Ba-Donkey-Donk

Guest blog post written by Darling Daughter!

I recently was assigned a project in my FFA/Ag class about endangered animals and was able to select any animal from the endangered species list I wanted. So, with my love of equines, I quickly found the Somali Wild Donkey. Besides the PowerPoint presentation that I put together, I was also responsible for  creating a quiz to administer to the class and build some sort of display.Naturally, I decided to needle craft a cute little donkey!

I started making the model by felting wool yarn to form one oval ball for the body and another smaller one for the head. After that I cut pipe cleaners for the front and hind legs. Then I grabbed my stash of wool roving, special felting needles and work sponge. The colors I used were gray, black, camel and white.

I covered the body, head and pipe cleaners in gray roving, the nose in white and the tips of the legs in black to form the hooves. Next came the two long ears and a tail for the critter, with a little black at the end. When all of these individual pieces were done, it was time to connect them and make me a donkey!

The final touches included a short, roached mane down the neck and a dorsal stripe from the base of the neck to the top of the tail. Because the Somali Wild Donkey has zebra stripes on its legs... yes, zebra-striped donkey craziness... I had to needle in very long, thin strands of black roving around the lower portion of all four legs. The face was the last part to finish, with two tiny white eyeballs with black dots in the middle. Next, I stretched a small piece of camel roving over the white nose so it was just barely visible. I added two small black nostrils and a thin black mouth before I bent the legs so the donkey could lay down and rest.

Finally the donkey was ready to hot glue to his piece of wood, which the dad-man had graciously burned "Somali Wild Donkey" into for me. The donkey was quite adorable and the overall project was a success!

PS - Boss lady said there may not be a post tomorrow, since we're hoping to load up horses and mules and go riding after church and chores, so everybody enjoy your weekend!!!