unschool plus

a pictureless post: on sharing and acknowledgement

2012-01-22T19:43:00.000-08:00

An interesting thing happened recently: I checked my email one evening to find that someone had linked to a post about a satsuma candle...a "candle" which looked remarkably like the satsuma lamp I wrote about in December.

Now this has happened before: I'll post a project and then spot a similar one elsewhere. But I've thought of those more in the vein of, "Oh look, someone else had the same idea—what a funny coincidence." It's not like I've been posting the Theory of Relativity, after all.

This particular time was different. The satsuma lamp is an adaptation of a project that's been floating around the web for many years. I've seen it posted and reposted in various guises already, and I know exactly which modifications I added. So when I read phrases about, for example, scoring 1/3 of the way down the skin and drying it out overnight for a better burn, it didn't feel like much of a coincidence to me.

I will add that this blogger made a point of saying she had learned it from a friend at a dinner party; so some kind of argument could be made wherein the friend read my post, forgot where she read it but could still use her otherwise eidetic memory to give detailed instructions to the blogger dinner party guest, who transcribed her instructions verbatim. Whew.

I'll let you do your own math. In any case, it got me thinking.

This is the web, the worldwide web, and we all publish with the intention of sharing our ideas. We expect them to be passed around the way we ourselves pass around findings which inspire or amuse us. But knowing how quickly things can spread, it's important that we also share source and history. This is about connecting, not about competition.

Or is it?

With all this sharing, the web becomes bigger and noisier all the time. Perhaps when one's income is based on blogging, the desire for traffic and recognition trumps the ability to acknowledge that we are all part of the same world and all learn from each other. That's all I can come up with, anyway. Twitter friend Lori, whose homeschooling writings have been plagiarized on multiple occasions, put it more succinctly (we were on twitter, after all): laziness + entitlement.

I will tell you, and not to my credit, that the satsuma post ate at me for a couple days before I was finally able to rethink it in a way that brought more joy than offense. I looked at my stats and learned that whereas for most of its life this blog has been a little side project of my twitter account, it somehow took a growth leap in December. I have followers and subscribers that I can't trace back to twitter anymore. Posts have been shared and pinned beyond my circle. I don't understand what tipped the balance, but I'm happy about that.

So along with my rant I want to offer a heartfelt thanks to all who are reading and appreciating and sharing—with or without attribution. I do truly love how the web has made our world both smaller and richer in this and so many other ways.

And I plan to take a simple precaution. I'm not at the point where I want to add watermarks or post warnings all over the blog (although I now have much greater sympathy for those who do), but I've decided to double post any new projects over on Instructables before I post them here. Instructables has a large readership and a supportive community, and S and I have used it in the past to publish our joint projects. I've also cross-posted from here to there, or vice versa, from time to time. I'll just make it a point to do so more consistently and hope it will be harder to pull a project from a big site like that without it being noticed.

In keeping with today's theme, I'd like to publicly thank the tweeps who responded, shared their own stories, and otherwise helped me to get to today's post. With gratitude to HSofia, Sam, Jen, Lori, & Cathy.

the waterless hot water bottle (heated rice bag)

2012-01-22T16:45:00.000-08:00

Although I've filled old socks with rice to heat the dog beds on cold nights, I'd never used one myself until a friend gave me one as a gift. It's long and skinny and drapes around your neck to keep your torso warm.

It worked so well that I also started using it to warm the (human) bed...and then I had the idea to make a rice bag shaped like an old-fashioned hot water bottle. Remember those? They always felt so good at the beginning of the night, and then you'd wake to find this cold slab of rubber like a lump in the bed.

Rice doesn't do that.

So here's a quick project to keep your bed warm on winter nights. I like it plain, but I also went ahead and made a second with a Valentine heart on it since I had extra fabric.

This is basically an envelope-style pillowcase around a pillow filled with rice. I made up two simple patterns, which you can download here and here. Unfortunately, the patterns won't print to original size (which runs to the edges of the paper) but always add a little margin around the edge. My suggestion for this is to redraw the pattern yourself, or trace around an actual hot water bottle. The only thing you need to remember is that the back pieces must overlap by about 2 inches or so.

Or you can use the patterns as is and have a slightly smaller heat pack.

For the pillowcase/cover, I used a red fleece. Red fleece is in abundance in the remnant section now that Christmas has passed. Anything over 12" should work comfortably and make 3 water bottles.

My rice pillow was made from a scrap of muslin. Any tightweave cotton in any color/pattern will work, though, as it won't show through the fleece.

The filling is 2 lbs of rice. Lentils, dried beans, and even clean cherry pits also work. I like rice because it's cheap and relatively fine. I don't think I'd want to roll over onto a sack of cherry pits in the middle of the night. (I also can't imagine how one would accumulate 2 lbs of them in the middle of winter.)

After you print out the pattern, cut around the solid outline and lay it on the fleece. For the front piece, you can just weight the pattern down with your rice and cut around—be sure to add 1/2" for seam allowance.

If you want to add the heart, this is where you'll do it. I just cut a pink heart from some scrap felt and zigzagged it to the center front of the fleece. I also played around with adding a felt initial and a strip of ribbon, but it's that time of year, so ultimately the heart won out. Here's what the others look like, though:

The back pieces are a tiny bit more complicated. You need to fold down Pattern 1 along the long dotted line for the lower half—don't cut it, as you'll need to unfold it later. Pattern 2 is the upper half. These two pieces are placed on the wrong side of the fleece (it'll be the side with less pile and fluff) with some clearance. Then you'll take a marker and draw around the outlines of the patterns, as shown below.

Remove the patterns and cut 1/2" around the marks you have made. Hem the straight edges by rolling them under and stitching.

Now you just layer the pieces thus:

On the bottom is the large front piece, with the right side of the fabric facing up.
Next is the hemmed top half, right side of the fabric facing down.
On top of these two pieces is the hemmed bottom half, right side down.

Pin carefully and sew along the lines you've marked. Sew all the way around, overlapping to secure the seam. Trim your seam allowance, clip curves, and turn right side out. You should have a little pillowcase.

inside out, sewn

inside out, seam allowances trimmed, curves & corners clipped

right side out, front view

right side out, back view

Now for the pillow. Unfold your large pattern again and refold at the dotted line going across the neck. Draw around the pattern on the wrong side of the fabric as you did above, and cut out 2 pieces with the extra 1/2" seam allowance. Sew on the marked lines, leaving a 2" opening at the top for filling. Trim and notch as before.

Then turn right side out, fill with rice, and stitch closed. If your machine is a tabletop model like mine, it may be easier to place the filled bag to the right of the needle so that its weight doesn't drag down.

And that's all there is. Stuff this rice pillow into your red case, and you are done. The total cost of this project is under $5, and it takes no more than an hour to cut and sew.

To use, heat in the microwave for about 3 minutes. Keep an eye on it to be sure the fabric doesn't get caught up anywhere (ask me how I know this) and take it out when it's comfortably warm. Then tuck it into your sheets just before bedtime. It should keep you or your loved ones comfortably toasty all night.

the blukuleles—or how to form a group to learn anything

2012-01-18T15:33:00.000-08:00

When one is prone to impulsive, hare-brained ideas like buying a blue ukulele with a dolphin jumping across it simply because it is adorable—

—is it a good or bad thing to have friends who are equally ~~loony~~ enthusiastic?

