have accumulated this month.  They are felted in a hot wash and dried on high heat.  I try to wait until there are enough similar colors before doing a day of felting.    It is so cool to witness the transformation!  Trust me, it is a very addictive hobby.



I spent yesterday morning starting to organize part of my stash from the bins and mix in the new haul.  For easier storage, I decided to cut off the arms and wide waist bands, since those parts are used for different projects.   The sleeves even got a stapled label of what kind of animal fibers that they are composed of.  How's that for organization?  Wish I would have thought of that when I started building my stash last fall!  Aaaahhh... better late than never...


I have been so excited to have the opportunity in September to create some pieces that will be listed in my Etsy store for fall and winter.  Tomorrow's post will show how I encorporated a few of these upcycled sweaters into embellishing a new project. 

This is the first year that I will be able to spend the fall and winter creating upcycled and fiber art, along with my graphite work.  My list of projects and sketch books are full of ideas that have my mind spinning, but I think that I finally have a pretty good schedule going.  It is a crazy balancing act with all the different medias... just the way this multi tasker likes it!! :)

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