Needle Felting Friday

I hope everyone is having a pleasant Friday.

Before I explain the three felted dog project above, this Friday I am really excited to share Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) in Nepal. This is another non-profit that was inspiring not only in its service, but in the story of its founder.

ECDC serves the children of women in prison in Nepal. In Nepal if a female goes to prison and there is no family to care for her children they go to prison with her. ECDC was started by a young woman who learned about this situation while visiting a prison for her social services degree. She has since opened a house for children age 5+ to live in while their mother is in prison and for children 5 and under there is a daycare option.

I am greatly simplifying the work of this organization and the story behind the founder. Please take some time on the site to read this story. I loved reading about the founder living with these children. She is dedicated not only to the welfare of the child but she shows a lot of compassion for the mother and respecting the mother-child relationship.

Today my mom, a sister, and I took a Dog Needle Felting class at Serial Knitters Yarn Shop in Kirkland. I was terrible at it, but we had a lot of fun! :)



My mom was the only one with experience doing this. You can see my blue mummy dog slowly taking shape. The frame work is done with pipe cleaners and slowly you are adding small amounts of roving that you then felt with barbed needles.

It was a good day for mummy dog when I added a face. It helped save him.

And some happy ears. :)

Meanwhile, my sister who had never even heard of it churned out the above masterpiece!

And my mom also made a much more dog like project. :) I really loved the ears and face on hers. Such a gentle and calm expression!

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In totally unrelated (and somewhat embarrassing) news I have started the Dark Shadows series in preparation for a movie release. The following may be quite boring to you but Leela and Nim were of no conversational help last night:

Apparently if you enjoyed TV and were old enough from roughly 1966 - 1971 you probably remember this show. I have heard responses from: "I couldn't wait to get home and watch it!" To: "I remember hiding behind the couch because it was scary."

If like me you never watched it: it is VERY dialogue driven, complete with massively botched lines which I actually have truly enjoyed (but I am only in season one so maybe editing improved later). The young boy (David) has to deliver some long stretches of dialogue (he is actually outstanding and WAY better than his sister) but he is hilarious when he flubs lines.

The token blond, beautiful 20-something has just appeared (Carolyn - older sister to David) and that was possibly the most painful 20 minutes of my life while she had a "relationship" talk with some guy that maybe was using her? I seriously almost fast-forward that entire episode. I think her primary role is to be dumb, beautiful, and always slightly confused.

HOWEVER, so far this is a lot of fun to watch. I am enjoying the family mystery part. I am hoping Carolyn gives up on men or they ship her out, but since it is basically a soap opera (which if I stick with this will be the first one I have ever followed in my entire life) I am not too hopeful.

And I can't believe I have written a blog post about a TV show...moreover a soap opera. This is right up there with a post about sports.