One way to learn something—anything—is to form a group for it. We were all once active homeschooling moms, so it only took a bit of idle talk and a few phone calls to get this thing going. There were no meetings, no person in charge, just a mutually understood agreement that we were going to learn together in a way we knew worked well. Here is how our little learning collective is set up:

We have a name so that everything related to this experience can be easily tagged and recognized.
We share resources with each other, in person and via a shared Dropbox folder.
We have two experienced musicians who can lead us through the process. This was just luck, but I certainly recommend having expert guidance whenever possible.
Early on we set the rule of no self-deprecation. Women, especially, can be prone to saying things like, "You sound so good. I sound terrible..." Not with us. Such statements get quashed immediately by everyone else in the room.
We have fun—admittedly, a given with the ukulele—but are also serious. Meeting times are held to. There is no off-topic chatter. We move fast and try to have a plan for each meeting.
We set goals, ranging from learning a particular song, to playing onstage in one's existing band, to joining other area playalong groups.
And we check in and track our progress: chords learned, songs memorized, patterns recognized, skills built. In this way we can see the concrete results from each practice session.

Group learning isn't for everyone or everything, but it can work very well in the right situation. Years ago, I used this same idea in setting up a knitting class—a class which has since turned into an ongoing knitting group for the last 13 years. And it's the concept behind Young Makers and most every homeschooling cooperative activity. When you're committed to a group, you're less likely to make excuses about practice time and more likely to just find a way to make it happen. If you do fall behind, you are motivated to catch up so as not to slow others down.

Most importantly, a group has multiple eyes, ears and hands. As each person shares a new song, a fingering tip or a video they've discovered, we amplify the learning process for everyone.

It's a cliché, but energy truly is infectious. A good group will encourage progress, cheer each step, and solidify your identity as an ukulele player (or whatever you choose). With our little blue ukes, we are on our way—

louis gaspar ukulele

2012-01-14T13:41:00.000-08:00

Here is Mom's other ukulele. You can see at a glance that it is a handmade instrument in the pineapple shape—a form pioneered by Sam Kamaka, whose family-run ukulele factory is still operating (and very highly esteemed) in Honolulu. If you peer into the sound hole, you can see this label:

Louis A. Gaspar
Ukulele Manufacturer
Wailulu, Maui
Hawaii 96793

"Wailulu" is a typo for "Wailuku," one of the main towns on the island.

There is not a whole lot of information on Louis Gaspar. Kamaka Ukulele's site tells us that Gaspar was Sam Kamaka's brother-in-law and learned the craft from him. And we can see his oddly lopsided pineapples at one online ukulele museum and in occasional eBay listings. Mine is equally funky: not quite symmetrical, with the grain of the wood running off-parallel to the body.

A couple of interesting features: the frets are placed directly into the neck, rather than on a fretboard.

And the headstock is elongated, with the tuning pegs lined up in an angled row.

The neck is a little on the narrow side, which for me means that the top G string, in particular, has a tendency to slide off. Maybe it's my novice playing, but I know I don't have the same problem on the Duke uke.

Mom's ukuleles, unfortunately, had sat in a closet for decades after her death and were not in the best shape when we cleared out the house a few years ago. When I had the local luthier replace the bridge on this one (he built a replica vintage Kamaka bridge but had to move it, as the original had been situated in the wrong spot), he was surprised at how many cracks and splits there were.

It was probably a humidity issue, but again, the Duke did not have this problem. Gaspar seems to have used his wood very sparingly. The unfilled grooves around the sound hole are apparently just shy of popping out.

Along with the ukulele were these notebooks:

Did Gaspar teach ukulele, too? I'll ask my grandmother next time I see her, but at 97 years old, I can't be sure she'll remember. The books are identical inside. There is a hand-drawn chord chart:

—and pages and pages of song lyrics with the chord changes typed above them.

All done in that purple hectograph ink—anyone else remember hectographs? :)

This ukulele has a soft, hollow sound and after reading more for this post, I now know that this is due to the pineapple shape, which was and is particularly valued for its warmth. I tend to play mine when I don't want to disturb anyone, but this week I am finding much more to enjoy about it on its own terms.

I can't end without linking to this series in which a Gaspar ukulele is carefully dissected and reconstructed. He explains some of the design elements but also finds his instrument crudely built. I think it's clear why Kamaka ukuleles are still prized, while Gaspar ukuleles quickly died out. My guess is that it was an inexpensive (Maui) local alternative to Kamakas or other brand name ukuleles in the 1950s. If you know more about them, I'd love to hear.

blog game/ukulele

2012-01-10T23:07:00.000-08:00

Sarah was kind enough to tag me with a versatile blog award. I hope you'll go and look at her blog and at the other blogs she named.

And then please forgive me while I cheat on this post. I recently did a similar one here, and that seems like enough stray information about myself for the moment.

Okay, I can add one new fact: I've recently started playing ukulele.

Just like everyone else, right? I'm no musician, but it's pretty hard to resist an instrument that has such a low threshold of entry. Sure, there are amazing virtuosi like Jake Shimabukuro or Peter Moon, but it's also possible for the average doof like me to play simple songs pretty quickly. I love that.

This is one of my mom's ukuleles. She grew up in Maui in the '40s and '50s and had at least 3 soprano ukes in the house when I was growing up. This one is the Duke Kahanamoku model—which sounds impressive, until you learn that Duke was actually a surfer whose name was on the nightclub where Don Ho rose to fame. Knowing how crazy my mom was about Don Ho in the '60s, my guess is that on a trip back, she and her sister went to Duke's where she bought this ukulele in the gift shop.

This was made in Taiwan, and there seem to be a gazillion of them in existence. You'll see them listed for lots of money, but the two most recent sell prices I found on eBay were on one side or the other of $100. Still, it sounds nice and bright to my newbie ears and tends to be the one I pick up to play. This last week, however, it's been on loan to a friend so I am playing Mom's other ukulele, which I will show you in another post.

a handmade gift bow

2011-12-22T21:02:00.000-08:00

Every now and then I notice again how hip crafting has become and am washed over with regret that my mom didn't live to see this day. I had a mom who made things all the time—partly from frugality, it's true, but also because she had a busy mind and liked to do things. She led our Bluebird and Camp Fire clubs and thus, coached numerous kids through years of creative projects. She made our clothes until we grew old enough to object. And she always had some type of handwork project going. She would have loved the explosion of handmaking that has developed with the web.

I feel this even more acutely at this time of year because I've inherited many of Mom's homemade ornaments and Christmas decor. This pinecone and nut wreath is one of my favorites, as I can remember her making it—not with a glue gun, but with grey linoleum paste slapped on with a trowel. (She would have loved glue guns!)

Mom also made her own gift bows. She had some kind of a jig that one threaded ribbon through. My clumsy child hands never mastered it, but I do remember the principle and put it to use this year.

Most of the seasonal advertising inserts are printed on glossy paper with predominantly red ink. So I cut them into 1" strips (with a $10 paper cutter—Mom would have loved paper cutters!) and taped them together as needed.

Start by turning the paper around like a little cone. You can tape it in place if you like.

Make another cone in the exact same way (flipping the paper strip under, not over). The points will not be exactly opposite each other, but will be slightly offset. This allows you to continue the pattern around, much like drawing with a Spirograph.

Continue around until you have created a full rotation, then staple the piece in the center and cut off any excess. This bow is made with five points, but you may have more or less, depending on how big your bow is and how sharply you wrap.

Make your second piece slightly smaller and place it at a slight rotation to the first. Staple it all together and cut a third strip to make the center loop. For my 4" diameter bow, I cut a 3" long strip.

Tape the loop in the center, and stick the bow to your package with another piece of tape. This is the package wrapped in the previous post. Not too fancy, but it was quick and used nothing but the contents of this morning's delivery.

japanese-style gift wrapping

2011-12-22T20:14:00.000-08:00

I always loved the Japanese way of wrapping things. Once you get the hang of it, it's actually faster than the more conventional method used in the US. It also uses paper more efficiently and can be done with a single piece of tape. With all this going for it, I don't understand why it hasn't caught on in the same way, say, that the furoshiki has.

I apologize for the crude blocking on the box—it's actually my husband's Christmas gift and I didn't want him to see it. Also, for the record: no one in Japan would ever wrap in old newspaper.

