prototype chickadee

Well, despite my whining about it, I did manage to get one project done, even with a house full of small humans.

Done, I said, though not necessarily done well.  This is little guy is a prototype, which for me means drawing  out a bunch of shapes, cutting them out of fabric and just seeing how it goes together.

Here is a little chickadee, for which I had no idea what I was doing with when I sewed him, but turned out, I believe, with a swollen, fat headed early spring sort of charm anyway.

Oh, little fat head.  I can't tell if you are actually a chickadee or just a long legged penguin.

I took these photos on top of my library book shelf (we must keep our library books separate from the general population, otherwise chaos ensues).  For some reason I have some books, Train Boy and Flower Girl (some early dolls I made for the childs) in a cage and a painting girl child made a few months ago behind.  Boy child just brought home the bird house from a crafty playdate with a few of his school mates.

See the birdie mock the little caged human types.

The redeeming feature of this chickadee is his legs and feet.  Though I know they are far from perfect, they really do hold up the fat guy and even can grasp a branch. 

Alas he cannot fly and will have to make due with alternative means of transport.

Though I've called this one a prototype, who knows when I will get time to make an improved companion.  I have another little chickadee project on the go, though, and a couple of 'how to sew birds' books coming in on interlibrary loan so I can start getting a grasp bird design.  The next chickadee, whenever he appears, will have some serious alterations.  Still, his feet make me smile.

spring break

It's spring break week for the school kids and, I don't know about other homeschoolers, but I find this week to be frantic and disruptive to our usual meanderings. The sudden influx of available friends during the day means that most of our routines fly out the window and I've got a house full of children. Have I mentioned how small my house is? A couple of extras in a six hundred an forty four square foot house is a significant alteration of the space/human ratio.
 
My style of supervising play is to chuck a pile of craft/art supplies at them and then run away.  If they start fighting, I call them to the table for snacks.  For children that are not mine that become problems, I will bring out the Lego.  The sheer amount of Lego we own overwhelms even the most belligerent of children and they will sit quietly for at an hour to look through it all.  And then they build something.  Nobody leaves until everything is cleaned up and put away.  This is all I do.

I find it very difficult to work on my own projects even when the kids are busy with their friends.  I work best with quiet.  It is not quiet.  I don't know how the cat is doing this:

Mostly I just wander the house with my pair of industrial ear muffs, puttering, drinking coffee.  

Do you see behind the kitty is a couple of pillows girl child has made?  This is what happens when I leave out any fabric, including quilt squares.  Maybe I should put together a few more quilt squares and 'accidentally' leave them out and see what she does with them?

How are you all surviving spring break?  Any other homeschoolers ready for the school to be back in?

popsicle stick project rescue: shadow boxes

I have this resistance to popsicle stick crafts.  It's not so much popsicle sticks per se, as they reused from popsicles enjoyed on a hot summer day, but to a quantity of fresh popsicle sticks being sold as craft supplies.  I also disdain foam shapes, pipe cleaners and overprices bags of polished rocks and glass gems.  This is a problem I have, according to girl child, who loves all those things.  This semi-articulated protest against turning personal crafty creativity into unsustainable mass market garbage.

However, despite my objections, the childs' friend came over with a box bag of popsicle sticks.  Girl child brought out the glue gun and the three of them were off and running, constructing some popsicle stick... stuff.

The kids had fun and, after proudly presenting me with their popsicle stick constructs, they proceeded to ignore them entirely while I found a place to grudgingly display them.  And then stacked them on books.  And then moved them here and there.  And use them, unsuccessfully, to hold pocket change.  Because I never get rid of my kids' projects.  That is another problem I have.

Every once in awhile I have a good idea, though.  This may or may not qualify, but, hey, the popsicle stick things are up off my surfaces anyway.

Behold, popsicle shadow boxes. Mounted with a couple of nails that fit beautifully between the sticks.

This one was girl childs, relatively regular in appearance.

Here is boy childs popsicle stick thing.  It is less regular, but I believe it to be particularly charming.

