Category Archives: crafts

Monarch

In this season of change, before this week when the deep cold set in, we’ve been seeing monarch butterflies everywhere.  In the yard, when we go walking…

In trying to teach with the seasons of life as well as the seasons of the year, it seemed right to step away from some other things that we were working on to do a little nature study of the beautiful monarch.

Some books from the library that we’ve been enjoying:

An Extraordinary Life: The Story of a Monarch Butterfly

by: Laurence Pringle

with paintings by: Bob Marstall

This one is really lovely, with beautiful paintings.

Monarch Butterflies: Mysterious Travelers

text and photographs by: Bianca Lavies

And this one has amazing photographs of things like forests, completely covered in monarchs.

We also created some mixed-media monarch butterfly art of our own:

The project started with wet-on-wet watercolor paintings, complete with my uber fancy paper bag painting boards.  We each did a wash of golden yellow, covering our entire paper.  From there we used two shades of red, layered over top to start to pull out the suggestion of a butterfly form.  We experimented a bit with using a dry brush to pull color from certain areas and adding several layers of color in other areas for depth and a variety of hues.

We recently lost our favorite source of painting paper.  This was our first time working with this new brand and it was quite frustrating.  Galen was very upset when he painted right through his paper!  Even the older boys came close to making the same mistake.

Later in the week, once the paintings were dry, we used black calligraphy pens to fill in the details.  It took me a very long time the night before to finish mine.  The boys eventually gave up on the pens.  They were the marker sort and not nearly inky enough.  Inferior art supplies are such a bore!  They switched to black crayons and colored pencils, which got the job done, but didn’t give the same sharp clear lines and left a smeared haze on sections of their paintings.

Galen was not to be deterred and lacking a painting, made a drawing to add to our display.  After the black, we used a very fine brush, dipped in undiluted white watercolor paint, to add in the dots and other light details.  I actually think that White Out would have worked well too.

The week of this lesson, we were called upon to rescue not one, but two monarch butterflies, on different days and under different circumstances.  One was stuck in the mud in a roadside ditch, the other desperately trying to escape a bucket full of water.  Incredible to have them so close at hand, instead flitting away in fields, or a mere picture in a book.  Their many adoring observers brought a veritable feast of flowers, and thus were even able to watch them feed up close.  It’s highly convenient when Mother Nature decides to supplement my lesson plan.

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crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, Waldorf
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the most beautiful sewing table

Step one in the making of a functional studio:

Built for me by my husband, with help from my two eldest sons.  It’s the Narrow Farmhouse Table by Ana White.  They modified the plans slightly by not tapering the legs and shortening the table by two feet to fit in our space.  The legs were painted with Olde Century Colors in ‘Candlelight’.  The top was stained with General Finishes Wood Stain in ‘Georgian Cherry’ and finished with a couple of coats of General Finishes Gel Topcoat.

It’s stunning.  I can’t even tell you how very much I love it.  An entire table, devoted to sewing, just for me?  I feels like an almost unfathomable luxury.  A place where my sewing machine can stay set up all the time?  I’ve never had such a thing.  The ability to just sit down and sew, with no set up, no clearing away of school things or other people’s work, no digging out the machine and cord, looking for an outlet and getting everything in order.  Everything will be in order.  Always!

The warm creamy white and dark red-brown wood are so lovely together.

And it’s finished just in time for holiday crafting too!

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building, crafts, Our Little Home, sewing
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School in September

We started our school year the first of September and it’s been a good year so far.  A sixth grader, a fourth grader, one in kindergarten and preschooler means that I am one busy mama!  Honestly, we’re all busy.  There is so much to fit in to each and every day.

We started our first day by gathering up, cleaning and organizing all of our supplies.  We cleaned out the homeschooling closet for a fresh start.  I didn’t buy any new school supplies this year.  I first wanted to see what we had left and assess.  We cleaned our crayons and sharpened our pencils, tossing away the ones that are too little to be of any use.  There will be more art supplies coming to all of the children at Christmas time, but for now I want to use up what we have left.  Apart for the practical aspects, I wanted them to start the year off by actively doing something to maintain our little school at home.  This isn’t just my thing, we all work together and it’s everyone’s responsibility to help out.  I feel like reinforcing that idea really helped to start us off on the right foot.  At the start of every day, they tidy our homeschooling table again, emptying the pencil sharpener, filing away old work, clearing away scarps of paper and anything that might have been left behind the day before.