Start with your gift placed at an angle—you'll be wrapping corner-to-corner. (This method can be applied to any object of any shape, but it's easiest to understand with a box.) For ease of discussion, I'm going to label the corners north, south, east and west.

Bring the south corner over the top.

Then pinch the top of the paper on the west side, as if making hospital corners on a bedsheet. Crease it sharply and fold it onto the top of the box.

The camera is now looking on from the southwest side. Push the paper on the west side in, and bring the west corner over the top. You can tape it down at this point if you like.

Repeat with the east side of the paper.

At this point, you have a sort of envelope with the flap open, and this is the one place it gets a little tricky: you are going to fold in both sides at once. I hope the photo is self-explanatory, but basically you push both sides inward as you simultaneously lift the north corner up and over the top. Crease the folds against the side of the box and tape. (Once you get the hang of things, this will be the only piece of tape you need.)

And that's it! Gift wrapping that takes 60 seconds and one piece of tape—what's not to like? :)

satsuma lamp

2011-12-21T18:22:00.000-08:00

Tonight is winter solstice, the darkest night of the year and the perfect time for lighting a simple lamp.

This idea has been around for awhile—I think it first appeared here as a Clementine Candle. Typically it is halved and a star-shaped vent is cut into the lid like so:

However, D and I are partial to satsumas, having spent many winters in Japan where consuming a 200-yen bag of mikan over the course of an evening is its own special joy. I also found that the vent quickly blackened and didn't look that great, so here is my resulting modification.

First you have to know that the stem end is going to sit down, as it has the long pith that serves as a wick.

Score your satsuma about 1/3 way down and carefully peel that away. Then pull the fruit out, have a little snack and—here's the critical step—go to bed. In my experiments, I found that shells which were left to dry overnight burned brighter. So I recommend letting it sit for at least a few hours.

a dried satsuma shell

Place your satsuma rind in a holder of your choice. I used a wooden tea saucer and some pebbles because they were at hand.

Now all you have to do is add about a tablespoon of olive oil (other oils might work, but olive oil is particularly clean burning) and light the wick. This tiny little lamp will burn through dinner, dessert, and even a glass of wine and a game of cards afterwards. As I write this, mine have been going for over three hours.

You can also dress it up. I added some fragrant oil from the kids' soapmaking days and for good measure, cut the orange into petal shapes. I think a few of these would make a pretty centerpiece, or could even line up as a kind of menorah.

Here's to finding some brightness in your dark nights. Happy Solstice.

star quilt: finished at last

2011-12-13T23:51:00.000-08:00

It's done. C slept under his sparkly stars last night.

You'd think I'd be elated about having one less project nagging at me, but I only feel a sort of tired relief—like when you've been in labor for hours and the baby is finally there, small and wet and wrinkled. Sure, you're happy, but you also can't help wondering: after all that effort, well, shouldn't it be a little more...attractive?

The free motion quilting turned out to be a bear. I finally gave up on the Singer and took out a newish (90's) Pfaff that had been passed to me when its owner died. This modern machine had several advantages over the vintage Singer:

1. electronic control, which allowed sewing at an even, steady speed.
2. an integrated walking foot, which made it easy to feed through the layers of the quilt.
3. a free motion foot calibrated specifically for it, rather than a generic aftermarket version.
4. needle stop in the down position (oh, how I love this feature now).

On the other hand, it had less space under the arm than my old machine, and it sat several inches above the table, forcing the quilt to go over it like a bump—not the easist way to sew a big project like this.

This is the best set up I could come up with: the quilt spreading out over two plastic folding tables, foot control against a weighted cooler so it wouldn't slide around, and me sitting on a barstool in order to gain a little elevation. But I still wished for a bigger machine surface to be able to freely move that quilt in all directions.

On the very last day, it occurred to me to search online for some product that might help. I found this. Too late for this quilt, but maybe not for the next.

more christmas stockings

2011-12-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

What is it with the little stockings? I have no idea. I actually made these last year but with the knit and felted versions already posted, it seemed too much to post yet another variation on the theme.

They're as fast and easy as possible: cut out of felt (in one case, a felted sweater) with pinking shears and sewn around the edges. They could be filled with tiny candy canes and hung on a tree. I played around with adding numbers for advent calendars, too.

It got me thinking about family stockings. Ours are made from old jeans and prequilted fabric, because the first Christmas D and I spent as a married couple found us in Singapore with only a treadle sewing machine and some castoff clothing to work with. I had rudimentary sewing skills at best but thought of these as temporary placeholders until I had better ones.

With each baby came a new denim stocking: jeans are always available, and it was easier to add one stocking than to redo all of them. But by now I was thinking about knitting Christmas stockings someday.

By the time "someday" came around, however, the boys had already grown used to their funky blue stockings and didn't want anything else. It turns out they were especially fond of the little pocket in front.

But apparently I still think about stockings. A lot. Stockings are fun—they conjure up the feeling of waking up on Christmas morning, the surprise of digging down and pulling something up, and the pleasure of seeing our family names hanging side by side on the...well, we don't have a fireplace, so ours are on a bookcase.

And stockings are such a perfect canvas for customizing. You can make them from anything, in any colors, with any embellishment, any size or shape—just look at what comes up on flickr, for example. I guess I've always been partial to wool myself, which is why I keep coming up with tiny wool stockings. But ours are denim, and I guess always will be.

Do you hang stockings this time of year and if so, what is their story?

white christmas quiz answers

2011-12-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

Answers to this quiz.

1. Holiday Inn

2. longing to be up north

3. Fred Astaire or Donald O'Connor. Astaire turned down the role. O'Connor was under contract to make Francis the Talking Mule films and had caught a disease from his mule co-star.

4. Brown v. Board of Education

5. The Nutcracker ballet, which opened in February (!) of that year

6. The film opens on Christmas Eve, 1944, somewhere in the European theatre of WWII

7. b. Playing Around

8. Carl Switzer, who played Alfalfa in the Our Gang comedies

9. d. Rosemary Clooney. (Singer Trudy Stevens sang most of Vera Ellen's songs in the movie, but Rosemary Clooney sang both parts in the Sisters number.)

10. 21 inches. Ellen suffered from anorexia, which caused her health problems later in life.

11. Pine Tree, Vermont

12. to count her blessings

13. George Chakiris won the 1961 Academy Award for playing Bernardo in West Side Story.

14. Michael Curtiz

15. Cruella de Vil in 101 Dalmations

making a santa hat

2011-12-07T11:21:00.001-08:00

This was one of those quick-and-easy projects that somehow gets out of hand, like when you think you might quickly scoot the bookcase to the other side of the room but first have to remove the books, of course, and 4 hours later find yourself reorganizing your entire library, making 8 separate bags for all the places and people you plant to pass some of the extras to. And then, since the bookcase is now empty, you realize you may as well sand it down and paint it the color you'd always planned…but um, now the curtains clash with the new color and must be replaced.

Does this ever happen to you? Please tell me it does.

*****

C has a large head which can't fit into any of our Santa hats. He asked me to make him one, and I agreed. An hourlong project, I figured.

The fabric store didn't have the red fur he requested, but it did have all its "soft and fluffy fabrics" (yes, I believe that is the tailor's term) discounted 50%. So I brought some home and started cutting.

Then I noticed that the red fabric was kind of floppy. I thought I might add a little something to give it heft and spied some leftover cotton batting on the sewing shelf. And then I realized that C, once one of those children who was seriously disturbed by seams, was even at 18 not going to like having a bulky one touching his head. I decided to make the batting into a lining. (Why at this point I didn't switch to a more suitable fabric is beyond me. I blame my fuzzy, congested head.)

I had also neglected to get a pom-pom and realized that none of the white yarn I had was going to work with the creamy, textured fur of the brim. Thank goodness for the internet.