Boy child took great care in selecting a couple of small items for the shadow boxes.  He is quite keen on decorating.

As is girl child, who decided that the lamp required a stuffed butterfly in a position of repose to make this little corner between my front windows complete.

There we go.  A couple of popsicle sticks made useful.  Who'd of thought it?

tool chest for sewing supplies

I spent a good chunk of today stealing, emptying and then re-filling girl child's (former) craft caddy with my own things.  Girl child and I decided to swap - she gets my utility shelf for her things and I get her Mastercraft tool box. 

I think it's going to work well for sewing supplies. 

This is the monster in my living room, snugged between the couch and my sewing table. 

Another benefit will be that little fingers will be less tempted to filch my scissors if they are tucked away.  For now I'm ignoring the uglier than an armadillo's bottom and trying to think industrial chic.  Perhaps, some sort of cozy is needed, yes?

textures series

I love when I find surprise pictures on the camera. Today I found a few... hundred.

Here's a sample. They all go a little something like this:

When I was uploading the photos, girl child comes along and says, "Oh, you found my textures of the house series."

I have no idea when she does these things.  Sometimes, when I'm busy on the computer or making supper or reading to boy child or reading to myself, I hear her feet pattering around, her breathing intent with purpose and I know she's up to something.  I try not to pay attention because I know that what she's doing is probably something creative that will, first, bug me because it will involve cutting up my fabric or duct taping things to my walls and, second, is not probably not actually really destructive or dangerous because she's a got a good head on her shoulders.  I don't want to interrupt her flow and I believe that whatever inconveniences she creates for me for a brief moment of time is well worth it. Big picture wise. I hope.

That said, a few hundred pictures was quite a bit of camera time I completely failed to notice.  Ironic, since her pictures are all about noticing.

Again, she reminds me, first, that a little benign neglect is necessary for children to develop creatively and, second, to check that the batteries are not entirely drained before I head out to her brother's awards ceremony.

strange panda

Spotted this strange looking Canadian panda while walking in the bird sanctuary the other day.  Too bad girl child missed it - couldn't find her at the time.

Walking around, wishing it was just a tad warmer yet still grateful for the reluctant release winter is slowly granting us, is what girl child and I are mainly doing with our school time.  I am treasuring this time with her, her last year as a single digit person, last season as my only homeschooled child.  I'm wondering where the hell baby girl child went?  It's a sort of daily grief to have them grow up and away from you, right before your eyes.  If it wasn't so wonderful at the same time, it would kill me.   

But, that's my angst.  Meanwhile, girl child is just wandering around in her boots, absorbed in now and plotting her takeover of my home and crafting supplies for her own nefarious purposes.  She won't know for quite a few years that the only thing more bittersweet than growing up yourself is watching your own children do the same.   

breathing again

The madness feels like it's almost lifting a bit this week.  Girl child's final show was Sunday.  I'm almost going to feel a little sad that Grimm is over although, I maybe just need to remember having to show hair every day for two and a half weeks and the sadness passes quickly.  Plus we still have a strike party to endure enjoy on Thursday.

Just for fun, here is The Man doing headband curls with girl child.  Looks like they're having fun, yes?

It wasn't fun for me.  This was, unfortunately, the one and only time he helped with hair during all four of girl child's major productions to date.  Also missing is the after picture when I try to pull them out the next morning and end up with a nine year old with big ol' white fro who needs to be on stage in less than an hour.

Here is girl child part way through boring yet reliable hair spray and curling iron torture.  No, it's not fun.  Not even when wearing stage make up. 

We may all be suffering from hair spray induced emphysema, but damn, her hair looked good when I was done.

Now that the show's run is completed, I've had a little bit of time (twenty minutes?) to work on my own project.  I think I started this doll back in January.  Not much has happened since then, but I'm hoping, maybe, by January next year it'll be done?

It's a bit of a departure from my previous dolls.  In this one, inspired by The Grimm Brother's Rumpelstiltskin, I will be stitching in the feature and clothes with words from the story. 

Hey, random blood orange!  Because I love blood oranges.

