Monday, August 4, 2008

ANOTHER PRODDY SHEEP ~ ~ ~


As you can see, I like doing proddy ~ proddy sheep in particular! This is one that I did at Barb Carroll's in one of her mini's , a couple of years ago. It is her Flag Day Sheep pattern but when I decided to do the sheep in proddy, the design took on a life of it's own. Barb added the flag background and then I added the braided border and voila! ~ this is the end result! I really like this guy, too!

I tear my proddy strips 1" wide and then cut them 3-4" long on an angle, so that I get this really shaggy look. There are 4 or 5 different wool textures in the body of the sheep. For me, a spring-loaded prodder works best and it's all done from the front of the pattern, which I hold in my lap or maybe work off a table.

My braiding is pretty rustic ~ I tore strips maybe 2" wide, sewed the strips together by hand, and then folded the edges in and braided at the same time. This whole rug was done in 3 days, including the braiding ~ when I returned home, I attached the braiding to the rug (the tricky part was blending the ends of the strips into each other at the end) and then bound the rug with wool strips. I have to say, one more time, that I just love this rug ~ but I really love most every rug I've done. The rugs that are displayed around our house are rugs that I've done at class or camp ~ there are others that I do for shows and with that in mind, I don't have a hard time parting with them. I do give a class on proddy in my home studio and sell the spring-loader prodders ~ anyone interested can contact me at gfraizer@neo.rr.com!

Just a note ~ right after I started this post, my darling Mr. Kitty jumped on the surge protector and shut the electric off to the computer!! I have to call him 'darling' so I don't say the bad thing that was running through my brain!!!!

We had a quiet weekend at the lake. Went for dinner Friday night with friends, went to an Art in the Park Saturday morning, came home and watched TV and napped ~ the entire afternoon!!! And ate ham sandwiches for supper!! We were definitely a couple of slugs that day!! Sunday, we had friends from home, up for the afternoon and went out for a fish sandwich before they left! Evidently, we needed a rest!!! And I didn't work on binding Mr. Catfish!! But that got started this morning!! So back to the hooking room to work on that ~ have a good day and thanks for reading!!
Alice

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alice - I like both sheep, but must stand up and salute the red, white and blue one. GRS

Alice ~ Folk Art Primitives said...

Well, now!! A salute from the 'goodshepherd' is a very nice thing!! Thanks so much, Gene ~ since you are the proddy 'king', your approval means a lot!!
Alice

ShabbySheep said...

Ooh Alice, I love your proddy sheep. I bought a spring loaded prodder but haven't used it yet. You did a great job on both.
Sheri