The entire project ended up being only mildly more involved than sewing the fur-trimmed cone I'd originally envisioned; but you know how it is when you're revising the project along the way instead of planning it well in the first place. Maybe you run into the dinner hour, have to clear everything from the kitchen table and set it up again after the dishes are done…and perhaps the son who wanted the hat also decides he needs his long hair shaved down to stubs that very night—10 pm!—and since the last time you shaved his head was 9 years ago, the clippers are rusty and an impromptu trip to town must be made for a new pair. And it turns out you've forgotten how to use clippers, anyway, so must make several ungainly passes before you get the hang of it.

This is how a one-hour project ends up lasting till midnight.

But maybe you can learn from my ineptitude and make your Santa hat in 30 minutes—it really shouldn't take much longer than that. Below is exactly how I made it, with notes of what I'd do differently next time in italics:

materials and tools

Red cap fabric 2/3 yard

White trim fabric 1/4 yard

lining fabric, same as red cap fabric

(note: in retrospect, I think 1/2 yd of red is plenty for most hats. C has that large diameter head and I was going for proportion. And 1/4 yd of trim fabric felt a little tight—I might get 3/8 yd of that. It depends on your preference, of course. Also, while scrap batting worked fine for the lining, I regret that I didn't think to use a real fabric rather than what is essentially needle-punched cotton fluff.)

scissors

thread

stuffing for the pom-pom

(I used scrap fabric but would have preferred a lighter-weight polyester stuffing if I'd had it)

hot glue/glue gun

I used a machine, but this could easily be handsewn. Seams are arbitrarily 1/2" wide. Also, I apologize for my photos, which were taken in the poor artificial light of our house. As it got darker, the photo color became harsher and more contrasty, but I hope you can at least see the steps.

steps

1. Measure your head. Remember to measure it both around the crown and as the hat will be worn (from the nape of the neck to the forehead) and choose the larger measurement. You can either use a measuring tape or the trim fabric itself. C's head measures 24" but when we wrapped the fur around to see what felt comfortable, he found he actually liked it being 26" around.

2. Cut trim fabric to to width, adding 1/2" seam allowance to each end. The height will be determined by the yardage you have, although you may certainly want to square it up. In this photo, my trim fabric is the 9" (1/4 yd) folded in half to 4-1/2" high. It is then folded in half across, with a 13-1/2" width cut. With 1/2" wide seam, that will make 26" diameter band for the trim.

3. Pin right sides together, and sew the raw edge of the trim. Turn it right side out. (Another amendment: I see that what I did here was double the fabric, fold it again, and sew 4 thicknesses together. It would have been far easier to open the fabric up to its full height, sew right sides together, and then fold the wrong sides together. You end up with the same shape for much less headache.)

4. Fold your red fabric in half with the selvedge running along the length, and cut a hat shape from your red fabric. The base should be the same width as your trim, and the height is roughly the height of your yardage, or whatever looks right. You can see I was just winging it here, but it only needs to sit on the head and flop over so anything pointy will work. I chose not to make a symmetrical cone in favor of maximizing the stretch of the knit. That means the hat opening runs perpendicular to the selvedge and the point runs off a little to the side (so that there is only one seam). If you are using a furry or napped fabric, as I was here, remember to run the nap in the direction you want it before cutting.

5. Fold with right sides together and stitch the cut edge closed. Pinning helps with a soft or slippery fabric. Turn right side out.

6. Cut and stitch the lining fabric the same as for the red cap. Next, with the lining wrong side out and the cap right side out, slip the cap into the lining, matching up the two seams. Right sides should be facing each other.

showing the opening on the left

pulling the hat through the opening

white lining needs to be pushed into the red cap

7. Stitch the opening of the cap closed, leaving a 2" gap to turn. Then pull the hat right side out. You'll end up with the lining opposite the cap. Just push it in, poke it gently from the inside with a knitting needle or chopstick to define the point, and iron if necessary. If you are a stickler, you can handstitch the opening closed again, but I didn't do this since it all gets caught up in the trim, anyway.

trim: folded edge is up, raw edges are down

trim inside hat, ready to be stitched

8. Attach the lining in the same way. With the hat red side out, and the trim folded side down, slip the trim into the hat and pin around the edges.

9. Now you will legitimately have 4 thicknesses of fabric to sew through. I set the machine to the maximum stitch length and lightened the pressure foot a little. And then sewed very slowly. If your foot gets caught in the fur, as mine sometimes did, just backstitch aways, smooth the fur down, and stitch forward again.

10. The raw seam will be on the outside of the hat, like so.

trim folded up to cover raw seam

11. But when you fold the trim up, it will cover the seam. Sew it closed with a simple slipstitch.

12. The pom-pom: in this wonderful age of idea sharing, I still feel strongly about attribution so want to point you to this video where I found the ingenious way of making a pom-pom to match the brim. Just cut a circle of fabric (this shows 9", but I ended up cutting it down to 7"), take a running stitch along the perimeter, and draw it closed around the fill of your choice: chopped up fabric scraps, as shown in the video and which I used here, or (preferably) some kind of light polyfiber stuffing that you have sitting around.

13. Trim down the ends of your gathered ball, and hot glue it to the point of the cap. I actually sewed the pom-pom to the cap before gluing it, as you can see above, using the gathering thread and taking the needle down through the point of the cap and lining.

14. That's it. Here's the finished hat with the seam at the back. Now that I think about it, that shape works really well for the sloping line from forehead to back of head.

In any case, it fits C's big head and he loves it. And since he chose to remove his hair in the dead of winter, I'm doubly glad that the hat is lined and seamless.

white christmas (with quiz & lyrics)

2011-12-06T15:40:00.001-08:00

I've mentioned previously that when I was young, the Bing Crosby movie White Christmas was broadcast every December 24th. My older sister and I watched it together every year; so much so that once we had both left home for other countries, one of the pangs I would get around Christmastime was that I couldn't watch this movie with her. No one else in the world can make me laugh simply by saying, "Mutual, I'm sure" in a nasal voice. And no one else can exclaim, "That waist!" or "That dress!" and instantly convey a history of conversation—because as predictably as a sequence of scenes, we would often have the same comments at the same points in the movie.

I have since introduced White Christmas to my own family. C got it immediately, while D and S have merely tolerated it; but everyone knows we'll be watching it come December. We have crowded friends into the living room to view it together, and we have gone to the theatre to watch it on the big screen. (If you ever get a chance to see it like that, do: there is nothing like a roomful people laughing at the same silly gags and singing White Christmas in unison. It was like sitting with my sister...times three or four hundred.)

Last year I ran the dvd with Rosemary Clooney's commentary while making Christmas dinner. That inspired me to jot down some trivia questions, which I planned to share at a White Christmas screening this year. But this cough has persisted, and I am laying low trying to shake it.

I had become resigned to shelving the quiz until Karen suggested a group viewing over twitter. This is why I like her! She chose a date and time:

Saturday, December 10th

6pm Pacific Standard Time

—and suggested we hashtag our tweets (#whitechristmas) as we watch the movie. We may be a minute or two out of sync, but it'll be close enough. For me, I'm planning to hit the "play movie" button as soon as the clock turns. Please consider joining us—the more, the merrier.

The quiz is below, and here it is in printable .pdf format, in case you want to host a White Christmas screening of your own. You could also print lyric sheets of the songs for a singalong…and drat, because I'm such a dork and found that there is no site with all the song lyrics compiled together, I've gone and done that, too—just click here.

May your days be merry and bright.

White Christmas Trivia Quiz

1. The song White Christmas originally appeared in a 1942 movie which also starred Bing Crosby. Name the film.

2. The opening bars of the song are not heard in this film. Complete the verse with five words:

The sun is shining, the grass is green,

The orange and palm trees sway.

There's never been such a day

in Beverly Hills, LA

But it's December the twenty-forth,

And I am ___ ___ ___ ___

(Extra points if you can sing it!)

