Piecework Wallets & Things

I saw the most astonishing and beautiful thing this morning.  My friend Brad has made a moss chair in his side yard.  The strange green object on the top right hand side of this page is my drawing of it, but it doesn't begin to do it justice.  Picture a shady, leafy area of a secluded yard, and under the tree in the center of the area a full-sized lounge chair,  only it's made of live moss and a few delicate little fern plants.  It's like something you'd find in Middle Earth.  Near the chair but in a different section of the yard is a strawberry planter, also made by Brad.  The planter is constructed of small paving stones stacked up, also looking like some kind of living, breathing furniture.

 On the left side of this page are directions for making a moss chair.  This idea reminds me of Medieval turf benches only the moss chair has an armature instead of being carved from a hillside or berm.  Brad began with an old aluminum lounge chair, under which he piled wood and earth.  Next he covered the chair with chicken wire to make an armature.  The next step was covering the chicken wire with wet burlap as well as strips of wet newspaper.  As a final step he placed sod-like sections of moss all over the burlap and paper mush until it was completely covered.  The ferns were planted after the moss was in place.  I love this chair, and am picturing one of my own out in the woods behind our house.

At the top of the right hand side of the page is a mud puddle that my husband and I came across in the woods while we were walking this afternoon.  It's a semi-permanent puddle and has several resident tadpoles, which we were able to see today.  The drawing to the right of the puddle is of an insignificant but very pretty little mushroom that had pushed up a leaf as it was growing.  And underneath is a view of the trail that I drew WHILE walking and hurrying to get down the mountain before the rain came.

At the very bottom of the page is sewing machine part that I ordered from eBay to replace the hose-section tire on my grand daughter's treadle machine.  It arrived late this afternoon, and it slid right in place, and now the machine works perfectly!  This tire is a fat shiny rubber one that makes good contact with the hand wheel and turns the bobbin winder.  I drew it with a Pilot V-Ball pen.