Catching up.

I've got lots of projects that I had wanted to blog about but since it took longer than planned to get the blog going there's some catching up to do. A really fun project I recently finished was the Diamondback Snake Cozy, which was created as a donation to the local chapter of the Humane Society's annual fundraising auction. The fundraiser, Barkitecture, requested local artists to create some sort of "domicile" for cats, dogs, birds, or slinky reptiles. Why I came up with the idea of a snake cozy I'll never recall. The idea was to make a long hollow snake-shaped tube, open at the tail end and the mouth, that a cold-blooded critter would, in theory, keep warm and comfortable inside. I knitted the snake out of a double strand of Cascade 220 wool in tweedy and heathery shades of golden brown, and added bright yellow diamonds down it's back. I added a wide open mouth, a long red forked tongue, and felted the cozy in the washer and dryer before adding embroidered eyes, tiny white fangs, and a rattle made of bells inside a knitted series of bobbles. I don't know yet if it sold at the auction; everyone who saw it before I turned it in to the Humane Society either really loved it or thought I had temporarily taken leave of my senses. I'll find out later this week, but if it didn't sell I'll stuff it full of fibre fill, and sew the tail and mouth shut and turn it into a toy to donate to Toys for Tots this coming holiday season.