3. Danny Kaye was the third choice to play Phil Davis. Name one of the other two stars originally tapped for the role.

4. White Christmas opened in 1954. Which landmark 1954 Supreme Court case ended school segregation that same year?

5. Also in the same year, what tradition did George Balanchine begin in New York City?

6. In what year does the first scene take place?

7. What is the name of the Broadway musical that Wallace & Davis are performing in Florida?

a. Blue Skies

b. Playing Around

c. Sing & Dance!

d. White Christmas

8. Wallace & Davis meet the Haynes sisters purportedly via a letter from their army buddy Benny Haynes, "the dog-faced boy." Which former child star's photo was used for Benny?

9. One of the Haynes sisters was played by Rosemary Clooney, a singer. The other was played by Vera-Ellen, a dancer. In their duet Sisters, who sang Vera-Ellen's part?

a. Trudy Stevens

b. Peggy Lee

c. Patti Page

d. Rosemary Clooney

10. My sister could never get over Vera Ellen's tiny waist. How big around (in inches) was it?

11. What is the 2-word name of the fictional Vermont town to which Wallace and Davis follow the two Haynes sisters?

12. When Betty and Bob meet at the lodge late one night, what advice does Bob give her for her insomnia?

13. One of the male dancers in the film went on to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1961. Name the actor.

14. The director of White Christmas was a Hungarian-American who also directed Casablanca. Name this director, whose name is an anagram of the phrase "Aztec chili rum."

15. In addition to the four leads, White Christmas features several standout supporting performances. One of these is Mary Wickes' housekeeper, Emma. In the days before rotoscoping and motion capture, Wickes served as the live-action reference model for which Disney villain?

7 things

2011-12-04T08:51:00.000-08:00

I go on a lot about twitter, but it's really expanded my life in a way I couldn't have imagined three years ago. For example, I met Stuart Dunstan through twitter. Stuart is an animator and homeschooling dad. I know him as a friendly and intelligent person, yet have no idea what he looks like—I tend to think of him as the green cyclops avatar on his blog and twitter account.

Stuart's tapped me in a blog game to write 7 things about myself and pass the game to some other homeschooling bloggers. I see now that it has taken me nearly 6 weeks to think of those 7 simple things, so without further ado...

1. My favorite dessert is not chocolate. I would much rather have something like this:

Image via Wikipedia

2. And this is my favorite breakfast:

Image by Backpack Foodie via Flickr

extra points if you can identify it (hint: savory, not sweet)

3. Despite not being religious now, I grew up in a churchgoing family. My father was a lay minister in the Methodist church he was raised in, and we often came home from church and read more scripture aloud in the afternoon.

John Wesley (Image via Wikipedia)

4. I like to say that I am related to John Lennon, as Carrie Fisher puts it, "by scandal." According to family stories, one of my great-grandfather's girlfriend's grandchildren was May Pang, the woman who lived with Lennon during his "lost weekend" year. Whether she is a blood relation is not clear to me.

Image via Wikipedia

5. I have a huge pet peeve about parking and traffic tickets. It's something that can send me on an instant rant.

Image via Wikipedia

6. However, I don't mind spiders and spiderwebs so you may find them in the corners of our house.

7. I have been known to enlist the services of psychics, seers and communicators from time to time and find them helpful.

Now, I'll pass this on to:

Elizabeth at Sattvic Family

Jen at Home With Heart

Karen at One More Tyme

Lisa at Lisa Nalbone

Sam at Ninth Street East

thirteen

2011-11-15T15:43:00.001-08:00

Can it be that he went from this:

to this:

and to this:

in only thirteen years?

Happy Birthday to my baby child S.

answers: to kill a mockingbird trivia quiz

2011-11-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

These are the answers to the quiz here.

Image by x-ray delta one via Flickr

1960. Though the story is set in the 1930's, it is told from the point of view of a grown Scout and therefore was written, and published, later. The film came out soon after, in 1962.
Monroeville, Alabama. Director Robert Mulligan wanted to film the movie on location in Monroeville, but found the town so changed with postwar development that they opted instead to use a backlot at Universal Studios, with a replica of the Monroeville courthouse for the trial scene.
Amasa Coleman Lee. Harper Lee's mother's maiden name was Finch, Atticus's surname.
Alice Ghostley. Esmerelda was the nervous, vanishing maid on Bewitched (1969-72), but Ghostley was a well-regarded Broadway actress at the time she was cast in the movie.
Robert Duvall. Duvall was recommended by the screenwriter Horton Foote, who had been impressed by his performance in a Foote play a few years earlier. They were to work together often over their careers.
Banana Boat Song (Day-O) by Harry Belafonte. Peters later became known for roles in Star Trek and Soylent Green.
Truman Capote. I thought this fact was better known, but only one person in our group got it. Harper Lee later helped Capote with the researching of In Cold Blood, as noted in the movies Capote and Infamous.
Rock Hudson. Astounding, isn't it? But Hudson was a huge star and box office draw in 1962. It was eventually decided that Hudson was too young at 36, and the part was offered to James Stewart. Stewart rejected the part, believing the film to be too liberal and controversial.
great acting
Jean Louise. You knew it wasn't Thelma Louise, right? :)
a freestanding closet. The chifforobe figures prominently in the trial, where Mayella Ewell testifies that she asked Tom in to help "bust up a chifforobe. " Tom later testifies that he had broken up the chifforobe months before, but that she had asked him in to reach something on top of a different chifforobe.
all of them. This was included so that everyone will get at least one answer correct.
Best Actor—Gregory Peck, Best (Adapted) Screenplay—Horton Foote, Best Art Direction (Black & White)—Henry Bumstead, Alexander Golitzen and Oliver Emert.
Brock Peters. Any of them might have been a possibility, however. Peck remained close with Badham and Lee to the end of his life. He was also friends and neighbors with Michael Jackson, frequently riding horses with him at Neverland. Jackson helped plan Peck's funeral service.
none. Except for the movie, whose set she visited and which she publicly admired, Lee has rejected all commercialization of her novel.

Tie-breaker Question: It is ranked number 25 on the AFI's 10th anniversary list of greatest American movies of all time.

to kill a mockingbird trivia quiz

2011-11-09T18:09:00.000-08:00

Last year my friend Cathy casually mentioned that she tries to watch To Kill A Mockingbird every fall. It's a fall movie, she explained, with the climactic scene occurring on the evening of a Halloween pageant at the school.

I was intrigued. My sister and I watch White Christmas every holiday season, largely because it was broadcast each Christmas Eve where we grew up; but it never occurred to me to have an annual movie for other times of year.

So I invited Cathy and some other friends over this past weekend to watch To Kill A Mockingbird on our screen. We served big bowls of popcorn, chocolate and tea; people arrived in the rain with blankets and bottles of wine; and we started as we often do around here—

—with a trivia quiz. C and I have played on a trivia team on and off for some years now, and we enjoy the format. Knowledge, even trivial knowledge, makes everything more interesting, doesn't it? We always hand out a small prize—this year it was a used copy of the 50th anniversary edition of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Below is the quiz as given. It helps to begin with some common ground: that the movie was adapted from the book by Harper Lee, who based it on people and events from her childhood. Some of the questions were quite easy, especially if you know the book or the movie. Some were fairly esoteric. Most were facts lifted wholesale from trivia and movie websites. My only contribution was to turn them into multiple choice questions, which makes the quiz relatively fast and easy and gives everyone a fair shot at each question.

To Kill A Mockingbird

trivia quiz

What year was To Kill A Mockingbird published?

1936
1949
1957
1960

The events take place in Maycomb, Alabama. The model for Maycomb was Harper Lee's hometown of:

Magnolia Springs, Alabama
Maytown, Alabama
Mobile, Alabama
Monroeville, Alabama

Atticus is one of the more unusual names in American literature. What was Harper Lee's father's real name?

