Jack-o-lanterns

Just playing around with the camera settings and our freshly carved pumpkins. The candle light setting:

The possessed version:

pARTy Mobile!

Of course, you all know that Jen rocks, right? Well, she put together a fabulous pARTy last Friday and this is the result of my handy work. I’d been thinking of ways to incorporate Seth’s artwork into something more than an ever growing pile of papers. As soon as Jen announced the project I immediately knew I wanted to use a few of his paintings. Perfect!

Art made from art. What could be better?

When I first mentioned it to Seth he was fine, but when the day came he almost had a meltdown. How could I possibly think to cut up one of his paintings? Such a mean mommy!

Needless to say he has now claimed this mobile as his own and it is hanging prominently in his bedroom. Click through to Jen’s site here to see the how to as well as other pARTy goer’s creations. It was a fabulous night with a fabulous group of creative women and one very fine pomegranate cake made by Jenn.

Crafty Birthday Goodness

It’s taken me a bit to post this. I went back and forth. Mostly because It shows my face, which I’m not happy with right now. But more importantly, this hat deserves to be blogged about. I mean this hat covers my ears, shades my eyes, doesn’t mess up my hair (too much) and keeps me toasty roasty warm. Perfect for a Minnesota winter. Yet, it’s a might bit warm for a Minnesota fall so it hasn’t been seeing much wear time so far.

It was lovingly made for me by my mom. She rocks! It also proved to be highly entertaining as she gave it to me in the pre-felted state. Fulling knitted items never fails to crack me up. Here’s the before:

I assume you can tell that 2nd shot is of Seth not me, right? It had to go through the wash several times and took about 5 days to dry. Now it’s so thick it can stand up by itself:

My parents also sprung for a couple sewing books: Bend The Rules Sewing by Amy Karol of Angry Chicken and Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter. I’m so excited, I can’t wait to get my machine back from the fix-it man and give one of the projects a whirl. I’ve even bought some fabric already. Top that off with receiving a copy of The Creative Family by SouleMama from the lovely Martha of UNIFORM Studio and I’m set with inspiration for the winter months ahead.

Before I sign off for the night, I’d also like to leave you with a little crafty humor in the form of one birthday card from my SIL and her family:

Ha! Old age and knitting humor in one tidy bundle. Nice one!

Kids and Photography

My sister just sent these pics to me. Seth took them back in August with her camera. I remember telling him not to take pictures of my face. (I was in a mood.) I am of course biased, but I really like how they turned out. I’m enjoying watching the progression of his photography skills. He’s catching on much faster than me.

Prince of Fabric Glue

On Friday I realized I needed a prince costume for Seth for a birthday party he was to attend on Sunday. Silly, as I had helped design the invites for this particular prince and princess ball about a month ago so I had plenty of warning. Friday was out as I had to work late, feed and care for children and I haven’t completely kicked this cold. So that left Saturday. Mind you we also had a pumpkin picking trip planned that day. Top it all off with the fact that my darling children have sent my sewing machine off to be tuned and tweaked as a birthday present. Therefore, sewing was out of the question. What to do? Fabric glue. Fabric glue is my friend. It always pulls through for me. So, taking the following supplies I whipped up a top fit for a prince:

• One size small Champion sports shirt (like this one) from Target in green, of course
• Gold fringe – 1/2 yard
• Gold trim – 1 1/4 yards
• Fray check
• An iron on patch (with a royal lion and sequins)
• Fabric glue
• Scissors
• Iron & spare cloth to use while ironing
• Wide gold wire edged ribbon
• Green medium width ribbon
• 3 gold buttons

First I took the lion patch and ironed it on over the logo of the shirt. Easy enough.

Next up adding fringe to the shoulders. I cut 4 strips of fringe to the same width as from arm hole seem to neckline seem and fray checked the ends to avoid unraveling. This is where I remembered fray check and fabric glue are very easy but they need a lot of time to dry in between steps. This annoyed me but I dealt with it. I glued the strips of fringe, 2 per shoulder, just in front of the actual shoulder seem.

Following the same principle as the fringe I fray checked and glued gold trim along the hemline and cuffs. As I had given Seth the ability to choose between 3 fringes and 3 trims he was quite pleased with the results. I did need to use a few heavy objects to hold the trim down in places until the glue dried with wax paper protecting my dining table but in the end it held very well.

Finally, I hand sewed a gold lion emblem button onto each cuff. There just happened to be a few of these in the giant button jar I had previously conned my mother out of. Seth really liked these and insisted on a photo of them.

OK, shirt done, now on to the sash. The sash is really basic and won’t last near as long as the shirt which is not only made of better material but at least a size too big on Seth. I simply took some gold wire edged ribbon and tacked down a more narrow green ribbon in the middle with a few spots of glue. I then fray checked the very ends, folded under twice and glued in place. I then glued the two ends of the ribbon together, but that lasted all of 30 seconds once Seth put it on:

Fortunately, I had another button and simply used a safety pin to tack it all together. I should go back and use some thread so there isn’t any accidental safety pin poking. If I had it to do over again I would probably tack the sash down to the shirt as an active little boy found it a little annoying that it would fall off his shoulder when he jumped up and down several times. Go figure?

And what about Eleanor you ask? Well, why make a princess costume when you can buy a cheap but adorable winter outfit that includes a sparkly white tutu for only about $20? I did buy her some glitter covered shoes to match but she refused to wear them. And really, all she cared about were the pink balloons at the party anyway. Next year I’ll start making her dress up clothes.

Fall

This weekend I was reminded of why I enjoy living in the upper midwest:

• A beautiful apple orchard
• An overflowing pumpkin patch
• Changing leaves
• Crisp air
• Seriously large corn maze

Sigh. It’s raining now and cooling off. A perfect time to sit on the couch with my tea, reflect on the weekend and do a little knitting.

