grateful spark

i have had some very generous contributions to my sewing stash from friends, family, acquaintances, and freecyclers. recently my sister in law sent me a beautiful collection of treasures that had been passed down to her: vintage bias tape, ric rac, laces, and fabric. doors of creativity are opened as i figure out how to best use these lovely relics.

one day there was a topsy turvy craft session unfolding between siblings. first a hot pad loom project gone sour, and after a few wrong turns, hand prints on old paper bags came to be. we weren't necessarily thinking hand turkeys. but clearly this is what we have!

fun with friends in a blue ridge nature preserve. i love where we live!

a walk with my family. this is our neighborhood!

i am grateful for so many warm knits from my mom. hats, sweaters, ponchos, shawls, fingerless gloves, socks, we've got it all and she made it! i'm grateful for my beautiful family and how they always make me smile even when i am feeling overwhelmed by inner gloom. i'm grateful for an abundance of good food, good friends, and good times! i'm grateful for creative outlets, and all the people that encourage me to keep at it. i'm grateful for vintage fabrics passed from woman to woman to woman, for kids' creations that fill my house, for walks in the virginia countryside with friends and family. i'm grateful for babies: mine, my clients', and all the babies of the earth. they are the true expanding light of future days that we must tenderly encourage. i'm grateful for planet earth.

may your holidays be warm and full of gratitude!

robot parade

tristan's pal julia came over today. they played and played, ate lunch, listened to stories, played and played some more, and then we made cardboard robots. they were so into it! 

i cut out the cardboard in advance and used a small phillips head screwdriver to make the holes (rather than using a drill as in the instructions). tristan and julia inserted the brad fasteners mostly on their own.

we used some funky 3-d paper and glue stick for the features. they let me know what colors they wanted where.

things got more and more elaborate. tristan asked me to make shoes. there was a request for hearts. and then tristan asked for some arm stripes.

then the robot parade dance unfolded. we played the song at least six times. seriously cute!

tristan asked if his robot could have a penis. well, ok. and then julia wanted a penis for hers as well.

julia gave her robot to her brother as a birthday present. tristan's hung out with him for the rest of the evening. it went for a walk, it listened to bedtime stories. eventually he removed the penis. you know, even robots have a sense of modesty! 

wee craft: acorn spool dolls

please meet our new friends!

aside from weekends, thursday is the only day of the week that tristan and i don't have a prescheduled activity. it is our long lull at home and seems the perfect day to take on a craft project. in my continuing effort to make the most of acorns, we made acorn spool dolls. 

i picked out some wooden spools from a small vintage collection that i have, and selected some of the big acorns i found at the base of the oak tree by the public library. we liked the caps that appeared to have pom poms on them!

tristan painted two out of three of the spools, and i guided his hand to paint the faces. once the acrylic paint dried, i used the glue gun to stick the acorns to the spools.

tristan decided to use up the remaining paint by making some hand prints.

we thought the acorn folk might want to visit the faerie.

 behind the faerie door we found a large wolf spider. she was not pleased to meet us.

at some point tristan hung these markers on his shirt. what a silly guy!

in my continuing saga of how to be more "regular" with the blog, i've decided that day specific themes might not work out that well for me. i may sometimes have thrift thursday or friend friday, but otherwise some general themes might pop up on any given day: weekend roundup, sew inclined, where we are, celebrating the seasons, wee craft, and what ever else i might think of!