Abraham
Amasa
Ambrose
Arthur

Which actress from the tv series Bewitched made her film debut as Stephanie Crawford?

Agnes Moorhead (Endora)
Alice Ghostley (Esmerelda)
Elizabeth Montgomery (Samantha)
Marion Lorne (Aunt Clara)

Which actor from The Godfather made his film debut as Boo Radley?

Al Pacino (Michael)
James Caan (Sonny)
John Cazale (Fredo)
Robert Duvall (Tom Hagen)

Brock Peters, who played Tom Robinson, also sang background vocals on:

Alley Oop
Banana Boat Song
Twist and Shout
Unforgettable

The character of Dill was based upon which childhood friend of Harper Lee?

Bill Haley
Jimmy Carter
Truman Capote
William Styron

Gregory Peck was not the first choice to play Atticus. Which actor was?

Gary Cooper
Fred MacMurray
James Stewart
Rock Hudson

When Harper Lee saw Gregory Peck in costume, she remarked that he looked just like her father, down to the little pot belly. Peck replied, "That's not a pot belly, Harper—that's..."

a beer belly."
great acting."
my wallet. These pants have no pockets."
padding from wardrobe."

What is Scout's given name?

Harper Louise
Jean Louise
Mary Louise
Thelma Louise

What is a chifforobe?

a type of chair
a freestanding closet
a framed mirror
a dressing gown

Mary Badham, who played Scout, didn't continue her acting career for long, but her brother John Badham became a director. Which of the following films did he direct?

Dracula
Saturday Night Fever
Short Circuit
War Games

To Kill A Mockingbird was nominated for 8 Academy Awards and won 3. Name one of the 3 categories in which it won:

______________________________

Who performed the eulogy at Gregory Peck's funeral in 2003?

Brock Peters (Tom Robinson)
Mary Badham (Scout)
Harper Lee
Michael Jackson

To Kill A Mockingbird has also been adapted into a play, which is performed annually in Harper Lee's hometown. How many times has Harper Lee seen the play?

none
once
twice
she has attended every peformance since its debut in 1990.

Tie-breaker Question:

What is To Kill A Mockingbird's ranking on the AFI's 100 Greatest Movies of All Time? _________________________________

How nerdy can I get about these things? Well, you can click here for a printable .pdf file if you like. I'll post answers tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I'm curious: do you have a movie you watch every year?

zombie piñata

2011-10-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

One year it suddenly happens: instead of making cute scarecrows and smiling jack o'lanterns, you find yourself creating a zombie piñata for Halloween. It happens because you have always thought that beating a sweet little animal figurine until it splits open is brutal and barbaric, and because your child is obsessed with zombies to the point of revising his zombie attack plan every few weeks.

You live in a rural neighborhood without much trick-or-treating to speak of and like to take something to the in-town Halloween festivities when you can...so the idea of the zombie piñata begins to take shape. Your child can play out his zombie defense strategy while also having fun with his friends. No animals will be harmed, only an undead creature who means to suck out your brains, anyway.

Your first try in conventional papier mache looks more like an insect than a face and must be abandoned.

Then you remember a package of craft plaster wrap, the kind used for maskmaking and bellycasting...you find a ~~hapless victim~~ willing husband and make a mask of his face after carefully laying down some plastic wrap.

Your model falls asleep, and his open mouth provides the zombie with the perfect roaring facial expression.

Plaster wrap turns out to be the perfect medium for impulsive last-minute ideas like this, drying as it does in under half an hour instead of the days that papier mache require. In short order, the head is filled out using a balloon and some inflatable packing filler from the garage.

Painting is the fun part. There is a base coat of white, a grey-toned flesh wash, and of course, the requisite purple bruises and red blood.

In the paint box is a squeeze tube of glow-in-the-dark puff paint, and this is added to make eyeballs and lips.

You never thought you would have fun making something this horrible and grotesque. But it's so much fun, it dominates your weekend. You even forget to make food for yourself and your family.

Clothing from the abandoned scarecrow is added, and the head is filled with candy and glow-sticks.

The pièce de résistance: a sound chip connected to a tilt switch, which responds to gravitational position. When the zombie is swung, he will roar:

piano lessons

2011-10-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night was our monthly potluck with families we have become close to through homeschooling. Many of these kids are now in school, but we all still enjoy each other's company and so gather regularly for communal meals.

As dinner was ending, with parents talking around the table and kids playing in another room, one of the moms very quietly noticed: "...he's memorized it…" Her son was playing a piece on the piano, fluidly and with great musicality.

She then told us that at one point she had called the piano teacher to say her son no longer wanted to continue with lessons as he felt burdened by the need to practice and memorize pieces.

The teacher had responded by saying, in effect, that he didn't need to do these things—it was enough that he come to lessons each week. She then asked to be able to talk with the child directly, so that they could come to "an agreement."

After the next lesson, the son returned and said that he and his teacher now had an agreement: he was no longer obliged to practice, and he would no longer need to memorize pieces. He had already opted out of recitals, because he didn't like to perform. His only part in the agreement was to go to the lesson each week.

And that is when things turned around. Piano became fun, and once it was fun, he found himself wanting to practice. At the dinner, the mom realized he had somehow memorized the piece he had been practicing.

He was also playing before a small audience of friends: performing.

monterey bay aquarium

2011-10-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

The reason we go to Monterey each year is for Homeschool Day. The aquarium generously sets aside several Mondays each fall to allow homeschooling families free entry. This is a huge, huge gift and we have used it for nine years now.

This year our time was shortened by C's evening midterm, which meant we could only stop by our favorite exhibits before starting the drive home.

sardines in Open Sea

rockfish in the Kelp Forest

purple-striped jellyfish

moon jellies

sea turtle

white-spotted rose anemone in Rocky Shore

The aquarium is built over the site of the old Hovden sardine cannery and retains a few boilers, along with an exhibit explaining Doc Ricketts' contribution to the fields of marine biology and tidal ecology.

Just outside of the aquarium is Cannery Row, made famous in Steinbeck's novel of the same name. If you look up, you'll see that the trinket shop is actually the original model for Lee Chong's general store.

Science, history and literature: I love how the Monterey Bay Aquarium integrates it all. This was likely our last year to attend Homeschool Aquarium Day, but we still plan to come and visit whenever we can.

P.S. My friend Jen and her family have been longtime traveling companions to Monterey, and she also went down again this year. Please read her take on the aquarium sea horses at her blog post here.

a day in carmel

2011-10-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

"If you should look for this place after a handful of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet..."
~"Tor House," Robinson Jeffers

Image via Wikipedia

Hawk Tower at Tor House, Carmel, California

Our annual trip to Monterey changes up a little every year. This year we spent a full day in nearby Carmel, precipitated by the fact that S was now 12 and could finally join a tour of Tor House. Tor House is poet Robinson Jeffers' handbuilt home on a cliff overlooking the Pacific. We have been waiting years to be able to do this and were not disappointed. Unfortunately, cameras (and even handbags) are not allowed on the tour, so I only have a few outside shots to share.

It's quite amazing to think of Jeffers writing all morning in his Hawk Tower, a place S deemed "Harry Potter-ish" for its turrets and hidden staircase, then spending the remainder of the day hauling and setting huge pieces of granite as he extended the house from one tiny cottage to a walled compound with multiple additions. He also planted over 2000 trees (alluded to in the poem above) along the property's edges. This was a busy man.

The grounds also incorporate pool table slate, ship ballast, and discarded marble from a remodeled bank; as well as old statuary, a portion of the Great Wall of China, and other exotica from the Jeffers' and their friends' travels. These occasional insets of random material give the house a sense of surprise and wonder on top of its gorgeous natural beauty and cozy simplicity.

More surprises can be found in the town of Carmel itself, where Hugh Comstock's twee little cottages are sprinkled throughout the downtown neighborhoods. In fact, many of Carmel's homes are similarly designed to be quaint and original (and...expensive).

