A weft yarn

Our new weaving loom

Not exactly sure why I'm saying "our" except that I love my daughter's new weaving loom. It arrived under the tree at Christmas time and we do love it. It is an Ashford Knitter's loom ,which though made in NZ can be purchased locally, and it is particularly designed to take some of the new knitting yarns. It has a wide eye reed that makes it possible to use the bobbly and funky and furry new yarns. Tess and I had gone to the Spinners and Weavers exhibit at CSIRO last year in April 2010 and really enjoyed it. The ladies were very patient and spent quite a bit of time with Tess talking about weaving and spinning. We both came home and thought we'd like to try that.My mother-in-law has since visited and delivered her old spinning wheel to us. We aren't quite ready to try spinning. We'll start with the weaving and see how we get on.

Aside from the loom, we also got a book specific to this loom with patterns in it, and one of these super lovely 4 season yarn and sack clubs, and on Christmas day Dad was pressed into service and set up the loom. On our first run through we used some old wool that was hanging around the house. She's pretty diligent my daughter and that first scarf came off the loom within a few days - even with all the Christmas stuff going on.

Then she got Dad to set it up again and this time we used the beautiful blue wool that came in our sack club. Unfortunately, we had some company from the kitten. I mean wool, moving wool, bits going back and forth - excitement, tantalising excitement for a kitten. Still, he had to be moved and he thought about it for a millisecond and then tried to get back in by climbing up the screen. Hmm.

 

No - stay out. So here's one happy girl about half way through the setting up process. While the weaving is really straightforward, the setting up is a bit technical (sheepish - hence the Dad).

Sorry this photo is a bit blurry but this is the small person pretending to be an annoying kitten but it does give you some sense of the process. The loom can be folded up and stored in a tote bag when its not being used. But it is dead simple to use in front of the television and quite a bit of progress has been made on this blue scarf. As mentioned in previous posts, Tess is the kind of crafter who just gets going. She's not fussy and fiddly, like I am. I'm like my Dad and she's like my Mum. Funny isn't it, how genes express themselves. It's good we work together. I add a bit of methodical steadiness and she adds the flair.

 

 

Knitting a salsa jacket

In the spirit of catching up with projects long since completed, I offer up a knitting project from 2009. If it's any consolation it is still being worn (not so much in the heat of summer day obviously, but still when needed of an evening you'll find her putting it on).

It is a Knitting at Knoon Design which I ordered from the Wool Shack. I bought the washable merino on Ebay and it has been washed many times. I use the handwash setting on my machine and then dry it on a towel on a drying rack and it has survived that treatment. It was dead simple to knit and ties with a little I-cord.

The photos are taken in very bright sun. The colours are very close to this.

 

 

 

Easter bunnies 2010

Another catch up post....Last year we had small cousins of the 2 year old and 4 year old variety staying in Canberra through the Easter break and so I decided that the Easter felt toys would need to be fairly simple as I needed to make multiples. In previous years I made these, and the year before I made two felt bunnies from kits purchased at Hobbysew. In 2010, for simplicity sake, I used the bunny pattern from  The Last Minute Fabric Gifts to Sew.   It was very easy and I made about 8 of them. Lent starts soon so I should probably be thinking of what this year's project will be.

Sewing Lucky Owls

We picked up this Lucky Owls pattern at the Canberra Craft fair, which is held in August, a couple of years ago. It is really easy for a young person to make with a little bit of pattern tracing, a little bit of cutting, a couple of simple seams on the sewing machine and not much hand sewing (cause you can leave that to Mum). Then to top it off, you just glue on the eyes and beak. Reading those instructions kind of put me off and at first I was all for over engineering it and adding in lots of hand sewing but really...it wasn't in the spirit of working with a small person who is addicted to completing things. She likes to have something at the end of a project. A couple of sessions is OK but not lots and lots of patient hand sewing.

So, first you trace the patterns onto baking paper....

We are making Olive.

Then you sew up the side seams on the machine and then, strange but true, you use dental floss around the base. The dental floss is really strong and as you have to pull together some reasonably thick Japanese cotton fabric and its a shape with stuffing and pellets, its just as well that the "thread" is strong.

We then stuffed Olive with stuffing and a small amount of yellow split peas to give her a solid enough, weighted base. Then glued on our eyes and beak. I did add a small touch of hand sewing around Olive's pupils. The position of the eyes was not as stated on the pattern but as stated by the 9 year old owner.

When my daughter's best friend came over for a sleep over we made another two - a large one and teeny tiny one. Very cute.

