No, not vore-aciously, thank you.

This is the proposed draft for a library READ! poster featuring yours truly and Ms. Janet, who read the book for the kids. (Winston the Book Wolf by Marni McGee.) Click image for a larger view.

No, a "locovore" is not someone who eats locomotives, either.

Tags: books, fursuiting, reading, work
Current Location: At work, alas
Mood: amused

Here is Argos in the role of Winston the Book Wolf, with storyteller Ms. Janet dressed as "Granny Winston" as she appears at the end of the book by Marni McGee.

For a sequence of six photos, click here.

The event was an unqualified success. Most of the children were a little bit afraid of the wolf, but after the story was finished they had a craft session in which they made wolf hand puppets from paper lunch bags, and then they were all eager to show the puppets to Winston.

Tags: books, fursuiting, work
Current Location: At work, alas
Mood: accomplished

The story session was a hit. Only a small number of kids, about 12 or 14 I think, but parents and grandparents were there too. The adults were very impressed with the fursuit and presentation, the kids were a bit young to appreciate it all but many did want to "pet" the wolf and some were afraid to get close.

It was hot! The space in the library that I chose was ideal for what we needed, but I forgot that late afternoon sun would be pouring in through a glass wall there. I survived, drippily but it didn't show.

Janet and I posed for photos afterward that may be made into a READ! poster (toes crossed.) I made ears for her and pinned them to her flowered hat, and she split the back of her long skirt so the tail I gave her showed nicely when she stood up at the end.

A nice change for a Wednesday, in any case. Photos by Friday, I hope.

Next project: spinning demos this weekend at McHenry County College.

Tags: fursuiting, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: accomplished

I did get the paws, both hands and feet, done last night. Janet, who will be our storyteller, was delighted this morning when I showed her the tail I made for her. She has a flowery housedress and a straw hat with flowers ready to wear, matching the drawings of the wolf in disguise reading stories to the children in the book. It occurs to me that I should make her ears to pin onto the hat, maybe I can get that done tomorrow morning. The only other crucial thing is a couple of small seams at the neckline, and since I don't have to go in until afternoon tomorrow, I'll get it done in the morning.

Not as heavy a day as yesterday, though there was a fair amount of cataloging again. I did not get any upgrades installed. Weather was cloudy but not rainy, and I did sit outside for 30 minutes at my lunch break so I could work on my spinning.

Need to write checks for some small bills, but none are urgent, and I think I'm going to go to bed early. Not enough sleep the last couple of nights.

We are at the very end of our hay supply, so I sure hope we'll be getting a delivery soon. Yes, even though that means we get to unload and stack hay bales again. We think it's time to get rid of the sheep, but Gary doesn't want them to end up as dog food so likely they will be here for a long time.

Tags: farm, fursuiting, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: tired

It was a bad day. I know that because I was the first one into the library (not all that unusual) and yet didn't get to my own desk to do anything until 11 am. There I found a stack of 20 or so new books waiting to be cataloged, in addition to the network technical stuff that I'd left over from Friday.

Tails completed. Argos has a new, bushier tail, and his old one has been improved and handed over to the storyteller who will wear it under her granny dress for the presentation Wednesday evening. I built the canine tails using a length of 5/8 in. vinyl tubing for support, and adding padding and fur over the top. They swing and wag pretty convincingly and would probably be really effective on a dance floor. ;p

I think I'll do paws tonight. Loose seam in one boot, and both need some stuffing added. Paw gloves or else the body suit sleeves need some lengthening to keep my bare wrist from showing when I'm not being careful as necessary.

There are improvements to the head that I want to make, but they are mostly fairly complex and I may put them off. It's usable as is for this event, needing only some minor work around the neckline.

While I was sitting in the staff kitchen taking a break around 2:30 pm (no lunch for me...) I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see a baby cottontail bunny looking in at me through the glass door to the butterfly garden. We stared at each other for a few seconds, and he hopped away only to come back again half a minute later and repeat the whole thing. I watched him sniffling around the doorstep and looking at everything for a couple more minutes before he wandered off into the flowerbeds. He couldn't have been more than five weeks old, I think. His ears were only about an inch long, his tail so small as to be near invisible. Very cute. I hope he avoids being eaten by an owl or hawk.

Tags: fursuiting, wildlife, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy

By hand. Not because I don't have several sewing machines here, but because I want more precise results than that. So, I'm assembling a new tail for Argos, sewing with blanket stitch overcast seams and doing it by hand. His old tail will be plumped up a bit and given to the story teller to wear.

Other costumey things to be completed: repair a torn seam in one boot, loosen the fur under his jaw, improve the neck to head interface joint, and add longer cuffs to the gloves. Most of this is fairly trivial except for the jaw fur. If necessary I'll take half or all of Tuesday off to get it done, since I have vacation and personal days available. In fact, I have an extra day because July 4 came on a Saturday and we did not close the day before.

Went to Sam's Club because Gary wanted a filing cabinet. He got that, and we replenished our supply of coffee beans (we like their beans better than the ones at the supermarkets.)

Watered plantlets. Took Tess out to the pasture. Made dinner. Mundane stuff. It was sunny and warm. We actually need some more rain: the creek is dry. But it won't do any good if it all comes in one huge deluge, and we need hay more right now than we need rain.