"Hansel"

We ended the day walking around Point Lobos, home to Monterey Cyprus trees and orange algae.

I'd miscalculated my knitting time on this trip and stopped by a yarn shop thinking I could start a new project. The store's ball winder was broken, so this did not happen; but I couldn't resist a skein of custom-dyed yarn the owner had commissioned to reflect the colors of the beach.

Why don't all local yarn shops do this? I'm thinking the colors here would be tomato red along with other agricultural colors like green, gold and deep brown. What are the dye colors of your area?

star quilt: 7 months later

2011-10-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

The center is quilted! C has been watching, asking, encouraging the process. He's very happy to see it taking shape. It occurred to me that he has never not known me to have this quilt or its predecessor in an unfinished state.

Free motion quilting is still new to me, so the quilting is...well, I tell myself that it's meant to match the wild imperfection of the star pattern. And I learned as I went: how to adjust the height of the foot to better skim the quilt using a hair band, how to bend the straight pin coming out of the foot to make better contact with screw that holds the needle in, and how to add some shrink tubing to dampen the sound once that contact is made.

For the outer borders, I decided to quilt from the back, following some matching stars in the print. The next step is flipping it over, repinning from the backing, and removing the pins from the top. Then we'll take another run and be ready to bind.

dress to apron, part 2

2011-09-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about homeschooling one's children is rediscovering how exhilarating learning can be. And when the prime homeschooling years are over, it's hard for a parent to shake the habit of going after that little joy fix—at least, that seems to be a trend among my friends whose children are grown. They begin to take classes in writing and mosaic, in nutrition and environmental studies; they travel, join wine clubs, start new businesses and take up serious cycling.

My own learning ambitions are more modest: in August, I enrolled in Alisa Burke's online class in fabric design, Beneath the Surface. It was a bit of an impulse move for me after a summer of poor health and stalled movement, but I can't recommend it enough. The class was inspiring, accessible to a non-artist, and truly a lot of fun.

It also coincided nicely with the apron project, which I'd always intended to color. I had painted fabric with the kids before, but this class introduced new techniques and more importantly, new ways of combining techniques for a more complex and colorful look.

There was some glue resist and painting with Setacolor:

Regular fabric paint spattered on with a brush tip:

Some stamping:

Some inking. I'm not entirely happy with the final look, but I can think of it as something new I'm learning—and that does make me happy.

Alisa's upcoming class is called Free Motion Graffiti. It looks to be every bit as unique and enjoyable as Beneath the Surface and yes, I'll be taking it. I can't wait.

sugru giveaway wrap-up

2011-09-25T16:03:00.000-07:00

As noted previously, sugru makes a great replacement for lost or broken feet. It helped my laptop, and it helped Arnon's drawing board.

It also recently helped an ironing board with a missing foot cap. A couple minutes molding sugru—

—and the ironing board is good as new again:

And though I'd love for more people to have been interested in trying sugru, isn't it convenient that exactly three people left comments when there were three packs to give away? Sugru samples on their way!

(Juglans, would you please email me a mailing address?)

brothers

2011-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

The boys are 5-1/2 years apart in age, and they haven't always been close. There were a couple of years, in fact, where arguments were a daily occurance.

But as with so many things related to children, it pays to wait. Now 12 and 18, they interact constantly; and I love seeing how their interactions feed each other.

For example, S found the above book one afternoon and began browsing. At first, he was disappointed. "Why is it called Backyard Ballistics if nothing in here explodes?"

C explained the difference between ballistics and explosives. Overnight, it seems, C has become both mentor and teacher to S. He shares with his brother vocabulary, music and computer knowledge, and his interests in politics and history. S has so far not had C's inclination toward devouring news and non-fiction reading, so this is a natural way for him to be exposed to what he might not otherwise take in.

What S leans toward naturally is making things. When he decided he wanted to make one of the projects in the book, I asked him to give me an estimate of what it would cost. This isn't contrived mathematics on my part—he wanted to have it funded. So with his brother's help, he made a materials list, along with estimated costs; I gave the boys a little money, and together they went shopping.

I'm not entirely certain that this project wasn't chosen due to its requirement of empty Pringles cans.

Once the potato chips were eaten, C lost interest; S assembled the unit with help from DH.

You can barely see it, but the photo below shows the tennis ball popping out of the mortar. First try, and it worked! S was thrilled.

He shot the ball out over and over all afternoon, and C came back out and admired his work. These immeasurable moments are why a lot of us homeschool. Trajectory angles come and go, but family is something we hope will always be there.

Right now we still have very much an older and a younger brother, but their age gap will narrow soon enough. If they are lucky, this relationship they are building will give them a place from which to teach, learn from, and encourage each other over the years. That would be enough for me.

a handful of sugru projects and a giveaway

2011-09-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Last July, when I was still largely bedridden, Jane of Sugru announced some improvements to the formula which made it lighter, brighter and less sticky. She also offered samples to anyone willing to review it on their website. I volunteered, and Jane was gracious enough to send some this way.

We love sugru around here, as I have noted before. The only real drawback to using it is that it starts to set up once you open the packet, so you need to have several projects ready before beginning. Finding the right projects that would use up a full packet at a time was the first step.

project #1

The bird cover I made for my broom hook had had its beak chipped. I wanted to rebuild the beak and cover the metal of the hook to make it blend into the wall a little more.

project #2

I was regularly making the berry scones from this cookbook when the handle of my biscuit cutter snapped. My repair is not terribly elegant, but it is strong and allows me to use the cutter again.

project #3

It's a little hard to see, but one of the tiny rubber feet had fallen off my laptop. The constant wobbling was driving me crazy until I rolled up a ball of sugru to make a substitute.

project #4

I'd painted a couple of old metal folding chairs we had (shown here with S's desk chair, which he prefers in "original condition"), but had taped over the plugs and feet and then didn't like the contrast of the orange and beige. With no more paint left, I covered the plugs with leftover orange from the beak repair, thereby adding both color and durability. I'll do the same with the green chair as soon as I think up some projects for the rest of the green sugru packet!

project #5

A throwaway. There was still a bit of orange left, so I looked around the house, found a broken craft punch, and did a super quick repair. This was probably more sugru than I needed, and the middle photo is a blurry mess, but you get the idea.

It's worth noting that while some of these repairs might have been made another way, sugru is the epitome of quick-and-easy: simply open the packet, knead, mold and leave it alone for 24 hours.

This new formula is definitely less sticky and therefore that much easier to work with. All five of these projects used a combined two packets (one orange, one white), and I could have easily squeezed in another couple of small repairs had I had any.

I passed along packets to kids in our Young Makers group, and they also blogged their projects: a drawing board repair, and a trio of projects, including a pencil grip, replacement buttons and Sugru Man.

the giveaway!

Still leftover: packets of blue, black and green. Would you like to try some? Leave me a comment, letting me know how you think you might use it (I won't hold you to anything—I just like to hear new ideas). Be sure that there's some way I can contact you and if there are more than 3 comments, I'll use a random number generator to choose. All I ask is that you share your sugru project, repair or hack with the world in some way. Blog it, tweet it, put it on flickr, or share at the sugru gallery. This is why we have social media, right? To share a bit of ourselves so others can learn from it?

dress to apron, part 1

2011-08-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

Although it had been nearly 9 years since I nursed a child, I'd held onto this linen dress because it was soft and comfortable. Over the years, it also became shredded and stained and no longer useful as a garment. I thought I might dye it to cover the stains, and then I thought I could at least rip it apart and make napkins...and then the idea of a linen apron hit me. I have had the same apron for over 25 years. A change might be good.

The first step was to dissect the dress into panels. I'll apologize in advance for the terrible photos in this post. They're just awful, I know.

Because this was a nursing dress, there was a nursing bodice under the front flap. I'd thought I could simply separate the two pieces until I realized that the binding around the neckline held both layers together. So instead I stitched up the nursing slits and made it double thickness on top.

