We are now officially moved to our lake home in Chetek and I have yet to unpack my workshop so I am going to feature a cow and a goat that I made a few weeks back.
Cow
The highland cow started as a happy accident. My friend Sarah at Black Sheep Fiber Goods had a Mediterranean blue art yarn that I fell in love with. She accidentally shipped me more yardage than I had ordered so I decided to make a statement with it. I sold my last highland cow and always like to keep one in inventory so my first blue cow came to be.
Here is an in progress photo. This is prior to any trimming and before mounting. I promise there is a cow under there! The horns are made from sari silk waste that also had flecks of blue in it. It ties the blue hair in nicely.
Marlais was trimmed for glimpses of his face underneath and mounted to some black barn board. The name Marlais means blue in Welsh. I know he is a Scottish cow with a Welsh name but figured it was all on the same island so close enough!
Goat
While at my last show, I kept getting requests for goats. My daughter stumbled on this picture and it became my inspiration.
I just received some long alpaca fibers that I thought were perfect. Seems odd to make a goat with alpaca but it worked! Here is one in progress shot as I worked through building up the head.
The final product has detailing in the face, ears (that I realized I forgot after I thought I was done), and all of the wool around the neck and shoulders. It wasn’t until the very end when I was creating the listing that I researched and figured out he was actually not a goat but an Old Norwegian Sheep ram. Oops. His name is Ares regardless.
Move
As I mentioned at the beginning, we moved to our lake home permanently. This means there will be future posts coming on clever workshop storage (which I will definitely need), as well as, hopefully a walk through of a lakeside studio space next summer. Please subscribe to get those future updates. I am getting a little twitchy without felting in over 2 weeks – won’t make it much longer!
