Another fabulous weekend out camping. We spent a night at the Guadalupe River State Park. It is absolutely gorgeous there even though the river is low. Walking along the riverbank in the shade of the biggest swamp cypress I have ever seen (bar San Antonio's river walk) was cool and so awesome. The roots of these trees are huge and at first I thought they were a pile of driftwood, not roots. I was sad to see someone had carved their initials into the biggest of the trees. We also got a chance to see buzzards sunning themselves on the tree tops. I have never seen so many in one spot. We counted 12 !

Of course the next day was spent at Schlitterbahn Waterpark in New Braunfels. Just for E. The 90 minute wait to do the MasterBlaster ride was worth it. I am sure there are people who were in the line behind us who's ears are still ringing from our screams : )

The next night was spent camping at Bastrop State Park in Austin. It is still very obvious a huge fire went through there a couple of years ago. It is not our first time to stop there and we can see the difference in the park. All the new young trees growing out of the ashes. We were also lucky that though it was August, we did not melt sitting outside as the weather was fabulous. It is dry so no mosquitos either which is a double bonus.

I have been working on a bear with a tummy and nose insert that are differently colored to his body. I am also working on trapunto paws. The puffy ones : )

Trapunto paws on my sunshine dragon

 

It is hard to design a bear when I keep looking at my new Charlie Bear called Dreamer. The Charlie Bears are hard to get here (very limited numbers) but so worth the effort and cost. Have a look at their website...
http://www.charliebears.com/

I will post pictures of my new bear later as he is planned as a gift and I do not want to ruin the surprise. I am also planning some soft toys along my weenie steakboy line. Just trying to think of a few I would like to attempt. I have often made miniature dogs out of fleece and felt but I think I would like to make a range of dogs and maybe cats out of fleece but bigger and maybe more anime influenced.

I also am on facebook now. That is new and daunting as I never really know what to do. I want to get pictures out of my work and get feedback from people. I am hoping it will give me a direction to focus my bear design on.