Back from the Winter Holidays, the Museum brings the thought of hot dry deserts with a new Cactus Treasury called Touch Me!. I learned early on from a trip to the Botanical Gardens that touching is the last thing you want to do to a cactus! But of course these are craft cacti and not the real thing!
In the book Sewing Fun Stuff! Soft Sculpture Shortcuts by Lynne Farris, there is a cute little tutorial to make a stuffed cactus in a pot called 'Cactus Everlasting' and many of the above treasury items are instructions rather than finished items.
I've had cacti on the brain since I have been wearing my new Barrel Cactus Hat. I designed and spun the yarn for this creation and my Mom knit it up for me using the Urchin Hat pattern from Knitty and designer Ysolda Teague. It's made from two colors of my hand dyed wool, spun thick&thin, dark mottled green with the thin yellow sections twisted out to the side to become the soft spines, plied with a shiny green thread.
The pictures show me wearing the hat and a top detail view.
Some years ago when I was making more things out of stained glass, I made this small barrel cactus in a terracotta pot as a suncatcher. It even has real tiny wire spines as part of the design!
Hope these cacti bring you warm thoughts...stay tuned for lots more blog postings!