Click through to my flickr to see a few more photos and as well as some details of our outing. Although, I must say I failed to really capture the beauty and feeling around me. Most likely because I was being pulled this way and that by the kids. I’m on a search for the perfect pumpkin patch or apple orchard for next year or maybe even for another trip out this year. Locals, do you have any suggestions?

Crocheted Market Bag

Well, I can’t pull anything over on all of you. Yes, indeed, as several of you guessed it’s a market bag. I’m both pleased and disappointed in it. On the one hand I did it! On the other it’s smaller than I thought it would be. I hate it when that happens. But similar to knitting I crochet tightly. Of course, re-reading the pattern it states I can keep working the middle until it’s the desired size. Oops! That’s ok, this held 10 large onions with room for more.

I’ve only crocheted once in my life about 18 years ago. It was an afghan that I’ll admit I never finished the edging on. It was someone else’s left over project that my dad had picked up at a garage sale for me. It did a great job of occupying me during an incredibly boring two week long job as the day time dorm counselor for a cheerleader camp. Those of you that know me can laugh now. I’m not exactly the cheerleader type. (no offense) But really, I was only there if one of them got sick or injured and had to sit out of the classes. So I crocheted and crocheted and crocheted. As I didn’t pick the pattern, the yarn OR the colors I ran out of motivation before finishing the project. It’s always recommended that you like the pattern, material and color for any project. Still, it was good practice.

For this bag I loosely followed the pattern in Erika Knight’s Simiple Crochet. Changing the material because I wanted to and changing the beginning of the pattern because I only half knew what I was doing. I got a few pointers from my mom right before she left town and kind of had to make it up as I went along until a light bulb went off and I finally understood what the pattern was telling me.

My favorite guess was Ayama-chan’s toilet roll dolly – shoot me now! But even more interesting is that Sew Fab Martha guessed not only what I was making but what I’m planning to crochet next with this material – a bag for Seth’s swimming lessons. Only this time, I’m going to make up my own pattern because I don’t see one out there I like. I’m thinking pull string backpack style with some fancy wave stitch or something. Wish me luck!

Quiz Time

Can you guess what I’m making?

Here are some hints:

• It’s crochet, which I haven’t done in about 18 years.
• It’s being worked in the round.
• I accidentally didn’t follow the beginning of the pattern but it seems to be working out just fine.
• The “yarn” is orange nylon mason line from the hardware store.
• It is NOT a doily.

The Best Jungle Gym and a Wrap Up

One of the most simple children’s play areas at the arboretum was a tree that had been cut down. It’s trunk and main branches had been cut into rather large sections and left rather haphazardly for the kids to play on. They enjoyed climbing, balancing, and pretending sections were various vehicles. I mean what kid doesn’t like to climb a tree? And the fact that the tree couldn’t be hurt and the children couldn’t fall too far made it all that much better. If you have a tree to cut down and children running around, why not give this a try?

Well, this post concludes my woodsy arboretum segment.  Quite a few of the items in these posts came from a little area at the arboretum called Under The Oak. Maybe someday my backyard will look like it:

Unfortunately, MY oak has a LONG way to go:

Here’s a look back at the posts:

• Stump Art
• Leaf Sun Catchers
• Forts
• Wishing Tree
• Setting the Table
• Pine Cone Elf House
• Nature Collage Framework
• Puppet Theater

What was your favorite? Mine is the pine cone elf house but I think I’m going to try and tackle the collage framework first as those materials will be the easiest to locate. I’ve been rather sick over the last week so it’s been fun to dream of these projects since I’ve barely even had the energy to knit. The farm visit was a nice break but I’m dying to actually get a project done. Maybe this weekend I’ll be up for some doing rather than planing. Cross your fingers!

Puppet Theater

Are you sick of my arboretum posts yet? I promise, only one more after this.  The thing is, the one day visit really did get me thinking about how I can better encourage more open ended play in our own yard. And boy do I like to plan this sort of thing. It’s the execution that bogs me down. Anyway, here’s my 2nd to last post on it until I start actually making some of this stuff.

In the education building there was puppet making. Pictures of a king, queen, woodland elf and fairy on card stock awaited coloring, cutting and taping to a stick. Simple yet entertaining for the kids. Eleanor really preferred to  just take the caps on and off the markers but finally we finished two puppets.

Honestly, I didn’t realize there was a reason behind making the puppets until we went behind the building and found this puppet theater. Of all the ideas garnered from the arboretum, this puppet theater may be the hardest for me to execute. On the other hand, maybe if my version isn’t quite as elaborate, I may be able to handle it in the spring. It was made entirely of logs and branches with burlap curtains and a felt backdrop. At least I think it’s felt. A little hard to tell.

Seth really enjoyed putting on shows, none of which lasted longer than 20 seconds. And Eleanor was quite content watching and snacking, not sure which of the two was her favorite. And there was even a behind the scenes tour:

I’d really like to add both an indoor and an outdoor puppet theater to our home. Then we can make puppets to our hearts content. I want to explore finger puppets, hand puppets, stick puppets, marionettes and kitchen puppets at the very least. Interested in joining the fun? Here are some suggestions:

• Print out coloring page images on card stock such as the ones we made here. Click here for a great selection of fairies, medieval and Halloween options.
• These scarecrow marionette or an inchworm from Puppets 2000 are fabulous and would be great for older kids
• The Crafty Crow has a whole section on puppets kids can make
• These winter glove puppets from Marie at Make and Takes are just begging to be made I tell ya
• And last but not least don’t forget good old paper bag puppets – easy and inexpensive. We have one names Jose that’s been around for at least a year.

Do you have any suggestions? I’d love to hear them.