At the end of the first day we celebrated by breaking out the chalk; playing games and drawing designs on the driveway.  We’ve lived here for a year now and it wasn’t until that day that it occurred to any of us that for the first time in over a decade, we actually have a paved driveway where this sort of thing is a possibility.  Sometimes we’re not real quick on the uptake.  But it was all the more fun because of the novelty.

Iain is now doing a bit of yoga to start his school day.  Not much, just a few sun salutations, some deep breathing and gentle stretching to settle him into his lesson.  The little ones think this is fabulous and line up beside him to join in.  Pretty adorable that.

 

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Books, crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, snapshots, Waldorf
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Acorn Necklaces

~acorn nose~

Last week for craft day and to celebrate the coming of Autumn, we made dear Nicole’s sweet Wool Acorn Necklaces.  She does a great job describing the felting process, which really helped us to work out some of the kinks we’ve run into wet felting all together in the past.  Some of ours turned out a little larger then we meant them too, but they’re still cute.  Good thing we have lots of big acorn caps around!

Ours can’t be the only house where things like this happen during wet felting, right?

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crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, toy making
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for the fair

Quite a bit to share here today!  You should have seen us trying to get all of the labels matched up with the right projects so they could be displayed.  It was quite the scene!  So this is going to be a long one.  Are you ready?

Moving from youngest to oldest…

potholders

Galen submitted two potholders and took 3rd prize in “General Yarn Craft” with his big ball of finger knitting.

finger knitting

Do you see him in the background there lounging, and lazily finger knitting?  Love it.

hanging knitting

What constitutes a BIG ball of finger knitting?  In this case 189.5′, as of the last time we measured it.  That’s some of it above on the drying rack airing out after being run through the dewy grass to measure it.  We’ve promised to drape it back and forth across the living-room ceiling at Christmas time.

The potholder loom is enjoying  a renaissance right now.  I originally talked about it here.  With these projects he realized that he can now do it all by himself and it’s not odd for him to make two a day.  He’s getting a head start on his holiday crafting and stockpiling them to give as gifts.  His designs are also growing more creative and interesting.  It’s so much fun to watch him progress.

quilting

Elijah took 2nd place with his bird feeder.

bird feeder

He built it out of red oak, finished with beeswax and it’s heavy. Very, very solid indeed.  He adapted some plans found here.

elijah's quilt

His doll quilt, entirely hand-pieced and quilted, took 3rd place.  It was much smaller then the 1st and 2nd place winners, and they were both examples of fancy machine quilting.  Having quilted both ways myself, at some point or another, I have to say, I think more work went into his quilt, even though it was smaller and simpler.

He actually start the center patchwork part when he was around 5, while I was working on the quilt that was to be his, but turned out to be Galen’s.  He hadn’t worked on it in probably 3 years, but I’ve been encouraging everyone to reach down to the very bottom of their work bags and start finishing things up.

quilt

He really got into making this and I think it turned out beautifully.  Most of the fabrics are scraps from the larger quilt that I mentioned above.  The backing came from one of Steve’s old work shirts.  It’s waiting to be gifted as a Christmas present to Galen (sshhh!  Don’t tell!)

tapestry

The tapestry above is actually a project from earlier this year.  Elijah made this for Galen’s birthday, back in February.  I was going to share it when I shared all of his other home-made gifts, but I never did actually get around to that.  (there were some thoroughly lovely things too, so perhaps a very belated post is in order)

The sheep tapestry took 1st prize in the Youth Weaving department.

close-up

The pattern came from a Living Craft magazine from sometime last year.  He really took a lot of care with this project, down to hand-felting all of the balls,  carving and polishing the stick and sewing on the beaded details.

framed photos

Both Iain and Elijah entered two photos a piece and each got a ribbon for one.  These are them resting on our mantel right before the fair.  The ducks and the kayak in the darker frames are Elijah’s.  The sky shot and hornet’s nest in the lighter frames are Iain’s.

