animals

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Cats becoming friends

June 8, 2009 in uncategorized | 1 comment

cats playing

These are the kitties, Duke and Lila, they are both around two years old and have been with us since March I think. They came from the same shelter but were not previously acquainted so when we brought them home they had to get used to the house, our family and each other. It wasn’t too long, maybe a few days to a week before the majority of the hissing and yowling was over but they still kept a wary distance.

Lately they’ve been playing at night together, we hear them but we hadn’t actually seen it. They don’t mind being in the same room together, they will even sleep on opposite ends of the same couch or bed. Yesterday afternoon I caught Lila giving Duke a bit of a bath. He didn’t stand for it long but long enough for me to snap a few pictures. In my experience this is a significant step in the feline relationship. It shouldn’t be too much longer before we find them curled up napping together.

cats bathing each other

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This is supposed to be a post about Fiber Frolic

June 8, 2009 in crafting, food, needle arts | 1 comment

. . . but since I neglected to take any pictures, you get a picture of homemade jambalaya in the pot instead. Hope you like that, it was delicious if I did make it myself.

jambalaya in a dutch oven

But about Fiber Frolic . . . it was held at the Windsor Fairgrounds, about an hour north of me. My good friend and fellow artist, Jan, went with me. We left all the kids at her house with their dads (thanks guys!) They had fun, we had fun. We figured out the most obvious difference between llamas and alpacas, alpacas are a lot smaller. We oohed and aahed over the baby goats and the bunnies, and the sheep too. For the kids, we brought home some brightly coloreed handpainted silk cocoons, complete with the dried rattling worm inside! And we sampled some of the local handmade goodies including kettle corn and slightly sweetened, dried salmon, yum.

There was an overwhelming amount of fiber and yarn in a riot of colors from natural, right-off-the-sheep-dried-grass-and-all fleeces, to gorgeously dyed braids of shiny, soft roving, and beautifully colored skeins of handspun yarn hanging in the sun. It was a great opportunity to feel all kinds of different wool and other animal fibers and put a feel and look to some of the sheep names I’ve only read about. I only wish there was a book available that held actual samples. Maybe there is and I just don’t know about it yet. Since I’ve been working through spinning the five variety sampler bag I bought from Spunky Eclectic, I am appreciating how the differences that are only somewhat perceptive to the touch and eye can cause significant differences when spinning, and I’m sure to the knitted or crocheted project.

One of the most interesting things we saw was primitive rugs being made with narrow strips of wool hooked through an even weave canvas. Lots of felting, some really beautifully done felt paintings, lots of knitted and crocheted items of course, beautiful handmade spindles and lampwork glass stitch markers and other tools of the needle arts. Amy of Spunky Eclectic was in the last building we came too. Shame on her she had no sign, but I recognized her space immediately from the racks of distinctively dyed wools. I’ll save what I bought from her for my next post since I can at least take pictures of that!

Next year I promise to take cute pictures of the animals, especially the shaved angora bunnies, surely the funniest thing I’ve seen all week.

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Maine summer, comin’ in

June 3, 2009 in with/for/about kids | 3 comments

One of our favorite walking spots since we moved to Maine is Wolf’s Neck Woods State Park, only minutes from downtown Freeport, home to L.L.Bean which is a sight to see in and of itself. The park trails wind through the woods and down to the rocky shore. The girl struggled to keep up with the boy as they raced up and down the trails past the storm-worn roots of a downed tree, stopping occasionally to check on tiny wild flowers and spy squirrels, chipmunks and birds.

wooded trail in Maine storm-worn roots of a downed tree
purple wild flowers

Reaching the shore, we looked out on a few of the many islands of Casco Bay. Hopping along the rocks, we found tiny shrimp swimming in little pools, barnacle-encrusted shells and tiny periwinkles traveling slowly across the rocks.

on the rocks at Wolf's Neck barnacles on a mussel shell
periwinkles clinging to a rock

My favorite view:

Wolf's Neck Woods State Park

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Recent distractions

May 4, 2009 in crafting, with/for/about kids | Permalink

pokemon wurmple made out of sculpey

For your amusement, I present Wurmple, a Pokémon caterpillar, or “Murple” as the boy calls him (it?) made out of Sculpey. It looks complicated but it wasn’t that hard. Playing with clay dough with the kids over the last few years has really developed my ability to make recognizeable three dimensional objects!