There is all sorts of spring-like signs about.  The snow drifts are still five feet high, of course, but little hints of spring are about.  I saw a Canada goose today.  I also spotted this handsome guy back at our feeder, although, technically he is not a spring bird.  He's visited us every few weeks all throughout the winter. 

Now, this is what spring looks like:

Our deck, dwarfed by snow banks on all sides, is a warming shade of brown and, having kept the snow off it throughout the winter, clear from all winter detritus.  Being sheltered from the wind, we have our own little micro climate that is about five degrees warmer than the rest of the yard.  In the summer it's awful, but right now it feels about perfect.

Girl child took our home school time outside today to the deck.  Today girl child decided that wanted to do some workbooks.  I don't know why, because I never ask her to do them, but some residual angst from conventional school has given her the idea that sometimes learning has to hurt.

Here is girl child's self-inflicted workbook trauma. Look at the tension in her body, her forehead wrinkles, and her go cup of caffeinated beverage (hot chocolate, actually).  She looks like a middle aged human resources desk jockey, working through the lists of employees to be downsized. 

You'd never believe that the front of that workbook says the word, 'Fun!' three times.

While I was watching girl child beat herself up with a workbook, I was writing in my journal and stumbled across this page that girl child had co-opted for herself.



Translation: "I got up and read Big Nat for two hours.  I saw that there are a lot of pieces lost [from] a police Lego set.  I have suspicions that there were robbers in the house but that's impossible.  My dad would know and why would they want police Legos anyway?"

Obviously we have a mystery on our hands.

This is when girl child says to hell with the workbooks and asks if I want to play cards instead.

Yes, yes I do.

So happy we have time for this again, the sun is out, and life is finally slowing down to a pace I can breath.

strapless fairy wings: a tutorial of sorts

Perhaps this comes naturally to some people but I had to seriously think my way through making five sets of fairy wings for girl child's Grimm play. Actually, it was even worse; I needed The Man to help me figure out how to attach the darn things.

The problem was two fold. First there was the wings, which couldn't be any old wings, given that this is for the theatre and not Halloween dress up (the difference I'm still a bit hazy on but have been assured that they are not the same). The five fairy girls, who are to float around the fairy godmother, are all wearing identical, beautiful, dance dresses.

That is girl child in her costume, looking very much like a urchin who has just stepped out of a rain shower. Seeing her all week in full make up and hair and now in this picture looking like a damp dishrag is creating a little cognitive dissonance in me but since the girl wakes up looking like this in last night's hair:

I think we can all agree she could use some freshening.

And, here are the wings:

You can see by the style of dress that we could not use straps to secure the wings to the fairies.  In fact, given that the fairies do cartwheels, dance and even lay down, having secure, durable yet flexible wings were the only thing that would work for eleven shows.  Also, the wings had to be quickly removable during the second act when the fairies would have to be in close proximity with other cast members without taking out some one's eye.

First, was to make the wings.  These wings are a cut out of a non-fraying polyester weave, secured to wire only along the top edge.  The material has just a bit of weight and it holds the shape well while allowing floaty, ethereal movement.  They look incredibly twinkly under theatre lights.

The base of the wing, as you can see, is a coat hanger.  To make a fairy wing base,

Duct tape worked well to tape the sharp end of the the bent hook end of the hanger and add a bit of strength to that post, which is important for securing the wings into position. 

To attach the wing, cut your desired shape of wing out times two and then either sew down a fold on the top portion of the wing to create a tube to slip over the wire frame or use a glue gun to secure the material.  I did both.

For rigging the wings to the dresses, I used a double ring looped around the base of the straps in the back.  The straps are attached in the middle of the back.  If you have your own dress or top where straps are not attached in the middle, you can sew on your double ring or, even better, a D-ring in the center.  The post of the wings are inserted down through the ring between the dress and the back.  A tight dress is best.

The wings are prevented from twisting or shifting by a couple of small lanyard hooks that hook directly to the wire arms of the wings. 

And there you have it, fairy wings, attached without straps.  Times five.