Blogtoberfest

Although I missed day one, I'll post twice today to make up for it. A bunch of bloggers are challenging themselves to blog every day in October and I think I will try as well. The shop has been oh so slow and a tad depressing, maybe this will get my engines revving.

The well dressed gentleman above has been added to the shop. Taking pictures of this gem is very difficult. Tom tried to help, but those photo's didn't make the cut. I tried indoors, I tried outdoors, I tried holding it myself and photographing. I think I need to enlist a friend with steady arms and not so manly hands to help me out.

This bird is a Weaver bird, specifically a Speke's Weaver. They are fine looking birds, but the most exciting part of them is the nests that they weave and knot. It is truly amazing. I had a great video to share with you from YouTube.com, but can no longer find it. What I did find was this frame to frame video of a nest in progress. Another video available is a patronizing man in the sing songy voice telling me that the bird 'weeeaaavvveees'. A little too irritating to suggest it, but if you want to see the nest from first knot, try this video at your own risk.

I had started this blanquilt at the time I did the Hearts Blanquilt, but left it sitting for some time. I kept running out of material, then the colors didn't match (which turns out okay - and I actually like how they are placed), then I just didn't know how to finish it off. I thought about circles and trees and flowers and owls. But they all seemed too cliche to me. In a twist of irony, when I went to list the blanquilt, there was a treasury of cute little owls on the front page...ugh. So, I found the weaver bird and fell in love with him and his adorable little homes.

The price is high because it took a lot of energy, planning, measuring (not with a tape measure, but lengths of my hands), cutting, ripping out and starting over and the embroidery took quite some time.

And the real reason, I am not sure I can give it up. Maybe when I tire of it, I could drop the price, but right now, I need to touch it and look at it and be amazed how embroidery can really be used to paint a picture and to make an ordinary blanket a blanquilt.