The Flying Leap!

So we bought a former guest house in Elora!  The house, an 1891 triple-brick beauty, became ours on August 8th, our furniture and possessions moved in on August 18th and my last day at work was August 21st, with a lovely send-off with many warm wishes and congratulations.  We slept (on the floor) in our old house for the last time and were completely moved August 22nd (with a little help from some friends:  thank you John and Pam!).  And of course we're naming our bed and breakfast The Flying Leap, aiming to open September 19th!
  I can't believe it's been less than two weeks as I wonder about who just completed my Tuesday night shift and the complete loss of any sense of routine.  It's been a roller-coaster of highs and lows, moving is a TERRIBLE thing to do, especially if you have LOTS of stuff... ah well.  The house, Elora, the people:  it's all good and will only get better.  Neighbours actually stop and introduce themselves (that never happened in Stratford!), our neighbour behind us brought over a casserole on moving day (thank you Leslie!), and my morning walks are along the gorge trail, overlooking some of the most beautiful rocky crags I've ever seen (I bet there are lots of bats!).

We have accomplished so much, going from this, our dining room and kitchen:

to this:

Wow, there were actually tables under there!  

When the going gets tough, the tough... hide under the kitchen table.  Can't say I blame her one little bit:  Willow found a safe place underneath and crashed after days of following us around.

Yet, in all this chaos and activity, there was still time to enter one of my pieces in a local exhibition celebrating the Year of the Horse!  

The opening reception was this evening at the Elora Center for the Arts, a catered event that had an eclectic, though seemingly exclusive, group mingling about the interesting and varied art and informative displays (which I really enjoyed).  

And there was my Tairo the Unicorn!

  

I'm very proud of this little accomplishment and hope that Elora will be a place where I can grow and flourish as a person, entrepreneur and artist.  It certainly is the Year of the Horse, hold on to those reins!  

Trying something new!

A few years ago I created Tairo the Unicorn and I've never been happy with the way his thighs looked, they seemed very "stuck on".  Last year I came across a book, Passion for Ribbonry by Camela Nitschke about creating flowers from ribbons and I always imagined a carousel horse with a Clematis growing up his/her leg, and so the two projects came together, to finish Tairo with a beautiful Clematis climbing his leg with gorgeous blooms concealing his joints.

So here's Tairo with the instructions from the book and the ribbons I collected.  I could not find a ribbon with dark edges and a lighter center but I did buy a mauvy pink that faded to a dark mauvy green across the width of the ribbon.  So instead of folding the ribbon in half (as per the instructions) I folded a double length and sewed 1 flower petal and 1 bud petal from each piece.

First, however, I created a vine growing up his leg, for this I used brown pipe cleaners:

 

 



After trying out a few petals, I cut as many as I would need and started sewing, 1 petal and 1 bud petal per piece.  Each folded piece is 1 3/4 inches long: 

 

 



 

Here you can see what the sewn pieces look like, then after cutting them apart, fraychecking the edges and then unfolding them.

 

 

Once I had a full set of 11 petals ready, I strung them together and used a fuzzy brown pipe cleaner for the center, creating this:



 



 

 

I used the green ribbon the same way, creating a full mature leaf and a young pale green leaf from each folded 2 1/2 inch piece.  The leaves were not sewn on the machine but rather a draw string was hand-sewn along the bottom edge (after fraychecking) and then pulled for the desired wrinkles.  Here you can also see the bud petals used to make small, developing flowers.

 

Looking good!!!  Each element is sewn in place with small, hidden stitches. 

 

 After a few adjustments and additions, Tairo was fully decorated with 3 flowers, 3 buds and lots of leaves!

And here is the "show side", as in a carousel horse.  I think it turned out really beautiful and it was fun! 

Please note that Tairo is adoptable, will be appearing at the Greater Toronto Doll Show on April 28th and he's sturdy enough to support the weight of a small doll, so a gentle faery would be a perfect companion! 

(If you would like scans of the 2 pages from the book emailed to you, email me!)