Yarn Along and other crafting

My Yarn Along project hasn't really changed much this week. Still working on the cape for Elizabeth, although it's making steady progress. I took a break for a few days to work on other things so it's coming along slowly. The book I'm reading this week is Homer Price, aka Doughnut Boy in our house. It's Finn's first time hearing this classic, and he's thoroughly enjoying reading it with the rest of us.

On my mini break from knitting the cape, I knitted and felted this bowl for Finn's work shelf. I used the largest size of this free pattern, but cast on 9 extra stitches to make the bowl a little bit wider without losing too much structure.

The yarn was a small amount of leftover Noro Kureyon I've had for ages. I thought the stripes turned out pretty cute when felted. This colorful wool bowl will be a welcome aesthetic to the baskets and trays on Finn's work shelf.

This isn't really crafting of mine (or couldn't you tell ;) but I had to show off this cute family of peg (and clothespin) people that Finn made while I was painting this morning. The furtherest to the left is Finn (in a skirt?), then Philip, Paulie and his daddy. Apparently only the men of the family were on Finn's radar this morning.

The kids requested these adorable robin-sized wooden eggs for a project they wanted to work on, and as soon as I saw them, I knew we needed a nest for a few of them. I burned a few speckles on each egg and watercolor painted them blue.

Then loosely needlefelted a nest of shades of brown and earth-tone violet. But that little nest full of eggs seemed a bit sad and lonely. Without a pattern, just a few markings on a felted sweater, I cut out this little robin and quickly stitched him together.

This little mother robin took on a life of her own when the children found her. She's flown all over the yard, perched in trees, looked for worms under the deck and otherwise been a busy mama bird. Her sweet addition to our home seemed like a good time to pull out Nest Eggs, from A Child's Garden of Verses, to read with our little robin family.

Reading Nest Eggs took on a life of it's own, as reading poetry and playing with handmade toys are wont to do. Before I knew it, we had an animated edition of Nest Eggs, played by our very own robin, her eggs and nest.

Here in the fork
The brown nest is seated;
For little blue eggs
The mother keeps heated.

While we stand watching her
Staring like gabies,
Safe in each egg are the
Bird's little babies.

Soon the frail eggs they shall
Chip, and upspringing
Make all the April woods
Merry with singing.

~ from Nest Eggs by Robert Louis Stevenson