leap day mandala ... giveaway

What a special day !!!

I know a date isn't something "fixed"

It's just an agreement that we count the days like that,

and keep a bit of extra time every year,

so we once in a while cast in an extra day !

And that also isn't the samefor all the people in the world

(just take all the Chinese or Jewish people for instance

and there are many more others)

Ohhhhh

and what about :

if it's your birthday today ???

Once every four years !

(but then : you don't age that quickly  ;-) ...)

Like four years ago,

I thought something special was appropriate.

So I made a special

LEAP  DAY  MANDALA

and more :

it's a giveaway

You just have to tell me in a comment

why you think it makes a wonderful present for someone you love

(or even for yourself)

I'll draw a winner in seven days.

This mandala is made on heavy weight drawing paper (A4)

with pen, colour pencils and silver pen

"window" Sunday

The BIG task daughter (and I as helper)

has for the window painting at school

is nearly completed..

The last few weeks the big full size drawings

we use as templates were finished,

so today (on this last day of the "crocus"holidays)

we went to school and started on the last two classrooms.

(we didn't like this one very much,

but the children could choose ...)

In grandson's classroom there will be a lot of birds

In fact it will be our saying :

WINGS  AND  ROOTS

a good theme for the last (8th) year of elementary school !

He was very proud to be part of it !

The rest of the work will be done during school time.

*

In the garden the snowdrops are still going strong !

Mmmmm I love spring 

exchange ... to and fro

February is nearly gone.

(though it's a very special February this year :

with one (leap) day extra !)

It certainly is time
to send my felted piece for this month's exchange !!!

For the exchange

I received a wonderful package two days ago.

It was wrapped up like a real gift

Something like that can only contain

a true treasure ...

... and there it was : a new jewel !

Thanks very much Jolanda : love it !

*

The piece I had to make this time

has the theme 

  nocturnal  animal  

The plan I had for this one, was on little sketches

right after I made the "Baba Yaga house" piece in January,

but then my "Challenge House" took over

And then,

when I was working on the water soluble making butterfly wings,

an new idea emerged for the nocturnal animal theme !

a  moth

(a butterfly of the night)

It took some time

but today at last, my moth was ready to fly !

Here it is slowly growing ...

and there she goes

... to the light !

(and she's in the mail)

yippee ....!

It wasn't even as much work 

as I thought it would be

.....

The walls were stitched "invisibly"

(with the wire integrated in the seam)

A safety pin to hold the sides together while stitching.

(first stitching in bright sunlight,

half an hour later all was gray with splashing rain)

When the three walls were stitched together

I could add the last separate leaves

to hide the wires.

And here it is :

the Caterpillar House

another wall

And when caterpillars eat lots and lots

(and drive so many a gardener crazy)

they become a beautiful

butterfly

I'm very happy with the result for Sara's House Challenge !

more embellisher and water soluble

Though it's a bit slow right now

the Challenge house

is coming to an end.

I made a lot more leaves :

I think I can use some more for the "roof"

(that will not be a roof at all)

I made the leaves with the embellisher

than stitched them on the sewing machine

.....

and cut little holes.

Now I'm busy stitching the sides together

with some wire in between,

a slow job.

*

Because the stitching on water soluble

("soluvlies")

is so much fun, I did more butterflies

(and one has flown away already)

A very thin one,

with lots of loose threads between the tulle and the water soluble.

The backside       ...........     and against the light

And one in another colour scheme.

water soluble

The "House Challenge" 

is coming to an end.

Last Monday Sara sent the last pdf

with instruction and suggestions.

The houses of everybody are far from finished

but that is okay,

we will have many more weeks to continue.

On the 20th of March

random couples will be picked by Sara

and we'll make some small item

for the house of the other person of the couple :

a small fun swap,

just like at the end of the other challenges !

These are the three walls of my house.

I incorporated the roof :

the green walls end in green leaf-like points.

I also found my coloured wire,

thick and thin.

The wings of the butterfly

have very thin blue wire attached to the front side

and now she has long antennae 

(with a bead at the end)

These are the walls since yesterday.

There are some more inhabitants now :

... a (sleeping) cocoon and the known "doorman"

... two new baby caterpillars ...

Making the butterfly wings with

water soluble

was sooooo much fun

that I had to do some more with that funny stuff today.

I have two varieties of the water soluble "fabric"

One is kind of plastic-like,

the other one is thicker and looks more like interfacing

only DON'T touch it with wet hands, or sneeze :

it will shrivel away !!!

First I have a piece of  water soluble

(big enough to fit in a plastic embroidery hoop

that one is thin, so it will easily go under the presser foot of the machine )

then I use some tulle or polyester sheer

with lots of threads and snippets underneath.

Then comes the "free stitching" :

you have to be sure that all the snippets are connected by stitch.

When you are satisfied with your end product

you can pin your work on a thick cellular polystyrene

and rinse out the water soluble !

(using little water leaves a lot of "glue" in your work and makes it stiff, 

using a lot (and rub some) leaves your work a lot softer !)

 A new idea taking shape

Held up against the light

you better see the waste threads I used for this one

*

Just have to show this gorgeous Amaryllis  :

two stems with four flowers each !!!

And last week we had another mandala evening

(Isis & Osiris)

wordless Wednesday

:-)

growing ...

Sara's "challenge house" and the inhabitants

are "growing"

Today I made the triangular shaped walls

a little more precise 

with little fluffs of green wool,

linen and tulle.

I had to be really careful

not to break any felting needle of my embellisher machine

because there are already some beads

and stitching on the walls !

(ahhhhh ..... couldn't help myself,

just had to do it !)

The top ("roof") end of each wall

needs some adjustment too.

There will be some leaf-shaped ends.

Then I will have to put it all together

and, most probably, stabilize it with wire frame

(still thinking about that)

But I was also playing on my normal sewing machine

with tiny bits and pieces of fabric

and some "water soluble"

That was a long time ago I used that

but very, very much FUN !

Anyone can guess ?