Anyway, this did not come about without some reluctance on my part. I was vaguely aware of the game/trading cards, etc. for a long time but did really know anything about it. At the beginning of the school year a letter from the school reminded parents that children were not to bring these trading cards to school. Seemed like a good enough reason not to have them at all. Of course they make it onto the bus and the playground anyway. The boy would make reference to Pokémon occasionally but did not seem too interested until he started talking about “Murple”, a butterfly Pokémon and asking me to find a picture. (He knows all about Google Images). He’s been interested in caterpillars and butterflies for a long time so I thought maybe it was time to pay a little more attention.

It was easy enough to find the Pokémon website but not so easy to find a butterfly named “Murple”. But we did find him and his real name and the fact that he was actually a caterpillar that changes into a cocoon and then into a butterfly . . . with a different name. Yes, it’s confusing. And I learned a bit more about the whole phenomenon and decided that maybe the core idea wasn’t so bad after all. Along the way I printed out a number of other Pokémon for the boy. I used it as a way to encourage him to sound out the names. Kind of hard because some of the names are pretty weird. But apparently pretty motivating. Eventually he asked me to make a “Murple” out of clay. Eek. I really didn’t want to tackle it but he did ask nicely. You know the rest.

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Cats a-hunting

April 24, 2009 in free patterns | 1 comment

paper cats 3D three dimensional

It’s a bit of a story how I ended up doing this particular cut-and-color. I was making paper mouse and cat puppets on popsicle sticks at the urging of the boy who has been studying and creating fairy tale puppet shows in school. The puppets he had brought home were all colored on one side only but I thought it would be nice to have both sides of the mice colored so I cut the teardrop body on the fold so that I could enclose the popsicle stick. While the boy was busy coloring the simple mice and pasting on the tails and ears, I went to work on the cat. It wasn’t so easy to make a good cat shape that would fold over the stick in the same way. But the attempt set the wheels in my head turning.

Later I googled images of hunting cats until I found several with their backs straight and heads and tails down. This allowed me to place the spine of the cat on the fold of the paper. It then occurred to me that I could make the legs on each side of the cat different for a more realistic pose. This was a bit tricky but I think it turned out rather well. By creasing the spine and then gluing just the head and tail, your hunting cat will stand up on its own with a bit of a three dimensional look. I could probably carry that idea further but I’ll leave that for another time. I knew this one was a more difficult cut so I asked a nine year old friend to give it a try. He made the larger orange cat and I made the tan cat. As usual, the pdf pattern is best printed out on cardstock but will work with regular paper.

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Happy Spring, Joyous Easter

April 11, 2009 in crafting | 3 comments

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A little lamb for you my friends.

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And now for something completely different . . .

April 2, 2009 in pattern drafting, sewing | 5 comments

A skirt for me. Wow, it’s been a while. This skirt has a lot of features that I wouldn’t normally wear or sew for myself. First I used a conversation print – Alexander Henry‘s Starlings. I rarely wear prints at all. I also used red! as a secondary accent to highlight the red in the print and contrast with the main fabric of the skirt which is denim. I also appliqued one of the birds to the back waist, I don’t know why but hopefully it looks cute in a good way. I can’t think when was the last time I used piping and I’m sure it wasn’t on a garment for myself. I was originally going to use bias tape as the edging but went with the piping after seeing Rae’s use of piping on a child’s backpack. It really made the lines of the design stand out.

birdskirtfront birdskirtback

Other details: I’ve never cared for waistbands so that’s not new. But I don’t think I’ve ever done one like this. I cut some of the print fabric on the bias and used it to bind the top of the skirt which also helped reduce bulk since the body of the skirt is made from a hefty 12 oz. denim. The pattern is my own, rough modification of an existing six gore skirt pattern I drafted ages ago. Red topstitching. I love invisible zippers! And a resin snap for the closure. I also fused the lightweight print to white cotton to give it some bulk so it would stand up to the denim and a crisper hand to hold the pleat even when walking. That worked out very well.

birdskirtapplique

I apologize for the grainy pictures, these were all taken at night and Frances (my dressmaker’s dummy) was a bit tipsy as well. And unfortunately the skirt turned out a tad big despite stopping for a fitting midway. Oh well. Maybe it will shrink in the wash. (I pre-washed the fabrics of course.)

