Hedgehogs

This is Francis, he is an english garden hedgehog who lives with my friend Erik in North Carolina.

It had been a pretty boring summer until his little cousin Roz came to visit, Roz is from Africa.

Anouther (somewhat larger) guest of Erik's was in rather a bad mood, so Erik suggested that as it was a nice sunny afternoon every one should pile in the car and go for a ride.

Click here for a photo essay of OUR TRIP around Wake Forest, North Carolina. Click on the first thumbnail for larger vesions of the pics. (You can read more about hedgehogs here.)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox - the making of a hedge hog - oxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

The hedgehogs were knit by the bad tempered person from a pattern purchased from Two Swans Yarns . The pattern is "Huggable Hedgehogs" by Debbie Radtke, for Fiber Trends - Hand Knit Designs. There is a squirrle pattern, but that will have to wait till next summer.


this is the stuff you make hedgies from, feltable worsted yarn, eyelash yarn, a 16inch circular needle and some straight needles. I used plastic eyes with shanks in brown and solid black.

This is "Roz's" tummy and face before the stitches have been picked up to knit the spikes.

below are pics of "Gwen" as I knit her, showing the pick up, short rows and what she looked like after felting, before finishing (she took 3 days to dry, it's been raining in Raleigh).

Travels

I've been traveling, a lot. Not just miles. Jeddah to Raleigh is give or take 8000 miles. But that's still one trip. My schedule for the last 6 (and counting) weeks went like this: Jeddah (KSA) - Raleigh (NC) - Boston (MA) - Raleigh - Emerald Isle (NC) - Raleigh - Comfort (TX) - Raleigh - Chicago (IL) - Raleigh.

We'll start with Boston where I was attending the Siggraph 2006 Conference: AMC SIGGRAPH. These friendly folks are faculty from the Art Institute of Washington, Media Arts department, and this is their hapless entrée, we where having lunch at the No Name Restaurant. I always encourage my computer animation students to volunteer at Siggraph and I took this photo to document the fun and interesting things student volunteers get to do.

Emerald Isle was my next stop, I rented a small place two blocks from the beach. I don't know these ladies but they represent my archetypical image of east coast beaches. Alicia and Erik seemed somewhat confused about the whole sand and sea thing. Nice little sandpiper and a kite to round things out.

On our way home we stopped in Wilmington the epicenter of the film industry in North Carolina. We had lunch on the water front at the Riverboat Landing Restaurant the food and the service where excellent. We walked around and came across the location of Karen's Cafe from One Tree Hill, and yes, that IS a fake door painted on a piece of plywood.

On to Comfort TX, located in the hill country northwest of San Antonio, population 2,358 (in 2000 but I don't think its changed a whole lot). This is the water tower across the street from my parents house. We actually got to watch them tear down the old one and put up the new one, in 1994 I think. (That was a blockbuster summer :-)

So this is the Carlyle Homestead. My parents have been technically located at this house for more or less 12 years, with a couple of side trips to Qatar and Japan. And THIS is what happens to native Californians who relocate to Texas (born and raised in the San Diego area, my dad claims the east coast migration drove him out).

My elder brother James is currently running his custom decal and vinyl sign shop, Signology , out of Mom's sleeping porch. He relocated a few items when he moved in, including this vintage truck he restored from a rusting hulk. If you look carfully you can see a catamaran behind the pear tree.

This is the best picture I have ever gotten of my mother, dob 1935. Nice shot of the dog too. The dog's name is MacTavish, (which I do not understand as he is a long haired miniature dachshund, a distinctly german breed.) This is the window in Mom's kitchen, the selves contain an assortment of coffee mugs, tea stuff and critters. On the top self are puffin salt and pepper shakers my brother and his wife used to manufacture, a ceramic castle mug I made in eighth grade, a ceramic musk ox, stone hedgehogs, and a brass rabbit. Note the Cat Fish on the cabinet and the Kitchen Witch on the counter.

And before we leave the kitchen, one of the nighttime visitors who lurk on the window screen waiting for unsuspecting insects attracted by the light.

In the dining room hangs one of Mom's paintings, more of moms art here. The sharks are by long time family friend Lorenzo Foncerrada.

So this is my dad again. Not sure why the rope. Musta' been in the truck. The Bronco's stickers include an "evolve" fish. And these are some of Dad's inside critters (found on most horizontal areas not occupied by books), the panther and anteater are Oxacan Woodcarvings. The little guys are japanese and the lion is from Africa.
And the last stop was Chicago to help Alicia move in to her new dorm room. Well, by help I mean rent the van and drive it from Oak Park where her stuff was stored to Loyola University. These volunteers (and a couple of hired ringers) swarmed the van and carried all of her stuff up the THREE flights of stairs, cuz there is no elevator. My eternal thanks to the move in volunteers whoever you are.

And now I'm "home" in Raleigh, waiting for my airline tickets to come through - I'm working on a few things, next post is a different kind of travelog.

best, Kate.

Change

This weeks Illustration Friday topic is "Change", which has been the back story of the last eight weeks. This is a little holly bonsai tree that sits in the window at Eriks apartment. It's growth is slow but steady and it's fasinating to watch the interaction of the light with the leaves over the course of the day.

I'm still in Raleigh waiting for my new plane reservations, school started without me yesterday. Hopefully I'll be back in Jeddah by the end of the week.

I've got two more posts to finish, see you shortly.