I thought that I had managed to get a picture of Iain perched high up on a ladder trying to take the hornet’s nest photo, but the batteries in my old camera died before it was fully recorded.  It’s a shame.  He took it very seriously and did a really good job with that one.  It was a lot of fun to watch him work (including stacking up just the right number of blocks to shim and steady my telephoto lens up).

iain at work

Iain’s birdhouse took 3rd place.  The judges praised his workmanship, but pointed out that the opening was too large, making it unsafe for baby birds, since predators could get in.  I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to any of us here.  We’re currently thinking on ways to make it baby safe and in the meantime it’s found a spot atop their dresser.

bird house

He used the instructions from Carpentry for Children by Lester Walker.  It’s built out of poplar and finished with beeswax.

scarf 2

His scarf took second prize in knitting.  It was his idea to make a scarf to go with Màiri’s snowsuit.  At the end of last year I bought her a Hanna Anderson suit on deep, deep clearance to use this year.  Being a Hanna, it’s of course crazy colorful with patterns going every-which-way.  We used that as the inspiration for the pattern here.  I sketched out the motif, based on the one from the suit and he embroidered it onto a square on the scarf, framed with seed stitch.  The heart is actually made of felt, with a pin on the back, so that the scarf can be pinned on.

scarf

He covered up all of the work on the back with a sweet cherry print.

This one is going to be a Christmas gift as well.  How nice to have everyone so ahead of the game!

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building, crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, photography, sewing, Yarn Crafts
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right now I’m…

noticing :: how very delightful it is to have a stack of brand new supplies for creating something beautiful.

supplies

feeling ::  excited, inspired and a bit over-whelmed as I start making plans for homeschooling next year.

smiling knowingly :: at this bit of wisdom from Donna Simmons (found in “A Rough Guide to Sixth Grade“), “And the more children you have, the more you have to be, on one hand, rigorously well-organized and, on the other, relaxed.  It’s a question of balance – when to let go and when to make sure it happens, whatever it is!”

wondering :: how it is that a 4th grader and a 6th grader sounds so very much older then a 3rd grader and a 5th grader?  I have no explanation.

moon

thinking :: that people just really shouldn’t talk to me in the morning during the hour after I take my pill (which makes me feel unwell) before I can eat (which makes me feel better).  If only they realized that we would all be a lot happier that way!

finally :: starting to learn to use my camera the way that it’s supposed to be used…but just starting.

as the sun goes down

enjoying :: the couple days a week that the big kids randomly send the two little ones out with tiny market baskets to gather herbs from the three half-barrel gardens I planted, for kneading into the herbed almond flour bread that’s fast becoming their specialty.

thinking :: I may have found a new craft to become obsessed about.

stitchesThe darling stitch holders above are a gift from a dear friend.  And she sent along the little bits of tatting below, just to entice me.  And well, it worked of course!

lace

I really should have pressed them before the photo so that you can see how truly sweet they are in their miniature perfection (instead of in their rumpled, just pulled from the envelope state).  I’m thinking these can’t go to waste.  Maybe some dainty trim on a pocket?  Part of a necklace?

glad, so very glad :: to be able to knit again

flowers

appreciating :: the old vanilla extract bottle full of flowers, that Iain placed at the window beside me when I was too ill to be up and around.

pleased :: to see them still blooming and also to know that I no longer bound by their side night and day.

loving :: berry season being underway!

missing :: the freedom to go outside whenever and however I want (photosensitivity concerns).

at play

thinking :: that if nothing else, our shade gardens will be well weeded.

finding :: twilight rapidly becoming my favorite time of day.

feeling :: tired still.  Still moving slow.  Still needing to take it easy, but taking more of an active part in life as each day passes.  And that is a very good thing.

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crafts, Food, Gardens, Herbs, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, photography, Thinking/Noticing, Waldorf, Yarn Crafts
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Our Easter Celebration

bloomingThere was (thankfully) very little snow (it melted).

