Ship Ahoy!

I was not familiar with Artist Trading Cards (ATC) when I was invited to join an ATC swap group through Ravelry, an online knit and crochet community, a few years ago. I had too many things going on at the time, so I didn't participate. One of the members recently contacted me and invited me to begin participating in the monthly swaps. Since I guess I have less going on these days, I decided to give it a shot.The size of these cards is the same as baseball and other trading cards, so you have to be able to think small. They can be done in any media and as creative as the artist wishes. The Ravelry ATC group members sign up each month if they want to participate, names are matched up (usually at least five per participant), then their finished cards are mailed out to the other participants. It is really fun to receive these little jewels in the mail.

Each month has a theme. Your cards should have something to do with the theme, but this is a rather laid-back group and there are theme options. The main purpose of the group is to have fun. One of the September themes was "Talk Like a Pirate" to commemorate International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. I decided on this Amazon parrot, inspired by a friend's longtime parrot companion, who might be saying "Ship Ahoy!" to the ship out on the water. Because of the small size, I had a little trouble keeping my hand still when I got around to trying to draw the ship in the distance. After practicing for a while, things got better and those are the ones I sent off to the other swappers this months. I kept this one as my example of this month's theme. (click on the red text for links for more information and on the photos because the cell phone format gets cropped on the right)



Here's the partially completed draft (I didn't get the full length of the card in the frame when I was making the pictures, so both edges got cut off)

And the finished card

The Lookout

This fellow was having a leisurely stroll on the fishing pier at Gulf Shores State Park when the wind picked up and he flew-hopped up onto the railing to get a look at the developing weather situation. Although fairly heavy rain was again headed our way, he did not seem concerned and just hopped down and continued strolling. The photo was made in July when we camped at the state park for a couple of days.

What We Have Here

is Yogi in full molt. I comb and comb and comb and comb. The other two buns make molting rather easy on me. Not so with Mr. Rexie. It brings back memories of all the years I saved Periwinkle's fur and blended it with wool for spinning. I called it Winkle Wool. Rex fur works like Angora, but is shorter. I believe that Yogi is producing a bumper crop of Yogi Wool.