Sock owls

I began 2010 with plans to organise my sewing, which I did do. Then throughout 2010 we had many fun crafting adventures (quilts, Easter bunnies, sock owls, tapestry, knitting, embroidery, Brown Owls) but what I didn't do was blog about any of this. I had such an overwhelming work year with 23 interstate trips, recruiting 12 staff for the project and conducting a completely new collection that somehow the fun of writing up our life and recording it just slipped away. This was also true for the garden blog I write. I'm really hoping that now that the work pressure is beginning to even out, that I'll enjoy again the pleasures of writing and photographing and reflecting on life.

We made this little project in February 2010. My daughter was given the kit for her January birthday. It is a Craft Schmaft kit. Unfortunately she got stuck into it before I was able to help her and, not quite understanding the instructions, she cut up the kit sock into a shape that wouldn't work. So, we headed down to the Mall and bought a set of three pairs of socks that had likely looking colours and the benefit of this was that we could make multiple owls! We made three in the end.

It also gave us an opportunity to select co-ordinating fabrics from my stash (yay - using up stuff - always a win).

It is a really cute kit. I think this owl is going to take off.

After the first day of sewing, we were joined by my son, who soon caught up and added his own interpretations.

In this photo, you can just see all three little bodies awaiting completion.

A paper doll house - More summer holiday activities

My youngest has taken to trawling through the children's craft collective, Crafty crow, to find activities that she'd like to do. Somehow she stumbled upon a paper doll house. At first she downloaded some freebies, printed them out, made them, had a ball and then told me about it. No need to involve me. It seems we're completely computer literate. A couple of days later she dragged me in to the computer room and asked could she purchase this thing? And did she have enough money in her bank account if she counted her pocket money and leftover Christmas money?

She had arrived at Etsy and found the complete version of a paper doll house, dolls, furniture, landscaping trees and garden bits and pieces. Wow. I checked her bank balances and "yes" she could afford it, so I did the financial thing for her and minutes later we had this all printed out on nice white card.


It took two days to complete, in between swimming lessons at dickson pool, visiting friends, making morning teas, playing with our ducklings, guinea pigs and cat.

I was impressed with her stick-to-it-ness and the fact that she did 90% by herself. She only asked for help when she was getting confused or frustrated or it was very, very fine cutting. She's the kind of crafter who doesn't fuss. She just gets on with it. She works quickly. The taking two days thing is really just 'cause there's lots to do in summer.

And here it is.

And here is the top bedroom, complete with rugs, record player, teddy bear on the bed. On the plans, the room next to the bedroom is labelled a "craft room". The house has four rooms: kitchen, lounge, bedroom, and a craft room. Perfect!

And ignoring the fact that these are grouped in front of the kitchen, see what you get in your craft room?
 
Oh and there's pie in the oven! My daughter and her best friend sat in front of this little house and played with the dolls for quite awhile. She's never shown an interest in doll's houses before. I think it was the making it that created all the magic. Perhaps I should make something this summer!

Summer holidays 2010

This summer I've had the special privilege of having only one child home with me for two weeks. My son was away with the scout jamboree having an adventurous time and while we collectively missed him, it was lovely to have some special mother/daughter time. In particular, we had fabulous morning teas, mostly driven by the youngest member who made menus, helped with the shopping, made the morning tea, and set the table. The least I could do was record one of these events (and we had quite a few!).

Table set:



Menu: celery-peanut-butter-carrot cars, chocolate dipped bananas with sprinkles, summer berries and grapes, ice tea, and chilled water....it was a very hot week.


Waiting for mum. Beautiful. Can summer last forever?

Star Wars at the Powerhouse Museum

It was fantastic. We went twice. When we were in Sydney for the April school holidays we bumped into a family on the monorail. There was mum, grandmum and two boys who were playing with their heaving breathing toys - you know the ones, "huh {breath} huh {breath}, come to the dark side Luke". I couldn't help smiling and caught the mum's eye. She replied "Star wars exhibition, its great, we've been twice". So I didn't need to feel so extreme. Tee hee. We went in Jan school holidays then back again in April school holidays. I love the powerhouse museum and the Star Wars exhibition was really special. Two floors of the museum, with loads of really intersting displays of the imagination and creativity that went into making the movies. The kids were really fascinated with the "worlds". They liked the displays of Hoth, the ice world. How the filmakers studied and spent time in Antartica and Finland. How they thought of all the details about how the techology would or wouldn't work in the freezing cold environment. They described how the creatures evolved and adapted to the cold. We were all impressed with the depth of research and thought that went into the imaginary worlds.

 

Then there was my favourite - the Wookie world. I loved how organic their tree houses and structures were. I love the details in this model and how it looks like those lichen, moss things that grow out the side of oak trees have been included in amongst the houses.