There were baskets for little ones…
baskets

With chocolate nests, organic “jolly beans”, mama’s home-made maple nuts, this years books (for details see below!), a jar of new paint brushes to share and some mama-made rabbits that looked rather like kangaroos (these things happen).

And there were baskets from little alright, middle? ones…

harry

for Steve and I, with boy made chocolates, and little Harry Potters (after enduring years of hounding from the boys, Steve finally buckled and it reading and, I think, enjoying, the series).

There were some very goofy children…

elijah copy

galen

And an egg hunt of course…

the hunt

for eggs full of yokes and such, but also some with peanuts, coconut chips, more maple nuts, and coconut rolled dates.

e and m

Some year I will get around to making some fabulous felt eggs to stuff.  It wasn’t an option this year, but some year it will be.

my iain

this galen

This year’s books:

Swallowdale by Arther Ransome for the 11 year old.  We read Swallows and Amazons during an extended illness over the winter and it was a huge hit with the older set.  I thought they would enjoy seeing the story continue.

All-Of-A-Kind Family (All-Of-A-Kind Family (Pb)) by Sydney Taylor and Helen John for the nearly 9 year old (!!  more on that soon, I am sure!).  When I saw this review, I knew I’d found his book.  I was so excited to read it with him, but then he smuggled it away before I even had a chance and nearly finished it in one sitting!  He’s really liking it though, so I’m sure he’ll be open to reading it again with me.

The Lost Lagoon by Reg Down for the 5 year old, because anything by Reg Down is, by default, an instant classic in this house.  This one is about a springtime adventure.  Perfect.

The Story of the Rabbit Children by Sibylle Von Olfers for the Wee Girl (age 2).  I actually wasn’t overly thrilled with this one.  I don’t know, but there is something about a book for young children where there is a scene in which a father nearly shoots his own babies, that I find off putting.  P.S.  Mom is at home knitting while her children are lost in the woods.  And yet, I don’t think little people really see it in the same way we grown ups do.  I didn’t pre-read this as I normally do.  In fact, I didn’t pre-read any of this year’s books, which is very odd.  And when I sat and read this one for the first time, aloud to the children, they loved the simple story and pictures and have been requesting it regularly ever since.

See here for last year’s list.

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Books, celebrations and festivals, crafts, Food, Kids
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Welcome Spring!

flowers

I’m carefully averting my eyes from all uncovered windows, so that I can continue to pretend that there is *not* currently great piles worth of white stuff tumbling from the sky (but…but… it was finally melting!).  **La-la-la!  I can’t see you!**  If all the sand wasn’t covered in snow, I’d go bury my head in it.    Ah, well.  We’ll be back to the warm weather of last week eventually.

table

At the end of last week, when the children still sick enough to need rest, but well enough to be frustrated by it, I pulled out a secret stash of modeling wax and asked them to make some things for the nature table.  Lots of little figures of suns and flowers emerged and everyone felt a bit better, celebrating the coming spring, even if it wasn’t in the way we would have liked (running around outside!).

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crafts, Homeschooling, Kids, Life, Mothering
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Fetled Matryoshka

Back to Christmas! (yet again)
nesting dolls

Pattern: Nesting Dolls by Kate Startzman

Yarn: various scraps

Made for: Màiri Rose

This was one of my favorite gifts of the Christmas season, both to make and to give.

When I was a little girl, we used to go to this fancy doll shop, with big wooden cases full of porcelain dolls of every sort; characters from fairy tales, princesses, and life like babies of every sort and style.  And on top of each of those cases were rows of hand painted matryoshka, some very traditional and some not at all.  Some held all the characters of a story, some were of animals, some were ladies from a foreign land, some soldiers, and I was fascinated by all of them.  I knew when I saw this pattern that I just had to make them.

The knitting and felting went very quick and easy, while the embroidery was quick time consuming, but so sweet!

One of Little Rosebud’s favorite games right now is “Where’s the baby?”, where we set them all up and hide the littlest one in one of the others, while she closes her eyes (occasionally peeking just a tiny bit through her fingers).

“Where’s baby??”

baby

“There she is!”

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crafts, doll making, Kids, Life, sewing, toy making, Yarn Crafts
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