Gotcha! New kids on the block ...

So the ferrets are now  8+ weeks, and moved in yesterday...

We named them Noodle and Biscuit and seem to be our current favourite waste of time. Not to mention a good reason not to hoover. Noisy and scary. 

Topsy on the other hand is horrified. Salt new her place but these wee ones are far to curious. They probably won’t be hanging out together any time soon! 

These are Mary’s Platys and they came to live with us on Wednesday. We think we have made up for our recent drop in numbers during lockdown. We sadly said goodbye to 2 rats and our last ferret salt. There was a space in Mary’s room where a cage once sat, but now it’s all colour and flickering life. 

We drew the background for the tank during one of our group art sessions, this time back at St Mary’s Church, with a Greg’s vegan sausage roll! 

Sweet scrap fish ...

Next month sees my house transformed, and in part, open to the public as part of this years Arwey Art Trail ...

There are lots of new things to see, like a fancy pair of woollen fish that were born today while I sat with a poorly 6 year old ...

And my house of course, which has been very looked after following the winter damage. 

Will you come and see me?

School fish - didn't they do well?

I worked with reception and year two children, so that I could help out in all of my girls classes! 

Mary had a lot of fun looking for purple flowers for her fish. Some of the reception children finished inside the hour we had together, and very quickly chose a favourite colour ...

I love the eye on this fish!

Daisy worked with blocks of strong colour. Some children really didn't want to be restricted to one colour. 

These are going to look great swimming all over the carnival float! 

School of fish!

Today I am going into school to help Mary's class make some fish for Weymouth carnival this year!

I love collage, so we will be working with magazines and glue. 

I am going to be 'the rainbow fish' and give each child a glittery shimmery scale, fin or eye! I will make sure I share some of the results!

Eye-eye!

I decided that my red fish needed some eyes, so I used these lovely wooden buttons, from a recycled garment!

Red fish!

Woking with a lovely jumper at the moment which was not really wearable any more - makes some super red fish though! And some other stuff, do you want to see?

Spirit of the Sea again!

I am getting ready to exhibit with Artwey this weekend at  Dorset Sea Food Festival

I have been given an enormous pair of waders ... so long i have to turn the tops down to pull them up!

And I have been busy altering them, too - what could i be doing with these then? Any ideas?

Fishy business!

You know, a long time ago I thought I wanted to be a vet ... now I'm just happy to play with haemostats/forceps, and various needles, and usually a whole lot less blood!

So today, i made some fish, for the Spirit of the Sea festival in two weekend's time ...

A Fish Supper with Ed and Elton

Yesterday I had a really enjoyable night out, Talking, giggling, dancing and eating fish and chips, down in the hall at Wey Valley School...It was probably the tail end of my 40th Birthday celebrations, but what a lovely ending it was too!

The school hall has a really good stage, and at just the right moment Ed's son Jack tugged on the curtains to reveal Mr Hintze in his signature red jacket and straw hat. All held their breath at the curtains momentarily paused, then squeaked the rest of the way open. Ed played the grand piano, alongside his trusty TYROS3, perched on top,and did what he always does so well, entertained his varied audience with top performing and a smattering of tasteful jokes ...Ed chose real audience pleasers from his HUGE repertoire of Elton songs and the atmosphere was brilliant.

Then the awesome school dinner lady brought out chip-suppers for all, you could have a sausage or a veggie burger, if you wanted, and some tartare sauce was dug out for the birthday girl too. With lights up, there was an opportunity to chat with friends and family, and some thing nice and comforting to soak up the rosé drank by members of Dorset for Singing.

In the second half, fuelled with fishies and encouraged by Ed's lovely wife Jenny, the dancing began, as Ed appeared on stage in Gold Lamé and rocked the school hall. I simply cant say enough how impressed I am with the size of Mr Hinze's repertoire, although his enthusiasm for playing got the better of him when his G-string snapped, mid song! After that he let it hang out so it wouldn't make funny noises.

Ed thanked his supporters, and us for being fab fans, and we knew he really meant it. And we really were happy we came, especially some of us! The last encore was an Elton track, to dance to, and so we did! And I got my poster signed at half time, too!

getting about on the blogs ..... yay for shimmer fish!

did i ever show you my shimmery fish and all the other plush foods in this great etsy plush team competition ?

although there's no official 'winners post' on the plush team blog, there is a lovely post here on cuteable featuring very cute work from each of the 5 winners in the secret ingredients categories ... and yes, you will see my dog harris there, as my shimmery fish won the 'mirrors' category!

yay for shimmery fish, and fabric stashes to meddle in, when the challenge pops along ...

another blog post ....

last night i popped Glazed Pork, the tweed pig, and Haris the dog into my etsy shop ...