Just got a stack of additional photos from the dyeing session yesterday, haven't had time to download or sort through them, but I'll post more if they are interesting enough for non-fiber folk to appreciate them. Chances are at least one or two will measure up.

Tags: farm, fursuiting, gardening, weather
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy

No, not dying. Dyeing. With colors.

I spent a good chunk of the day cataloging Spanish language kids books. Never a fun exercise, that, but these were really yuck. Books spun off from Hannah Montana and then translated into Spanish. Talk about rotting kids brains twice, there it is. Then there were the High School Musical ones, no better. No wonder no one in the entire US had bothered to catalog this junk before.

Argos' appearance at the library has made it onto the website. Look quick if you want to see, after Wednesday it will disappear.

Now the dyeing. Tomorrow my spinning group is having a session on natural plant dyeing. I chose curly dock (Rumex crispus) as my color source since I happen to have a lot of it around. I also gathered daisy fleabane for a fellow member who is going to make dye from that. We have to chop up the plants and simmer them in distilled water for 45 min. or so, then let it cool and strain. That will be the dyestock, which we pour back into the distilled water bottle to take to the workshop tomorrow. The other thing I'm doing is preparing some small samples of white wool yarn by treating them with a mordant. The mordant is the chemical agent that helps the dyes bind to the fiber. The most common and least toxic of mordants used with wool is alum, but the workshop leader is going to provide samples prepared with that. I plan to do mine with copper sulfate, which produces what are often very different hues from the same dye. With daisy fleabane, for instance, alum yields yellow, but copper yields green. Copper sulfate, or copperas as the old dyers used to call it, is a poisonous substance that was once used in pesticides. It is also known as blue vitriol, and has to be handled with care. Fortunately I have dedicated enamel coated kettles to use for dyeing, so that's not a big problem. Other metal salts sometimes used as mordants include iron sulfate (non-toxic, but it dulls colors rather than brightening them,) and tin in the form of stannous chloride (brightens and intensifies color but it is both toxic and caustic, so no longer used much.) There was a chromium salt used at one time, but I don't even know where to get that one, it's so nasty. (Oh, yeah, I remember, it's potassium dichromate, and you can get it from chemical supply places but not from the pharmacy or grocer.) A few dyes require no mordant, or will work with common chemicals such as vinegar, ammonia, or washing soda.

I'm expecting a rusty yellow or a greenish beige from the curly dock, depending on the mordant. If it works, I'll have photos in a day or so.

Gary will be gone with Rob to a Civil War event all day tomorrow, so I am animal care, grocery shopping, AND get to attend my little class. It's going to be busy.

Tags: dyeing, fursuiting, spinning, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: busy

Sometime in the last two or three days probably, I passed the 30,000 comments posted mark on LiveJournal. It will be a while, I guess before I get that far on Dreamwidth if I ever do. (I've been posting to LJ since early spring of 2004, five years plus.)

Plans for the fursuit/storytime event at work are building. Looks like we will do it. Winston the Book Wolf is the chosen book.

DTV report: this morning the two Rockford stations were gone. No signal. Went outside and found that the antenna had rotated itself back to point at Chicago during the night. No idea how that happened, as it seems to be rigidly attached to the mast and the rotator sure doesn't swing freely.

Air conditioning in the library is flaky again. We can override to force it to come on, but it isn't working from the thermostats. Of course, today is the hottest day we've had in two years.

Tags: fursuiting, geekery, work
Current Location: At work, alas
Mood: busy

Thought I had escaped without being asked to fursuit for Summer Reading but the question came today. I agreed to do Argos (since the theme is Reading on the Wild Side, and they are featuring all sorts of wild animal stuff) but only if they find a story to read in which the wolf is NOT the villain. This tends to be harder than you might think.

I found two candidates myself. One is Footprints in the Snow by Mei Matsuoka, in which the Wolf decides to write his own story about a kindhearted wolf who follows tracks in the snow to find a friend. The other is Winston the Book Wolf by Marni McGee, in which Winston loves to eat books because the words are so delicious, but when he gets trapped in the library by an angry librarian and her helpers, a little girl named Rosie helps him to escape and teaches him a new way to enjoy words. Of course we had neither in our library, so I had to request them from another library in the consortium so I can review them. This will force me to make the improvements in Argos that have been on a back burner since MFF last year. The director suggested a third, The Wounded Wolf by Jean Craighead George. Based on an actual incident that was observed by a wildlife scientist, the story tells of a wounded wolf who could not hunt due to a foot injury (possibly caused by a trap) who crawled into a shelter in the rocks but rather than starving to death, he was fed by the pack alpha who brought him food daily until he recovered and could rejoin the pack. That one is a lovely story but perhaps a bit complex for the under ten set to comprehend.

Other than that, the usual W-day. Long and tiring.

Gloom most of the day, but it didn't rain.

Tags: books, fursuiting, wolves, work
Current Location: Home in the oak grove
Mood: tired

For those of you who may be interested, Argos now has his own journal and will be posting regularly. Strictly in character, and he will try to stay that way and interact with all of you appropriately. Feel free to have fun with him, but be nice. Remember, he's a very fluffy and gentle wuffy. ;D

Tags: fursuiting, writing
Current Location: At work, alas
Mood: excited