I need to thank FW and the gals on designer-stashers for turning me on to new fabrics and for hosting a skirt sew-along which is probably the only reason I got this done! And finally, the skirt on the reluctant model, wearing some eye-brow raising 70s looking clogs scored from DH’s office. (Amazing things turn up when you are cleaning out an advertising agency. :) )
birdskirtside birdskirtfrontview

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New furballs in the house

March 24, 2009 in with/for/about kids | 3 comments

First, I would like to thank all of you who expressed your kind thoughts on the passing of our beloved Brownie. We decided that it was best for us and the kids, especially having lost Daisy just last spring, not to wait but to open our home to some new friends.

We went to the shelter and came home with Lila, a svelte black and white tuxedo, and Duke, a handsome orange and white bi-color. Lila came in with the knowledge that she owned the house. It took Duke a few days to accept that, but they are starting to get along better. They are both loving and playful with all of us. It’s been comforting to have their presence even as we continue to talk about Brownie on occasion.

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Little birdies: Cut and Color pattern

March 11, 2009 in free patterns | 1 comment

With all the birds chirping outside lately I thought we’d have fun making some birdies for inside the house. Both the girl and the boy were able to cut these out themselves and color them. I cut the slits in the body for them and they put the wings in and then we just hung them with thread taped to the dining room ceiling. Then we admired our handiwork swaying happily.
hanging paper birdscolored paper bird

They enjoyed it so much I thought I’d include a downloadable pdf for you to cut and color your own birdies! The shapes are very simple for easy cutting for little hands. Best printed on a bit heavier paper if you have it. Don’t forget to color both sides. :)

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Footprints in the snow

March 10, 2009 in uncategorized | Permalink

The girl insisted on a walk in the woods today so we took the short trail to the sledding hill. I brought my camera along as it was gloriously sunny today. I ended up taking pictures of footprints in the snow. Maybe someone who knows about these things can help identify some of them.

These are obviously dog prints, quite a few of those among the human boot prints and sled tracks.
running dog tracks in the snow closeup of dog footprint

But how about these? Could they possibly be deer prints?
unknown footprints in the snowcloseup of unknown footprints in the snow

Now, I bet you don’t know what these are. The girl matter of factly informed me that they were left by dancing marbles!
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This is the girl being an ant, with antlers. She thought that was quite a funny joke. I was impressed that I understood her joke!
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And when we got home, surprise! In the empty lot behind our house . . . Could these possible be rabbit footprints??
animal footprints in the snowunknown animal footprint in the snow

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The crow tee shirt revisited

March 1, 2009 in crafting, graphic design, sewing | 4 comments

img_3303Ever since I first sewed the crow tee shirt and stencilled the crow on it, the boy has been bugging me to add a tree. With a nest for the crow’s babies. I was kind of hoping he would forget about it because I really liked the starkness of the original design. But persistence won out. I’ve always been afraid of drawing trees, mostly because I’m really bad at drawing trees. Studying lots of pictures and tracing photographs of trees is giving me some confidence. Now just don’t look too closely at the nest!

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Cute cow shirts

February 28, 2009 in crafting | Permalink

orange tee shirt with hand drawn cartoon cow appliquethe girl in red shirt with cow appliqueThe boy got this very nice orange long sleeve tee shirt for Christmas. He did not want to wear it because it didn’t have an animal on it. So I asked him what animal he wanted on it and we went google image searching for cows. It turned out that he wanted a cute cartoon style cow. So after looking at several, I ended up drawing this cutesy (not my choice) cow for his approval. He also requested that I make one for the sister. I hunted up one of his old tee shirts to use for her. I used my lightbox to transfer the cow design to fusible web backed white cotton knit. I then colored the images with the boy’s help using my Tsukineko fabric inks. The boy’s cow has orange nose and inner ears and girl’s cow has pink nose and ears.

