Rattie Fursuit Feet : Part 1

This weekend we worked on our rattie fursuit's feet.  My 14-year-old provided a pair of comfy (I would have preferred new) runners as a base, and we built the feet around them with foam.  We have yet to finalize the trimming/shaping, and then need to cover them over with the pink fleece.  Here are a few photos of this weekend's progress :

I've got to do something about my glue gun.  I have a large gun which doesn't work well (although I forgot what the issue is), and a small gun which works well, but the trigger is really hard to push.  So even half an hour after finishing with the gluing, my fingers are still red and sore.  Last time, when we were working on a paw, my fingertips were numb for a couple of days afterward.  That's not good, since we have lots more gluing remaining - when we create the head.

Garden Treats and Treasures

One of the many things I love about my garden is how it surprises me with treats - such as the few remaining Fall Gold raspberries which I enjoyed today.  And the wild strawberries which are still bearing fruit.  And then this cheerful Michaelmas Daisy which sprung out of our outdoor chess board :

It was perfect gardening weather today, so I spent about 2 hours in the garden, cutting down old flower stalks, and pulling weeds.  I was surprised to find a persimmon (the larger one in the photo below) lying face down in the lawn.  The lawn was cut a few weeks ago, so it had been dropped there since.  I suspect it is from the neighbour's persimmon tree, since although I also have one, it is not doing well, and has not borne any fruit yet.  I'm sure it was carried into my yard by a squirrel, and dropped on its way to find a hiding place for its little treasure.

The second persimmon was even more of a surprise.  I was flattening some mounds left by the mole in the lower yard.  It has been making a complete mess of the yard all summer, and I've been shoveling and carrying away the mounds of dirt and rocks (wondering how it could possibly push up SO much material, and what will happen to our yard when those tunnels and holes collapse).  Today, I decided just to flatten them, and scatter some grass seed on the soil.  One of the mounds contained the persimmon, nicely buried inside, like buried treasure.  Squirrels, for sure.  This time, it reached its hiding place.

Fimo Mickey Mouse

I recently made an attempt at making a Mickey Mouse figurine from Fimo clay.  I am probably half way there, in terms of effort, but the results are already pretty good, I think :

You can read more about this, and other ceramics related adventures, on my new blog, Ceramics : It's Just Dirt.  I hope you can join me there.

Thanksgiving Arrangement

We just celebrated Thanksgiving in Canada.  We had the big turkey dinner on Sunday, and were happy to get almost all of the extended family (14 of us) together.

I have seen photos of pumpkins used for flower arrangements a few times now, so decided I would try my hand at it.  I think the arrangement turned out pretty nicely, with branches and flowers from my garden :

My sister had the idea of adding the fresh cranberries (on a bamboo skewer).  I think that was a nice touch.  I asked my husband to cut off the top, and we cleaned it out, scraping the insides until clean, not stringy (I managed to get 4 cups of cooked pumpkin, and a small tray of baked pumpkin seeds out of this part).  I didn't bother with an oasis, I just crossed the stems as I added them (a trick I learned from a professional flower arranger).

I hope you all had - or for our U.S. neighbours, will have - a great Thanksgiving.  We have so much to give thanks for, in this part of the world.