here is a post on the etsy plus team blog about GP, and about my entry for the current plush team challenge ... i'm quite pleased with the post so pop over and have a read ... http://www.plushteam.com/2009/05/iron-chef-challenge-mirrors.html

i have ben working on some tweed hamsters, who will be listed in the plush team etsy shop for a bargain price next monday as part of a plush raiser ... every monday in june http://www.plushteam.etsy.com ...

cuttlefish puppet on the go ...

cuttlefish
Originally uploaded by RaggyRat

Here is the cuttle fish shell, as interpreted by me. they are interesting creatures that change their colours and patterns to communicate, in what seams like zebra stripes and dots ... i used white flowery stiff fabric for the frill ... are these fins? and some of the flowers onthe shell itself to tie in the piece as a whole.

In 2 other colours of upholstery fabric i made some wavy stripes, and then machined over the whole lot in 2 colours of thread. im simply alluding to changing dots and stripes rather than trying to slavishly copy from one photo of a cuttlefish. it was not easy to find whole body patterns, nor, i found, a good one of its eyes !

Blenny finnished - and moving on to more fishies!

Ran outside in between rains the other day to get some photos taken

i shoved a window cleaning tool (used once to clean windows before the rubber fell off it) up into tompot blenny's head, so i could hold him up for picks. think he is a boy, anyway ... who knows? i havent modelled too closely.





NEXT! a puppet cuttle fish, so i stripped down the blenny wall and changed it for a fresh piece of paper and some useful googled images. i worked out how to do the cuttle fish ''frill'' on waking, which is nice, and involved drawing round a side plate and making something which looks like an awful shirt collar. Opened out and pinned the outer edge undulates beautifully a bit like a full skirt.




Finally, as if i dont need a change from making fish, a challenge from Tami and Wendy from Teddy Talk to make one of these ...




so i drew this ....

and then made this ... which happens to be a bag with a zip under its chin :-)

and heres the local paper - saturdays - with a double page spread detailing the sea fest but not my puppets and costume yet ...

Did you know it was dry for one day - Tuesday wasnt it?

i do get a bit stuck on titles for my blog entries ...

Tuesday seems so far away now but me and the girls had a bit of fresh air and the ants in the garden came out to play again ...

i had a small blenny break sketching some kittens - pity the photo shows that page in shadow! i used 2 colours of gel pens and the smudging was provided by daisy. Both babies likes meowing and signing 'cat'... i have just been toting silly ideas in my head, esp while driving, and thought i would commit some of them to journal/sktchebook ... Church mouse and rat to follow!

Here, for those that have been nagging and saying i havent uploaded any pics, is the top pot blenny as of this morning, his head attached to his body and some amazing lips too made from fleece and bath scrunchie. In the end i didnt make the topnot from feathers as i was hoping, as i thought one tug from a toddler and he wouldn't look like a topnot blenny at all. his frilly bits are made from off red felted woolly jumper and now he looks just like red fraggle ... enjoy :-)

ooh, i believe the big wigs to do with sea fest and marine week have been reading this ... and they have still sent me an invite to marine week opening ... i will take my camera.

Tompot Blenny Esquire ....

yesterday i got storming with mr blenny ....


i finnished those last layered fins - might they be pectoral fins? and in serted them into the wrists or whatever fish call those bits too!









the body - still with no head - has been shaped and partly stuffed with mesh - un-used shower scrunchie jobs, which are light weigh, and a piece of shaped sponge keeps his cross section the right shape. The doral fin and the last pair of fins were stiffened with an extra layer of net - orange shower scrunchie - and some red scoobies, which really seemed to work and the dorsal fin stands up well. I have my own packet of scoobie-doos, i didnt help myself to Louise's huge selection ...






sorry that some of thse pics are blurry, im not using flash and it was so dark and grey and rainy - again. The eyes look really blurry but would make great pincushions! i used scraps of different 'shot' fabrics ...





and finally - an upper jaw - and some mouth parts i didnt photograph yet - and the upper head i suppose i must say! starting to look like a fish head. played with wallpaper again to get the right shape ... there is no centre seam on the front of the face, just a gentle curve, and a small triangular gusset on top of his head, ready for those blenny trees, or top-not thingies !



yippeeeeee !!!!
no laughing at my html, and attempts to post multiple pics that looks easy to follow xxxx

Blenny WIP ... getting to grips with a huge fish ...

The Wall of Notes is changing, the old, old wall paper is disapearing ...



Making patterns out of old wallpaper to try and create blenny markings ...
i chose stretchy oatmeal fleece so i can allow for the lateral line seam on the puppet ... did i forget to say it is a puppet?



Poor headless fishy ... looks like a big fabric herring. i have added the first fins.



Fins taking shape, with layers of bias cut scottish woollens and net and organza ...flappy!