I attached them to the tee shirts with a straight stitch and then finished the edge with a simple zigzag stitch. Simple, ha ha! For whatever reason, the stabilizer method I had used previously to sew on a knit applique did not work well at all. So that would be why there are no close-ups of the cow! And that would also be why it took more than a week to finish these. But they look cute on, especially with braided pigtails. :)

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Animals in the snow

February 26, 2009 in with/for/about kids | Permalink

snow Totorosnow squirrelsnow rabbitIt was quite warm today. The snow was melting, the icicles were growing and sometimes falling. The boy and I had fun cracking previously indestructable ice off the driveway. I was feeling lucky (or dangerous) so I threw ice chunks at the icicles, hoping to break the icicles and not hit any windows. Tomorrow is supposed to be warm too with rain later in the day so hopefully we will have more melting occurring on the roof. Not keen on the ground thawing though because that means water in the basement. But for today we decided to enjoy the softened snow and make some animals.

All of these were made to face a window on the back of the house so they can be seen from the inside. First came the snow Totoro. He ought to have black eyes but I was feeling lazy. Then the girl asked for a squirrel outside her window. I gave him the biggest acorn I could find out of my fall stash. I wonder how long it will stay there before it gets claimed by a real squirrel.

When the boy came home he admired our handiwork and helped me fashion a rabbit in front of the last window. These were much easier than I had expected. I guess if you have the right snow, it’s really not hard. I do need to get some better gloves though. We collectively soaked through three pairs of gloves, two pairs of tights and at least three pairs of socks today. I guess that’s spring snow for you.

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Balaam’s donkey, well, just the head

February 5, 2009 in with/for/about kids | 1 comment

This is the boy trying out the head of a donkey I made for a skit a few years ago for our church’s Children’s Workshop program. The skit was about Balaam’s donkey, which you can read about in the Bible (Numbers 22). It’s an interesting story, both amusing and powerful. The donkey head was constructed of plastic canvas, nubby fleece, felt, humonguous plastic eyelashes and some jute for the harness. I used a ball cap to get the shape of the head for the wearer and then made extensions from there to shape the horsey nose and ears. I sewed and glued the fleece onto the plastic canvas base. I left eyeholes in the fleece which had black canvas behind them so the wearer could see out but you can’t really see the human eyes underneath. You’ll probably laugh when I tell you that my husband played the part of the donkey wearing a grey sweatshirt and yarn tail along with the donkey head. But go read the story, the donkey has the last laugh!

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Crow tee shirt (sometime in January 2009)

January 31, 2009 in repurposing, sewing | 1 comment

I’m not exactly sure when I made this because I didn’t take the picture right away. The boy couldn’t wait to get into it. He’s been needing some long sleeve tee shirts so I’ve just been trying to make them from fabric or our old tee shirts that we haven’t been wearing rather than buy, especially since he is so thin that the store bought ones tend to look too wide to get the sleeves long enough. My husband donated a grey tee shirt to the cause and I recut and serged it up one night, intending to leave it plain. The boy however wanted to know what animal I was going to put on it. Since we had been watching the crows outside the window earlier he hit upon that. I looked for some pictures of crows on the internet and he chose one in flight. I printed out several and then quickly composited them on my lightbox to get the features I wanted from each, the wings from one, the open beak of another, the grasping feet of a third. I then simply cut a paper stencil and dabbed on fabric dye and heat set it with the iron. I lobbied for a small critter on the run at the bottom of the shirt but the boy preferred to have the word “crow” so that’s what I did. The boy was reluctant to help with the actual shirt but did do a second stencil of the crow onto a scrap piece of fabric that will hopefully appear on a later garment for the girl. All done in time to catch the bus to PM kindergarten. I’m afraid they are getting a little too used to this!

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