Sweet Delights

I had to share the luscious, yummy, waistband extending side of the Easter holiday with you, since I shared all the birthing pains of the notorious chickies. This above is my brother's addition to the weekend brunch held at my sister's - Stuffed French Toast ala Paula Dean ( of Georgia and the Food Network). Peanut butter, thick slabs of banana, succulent bacon, good wheat bread, dipped in egg batter and the pan fried with crunchy bits of pecan and cereal on top and then laced with jam. Heavenly.

No surprises that I made the cupcakes. I love to make my cupcakes. These were chocolate "made from scratch" cake with a coconut buttercream frosting and dressed up to look like little Easter nests. My sister and all loved them.

My Mom a couple of years ago began dying her eggs along the ways of Martha Stewart. These are wrapped in colorful slips of silk, with a layer of plain cotton and then cooked in a bath of water and vinegar. They are marbleized works of art each and every year. Too pretty to eat, perhaps...naw!!

These are the "loopy" chickies - the last of a long line of little yarn McDoddles to come from my hands. By far the most time intensive. Three models, 32 chickies in all - now, flown the coop - except for about six that I kept for myself, and one to be sent full of chocolate to a friend in SF tomorrow. Whew and a sigh of relief. I actually kinda don't know what to do with myself.....

Happy Easter from me and the "chickies"!

I am still putting the final touches on the last of the "loopy" designed chickies, but here are some of my other little creations for you to see...

They are lining up and heading out to baskets and Easter celebrating homes near you!

They are pretty adorable, if I do say so myself...

These little variety of chickies later received some sequin and seed bead eyes - but I had to show you...

Happy Easter Everyone!!

More work than I can say...

My work has spilt over permanently onto the couch, it's covers, the surrounding floor. I am awash in efforts to finish the chickies by this weekend ( I feel absolutely duped! I thought Easter was next weekend!!) and I am preparing to install a host of goodies at my friend, Mary's, store. Whew! I feel undone - and undone, and undone - as I view all the yet to be finished goodies littering the floor.
I am silly - I am making Cupcake Hats (for adults) in an assortment of sorbet colors. The work that goes into these seemingly simple, but lovely confections will never correlate to the minimum wage - and yet, I toil on. May they find happy heads one day.
The apartment is awash with spring colors = I hasten to my deadlines. It shined with sun here yesterday, and I created freshly mown and weeded green patches in the backyard for me Mum. Today, I am squirreled away in the apartment, watching the pure creative genius of Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean on the film MirrorMask and pondering my personal navel a wee little bit. Silly,silly thing - I am making chickies and cupcake hats, and aprons - again. My friend, Lodema the Potter calls this "soft art". May I soon find my way into realms of surer footing and happier dreams, but for now, I am just happy to be finding the end of these projects somewhere in sight. Amen!

For your personal viewing pleasure:

Claes and me

I feel vindicated= not only because some of you so kindly let me know that it was indeed, understandable, if anything, to be on my chickie making spree - but that all of us go through it at one time or another. The descent into cuteness.

Then, low and behold, I come across some work of one of my all time favorite and inspiring sculptors, Claes Oldenburg, that makes me want to both laugh and cry. Calico Bunnies, 1997 - silk screened on canvas - 10" x 6" approx - bunnies.

Now, I won't play you - I have often dreamed of doing installation art on the scale that Claes has done. The fact that he did soft sculpture back in the day, just brings him even closer to my heart/art. But, damn, if it isn't refreshing to see these little bunnies cascading over the pages of my borrowed art book - the sheer whimsy of them lightens my very being today. Thanks, Claes.

Chickie Wonderland

Some of you - my very dear and few - were kind, loving even accepting of the birth of an entire chickie nation over here at chez madly. So, I thought I would share with you the third and final of the chickie variations to come out of the knitting hatchery - the "loopy" chickie! The one above is the vintage family treasure that I am recreating and making a pattern for - and is she ever one intense chick! This is defintely a work of love - and I have not even made it to the very tiny crocheted hat on her cute little head.

I have never done this loop stitch before. Not all of the stitch dictionaries even carry this one. You should see the cute hat and collar pattern I found in my 70's stitch book using this wild stitch work. I am sorely tempted to make a collar for myself. I am getting good at this loopiness.

Crazy knitting 101

I am trying to get past all the knitting that I have been promising to people. Finishing my "creative commitments" to others so that I can go on and discover that other artist that I so long to be. But I keep coming across stuff that I still have to do - like these Easter Chicks.

My sister's mother-in-law's grandmother made this little chickie. Last year she asked if I could make up the pattern for her - and I am just getting around to that promise now. At least it is time for the holidays - this year.

So what I have been doing all weekend? Instead of making things for the Etsy shop or for a shelving area that I hope to fill in a local store, I am making chickies. I am making enough chickies so that everyone in the family gets a set for this Easter. I am making chickies until I am blue in the face. And I haven't even begun the part where they get the cute little button or sequin eyes, the felt or crocheted cockscomb and the whole formatting of the pattern. Nor have I begun the one that has the ever so special "loop stitch" and little crocheted hat.

I am crazy. How far must I go before I am at the end of my tether here? Will the serious art ever begin? Maybe I am just a "chickie" at heart.....