The youngest waited patiently in the queue to have a turn piloting the hovercraft and was really rather good at spinning it around. The oldest loved these guys and their light sabres. They were volunteers dressing up and attending for the weekend but they gave the place such a sense of fun. Their light sabres were great, really strong and fantastic colours. Apparently you can have quite a realistic duel with those things!

We also got a photo with the storm trooper out the front. sweet guy, I'm sure.

Aside from the creativity and fun, there was also lots of hands on science, where the children experimented with building robots, making platforms that could stand on slopes and on the flat, learning how to convey emotions in a robot (very hard - we humans are pretty complex). Half way through the exhibition, when we were all getting rather weary with all the walking and learning and we got to sit down and watch the robot show with that highly strung, neurotic C3PO.

Then finally, the highlight for the young master was the computer games. There were three different versions. In this one you need to harvest water from the atmosphere (spooky huh - that was in the original movie way back in the early 70s - so pertinent now). Here's what they do.
 

And here's the result. It's a three minute game and his score was 91% production and 58% efficiency. Not too shabby. We probably wouldn't actually go again if it was still on but we certainly had a good time.

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Easter sewing

Just made it. As I wanted to have a slight element of surprise, I didn't want to sew these at night while the children were up. We watched a fair amount of television in the lead up to Easter Sunday, which normally would be ideal for doing such projects but as I had company with all that viewing, I had to wait until quite late most nights until the kids were tucked up before I could start this Easter project. As usual, I ran right up till the deadline and had a couple of late nights finishing off. So, in my deranged tiredness I wanted a little snap of the wee chicks sitting with the Easter baskets before being pounced upon and somehow I managed to take a video of them with my small camera. Not a good look. When I realised later in the day that I didn't have a nicely composed image, I fetched the chicks off the floor (or wherever they were) and snapped a quick photo. Note nicely chewed pencil. Sunday mid-morning table - generalised clutter, more realistic of our life anyway.

The Easter baskets were made a few years ago with lots of hot glue gun work, crepe paper, fluffly chicks, egg shaped cardboard and don't you just love it - plastic grass.

I was a bit disappointed with my stitching on the little orange chicky, not as even and accomplished looking as I'd like. But he's kind of cute. Next time, I'd put more attention into matching the floss with the colour of the felt. The wing is meant to have contrasting stitches but I think the chick's body stitches should just kind of disappear into the felt.  There was one intended for each child but the 11 yold boy was happy to leave the 7 yold girl to play with them and I caught them watching TV on Monday morning when I got up.

Most of the television viewing we've been doing since the start of the school hols has been in preparation for our trip to Sydney. We're going up for 4 days and then a flying visit to Nana & Papa at Berry on the way home. Last time we were in Sydney in January we went to the Star Wars exhibition at the Powerhouse and it was unbelievably good. It was a wonderful mix of creativity and science, lots of hands on for the kids, including a hovercraft that the kids can briefly pilot. My impression at the time was that while they enjoyed it, they hadn't seen many of the movies. So I thought we should watch episodes 4-6 with the young ones and then next time we're in Sydney we can visit the exhibition again, and I'm sure they'll get more out of it - particularly the 11 yold boy. 

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Easter crafting project

For the Easter crafting project with children, I came across an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens with some cute paper Easter craft projects. After showing them to the littlest one, she chose to make gift bags of easter eggs. We drew up the list - school teacher, guides leaders, piano teacher, craft teacher, best friend. We have a really fabulous local paper craft store at Cockington Green - well we love it - Wrapped in Paper. So we headed off for paper and ribbons and cellophane bags.

If I had my new lightbox that I covet this would have been a bit easier, but it wasn't so hard to trace the bunnies onto the paper, and as it was "made by child" it should have a funky cutting look, not a magazine pristine quality. I still want the lightbox though.

It was a team effort and we settled fairly early into role statements and production line mode. I loved how she concentrated on her cutting. We did a little prototype to check out the process as part of the task demarcation. I'm glad we did. I hadn't really absorbed the size of these things. I'm not even sure if I looked at the measurements and even if I did I didn't convert them into a size. I just let 8 x 27cm slip right past. I had bought enormous bags and I somehow thought we'd use up heaps of our fundraiser chocolates but when we saw the prototype I realised that I needed smaller cellophane bags. In the end, I think its a really lovely size. Not to big and overwhelming, just a kind of "thoughtful gesture" size. Good for my psyche which doesn't want to be all teachers pet but does kind of want to acknowledge what a lovely job these people do in helping raise my children.

So here they are. We actually made 9 of them and we were q-u-i-t-e good about not eating too many eggs as we worked.

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