Finish something I started... really?

This month at the Creative Collective is Time to finish July. Which means... finish something you started!! So, after much deliberation, because I have so many unfinished projects to choose from, I have chosen 2 items to finish this month. The winners are:

1) A pair of handmade rabbit fur mittens, started in the summer of 2004.

When passing through the tiny town of Nenana, just south of Fairbanks, my parents and I ducked into the supermarket to get some drinks and poke around. Amongst the newspapers, pencils, beef jerky and Ice Classic paraphernalia there was a pile of white rabbit skins. My father and I were immediately drawn to this pile of super soft, glowing white gorgeousness. These puppies were seriously singing to us. Nowhere in my life had we been to a town where furs were piled high between the stationary supplies and snacks. We began to dig through that pile to choose the two softest, whitest skins. Half an hour later, drinks and skins purchased, we exited that store victorious. Now, what to do with these things?? The answer was pretty obvious. Mittens.... wonderful, toasty warm, silky soft mittens to keep my hands and my heart warm over the winter.

I found a instructions to make mittens (with a PROPER thumb gusset) and after much trepidation cut out my mitten pattern. I went so far as to consider which direction the fur needed to be facing so that when you slid your hand in it went "with" and not "against" direction of the fur. I sewed up those glorious thumb gussets....


and then true to form got caught up in work, study and play and never finished them. Although, when my hands were cold, I always thought of how much I wished I had finished those mittens.

Brown paper bunny had a 4th of July crafternoon last weekend and I thought that was an absolutely stellar moment to get to work on those mittens again.

A note about Nenana. I'm not into gambling at all, never interested, but The Nenana Ice Classic is one of the coolest things ever. Nenana is situated next to the Tanana River, biggest river in the region. Every winter the town places a big big tripod out on the ice out in the middle of the river. The tripod is linked to a clock on shore. The locals, and many (many!)others from all over, then place bets on the exact day and time (to the minute) that the ice will melt enough for the tripod to fall through.... indicating end of winter and the beginning of the fun summer time. You'd think it'd be impossible to get the time right but this year with a prize pool of over $300,000 dollars there were 22 winners. Incredible.

2)Self-portrait, started July 2010.

I took a creative drawing class last year. It was great class where I met lots of really talented and interesting people. Our last project was to do a proper picture. One we thought about and would work on over a few weeks. I decided to do a self-portrait. I'd never done one before and thought it would be a good project. I tried lots of different angles but none of them suited. In the end I got a friend to take some photos of me from various angles to get one I like, I then photoshopped it to pieces. What resulted is the photo on top right hand of my blog. And here is how far I got with it....



Apart from these two projects I also have the following going on:
Knitting a dark fuscia crop cardigan (MUST be done by late August)
Weaving a gray cotton and silk scarf
Pondering patterns for my first lino reduction print (down to two ideas..)
A couple of sewing projects

Wish me luck... and think of my fingers - hand sewing leather is a bit tough on the hands!