At this point, I had to stop sewing for a bit.

When Miss Lava woke up, I impulsively decided to use the ruffler attachment* that had come with my old Singer 201. I've never had reason to try it out, and the idea of doing something completely new is always appealing. Plus, a completely flat apron felt kind of severe. I thought a little bit of gathering in the skirt might lighten it up a bit. Here's the ruffler:

And here's the skirt panel with the gathers on it. This was attached to the aforementioned double-layered bib.

With all the fabric from the back half of the dress still left, I was free to cut straps on the wide side: 4-3/4" before they were folded in half and sewn with a 3/8" seam. When turned inside out and ironed and topstitched, they became 2" wide lengths. A shorter length became the neck, attached to the ends of the bib neckline. Two longer pieces became the apron strings. These were attached as shown below, leaving enough width to turn the entire piece under and topstitch for strength.

To be sure the curve was consistent on both sides of the bib, I cut a simple pattern from cardboard—

—then marked the width of the seam allowance I wanted (1") and moved it over before trimming with a rotary cutter. When this side was done, the pattern was simply flipped and moved to the other side.

Then these last edges were turned under and sewn down—and topstitched again. I also shortened the hem a little. Before & after:

This is not a full tutorial, because it is unlikely that you'll have this same dress or want this same apron. It's simply about process, a process which is often the same from project to project: you start with an idea, dive in, realize you have to alter it a bit, take a break, try something new, improvise, and then finish it up before you get sick of the whole thing.

I'm still thinking of coloring it, since a pale apron is ridiculously impractical. That will be part 2.

*Pdf instructions for all the old Singer attachments, along with video clips can be found here. How I wish I'd found this page before I did this project!

facelift for an old sewing cabinet

2011-08-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Back in April, I thought I might go ahead and finish the star quilt on the Singer 301.

Then I took took out the Singer 201 and changed my mind.

The Singer 201 is, as you may have guessed, the predecessor to the 301, manufactured primarily through the 1940s. It also came in handcrank and treadle versions, and in later years with an aluminum body—but the steel body with the potted electric motor is probably the most common. It is large and very heavy, not even close to being portable. It was meant to fit into a solid wood cabinet.

This 1947 electric is my old favorite, found a thrift store for $60 and somehow hoisted, cabinet and all, into the back of a minivan with two small children in tow. That's what infatuation will do for a person. This is a machine with exceptionally pretty lines.

But as thrilled as I might be with the machine, I could never deny that the cabinet looked rough. The finish was scratched, water-stained and dried out. I'd always meant to spruce it up, but didn't get around to it until last spring. All that procrastination, and it turned out to be a quick and straightforward weekend project.

First, a trip to the hardware store. This paint sample, although purplish in hue, was a perfect match for the face frames.

Dr. Woodwell took care of the rest.
"Dr. Woodwell Wood Elixir" sounds a little like snake oil, and the website looks like a midnight infomercial. But I have used it on a few projects over the years, and it is a genuinely wonderful product for cleaning & revitalizing old wood.

Thus we went from this

to this

And from this

to this

The machine head, though it has nicks and chips in the expected places, is timelessly gorgeous. Like the 301, it sews an exquisite straight stitch with a quiet hum.

Time for the last push on the star quilt.

eggs

2011-08-11T21:56:00.000-07:00

As they grow bigger and older, their eggs will get bigger, too. The eggs in back are from the older girls. I didn't set this up—the chickens like to share laying boxes.

Fresh eggs are no good for hardboiling (they won't peel well), but they poach perfectly. Simmer water in a pan, slide the eggs in, turn over once. When done, lift out with a slotted spoon. Season. Mmm.

Update: Since writing this, I've seen Jules' poached egg experiment and tried it myself. Take a look at what a difference a little glug of white vinegar makes:

I'll definitely be adding it to the water from now on.

peach pops

2011-08-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

I made these weeks ago and carefully noted measurements just for Sam...but alas, illness has wiped all memory away. Thank goodness for photographs, from which much can be deduced.

Place 4 loosely-packed cups of sliced peaches (these were frozen, but could as easily be fresh) in a blender.

Use the blender to finely chop the peaches.

And add 1-2 cups of yogurt and 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon (notice the hedge with measurements here—all I remember is that I deliberately made it a round number so it would be easy, but really, quantities can be flexible and to your taste). Blend once more.

Finely chop another peach (this one was fresh) for texture.

And stir into the mixture.

Pour into molds.

Freeze.

And eat!

These pops are slightly tangy, due to the yogurt, and we found them very refreshing as an afternoon pick-me-up. If you prefer something milder, however, you can always substitute milk or cream for the yogurt and take out the cinnamon. You'll end up with something like peaches 'n cream on a stick—also yummy.

where we've been (ashland, for one)

2011-08-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

This blog has been idle for most of the summer and while there are all sorts of reasons for this, the main one has been pneumonia. It has sapped me of energy, both physical and mental; and though I'm definitely recovering, it's been hard to get back on track. The summer plans I had for cleaning out the garage, tidying up the yard, and putting up a bike shed are postponed for now; it's enough to get through the ordinary day of feeding and watering, cleaning, laundry and errands. And don't get me wrong—I'm grateful to be able to do that much.

Another thing I was glad to be able to do was take the kids back to Ashland for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I considered not going, but C offered to help drive if necessary, and I knew I had the option of sending the boys to a play by themselves if I needed to rest.

And everything turned out just fine. We rested plenty, but also walked down each evening to the Elizabethan Stage for 3 different plays. Here is the set for Loves Labour's Lost, as stitched together on my aging iPhone:

There is nothing like sitting outdoors with 1000 other people on a balmy Ashland evening, all cheering together as the flag signaling the start of the play is raised, and then becoming so immersed in the show that there's no memory of when the sun sets and the stars rise overhead.

It was only our second year in Ashland, but we already found ourselves returning to some favorite places. There was Lithia Park, which starts just behind the Festival square and has miles of wooded hiking trail.

Bloomsbury Books, an independent bookseller on Main Street, with a thoughtful selection of titles that we can't pass by.

And our favorite eatery, Dragonfly, which calls itself Latin-Asian fusion food. C made a special request for lunch in the garden here on our last day.

Oops, I have no idea how this picture got in here! Dagoba...? Is that some sort of Star Wars place?

Okay, okay, yes, we went here! Twice, if you must know. (And if you go in summer, remember to take a cooler to pack everything in for the drive home. Not that we filled a cooler, of course—just offering a friendly tip, ahem.)

Where have you been this summer? Does your family have a favorite destination with places you look forward to returning to, or do you aim for ever-new experiences?

interview on The Sattvic Family

2011-08-02T19:47:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth at The Sattvic Family contacted me with a request to be part of her Unschooling Moms series (her husband is doing a parallel Unschooling Dads series on their blog, as well).

I met Elizabeth through Twitter, where I have been able to follow their family travels in Asia and their current life in Phuket, Thailand. Though our email interview was short and sweet, I am grateful that it gave me the chance to really explore The Sattvic Family blogsite, an incredible resource for traveling families, holistic and spiritual living and of course, unschooling.

I'm going to link to the home page, which currently has my interview up but will certainly be featuring other unschooling parents, travels, and thoughtful writings in the future. Be sure and take a look:

The Sattvic Family

Elizabeth on Twitter

blackberry paletas

2011-06-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

It's blackberry season again. And it was hot yesterday, so after tossing some blackberries in a blender and straining out the seeds,

...adding water, lemon juice and agave syrup to taste, we made blackberry paletas.

Because paleta sounds so much more appealing than popsicle, don't you think?

homeschooling, young makers, and the maker faire

2011-06-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks since Maker Faire so seems a little late now to bother with pictures or a recap. You can find both, in better form than I could produce, all over the web.

But I've been thinking about it just the same. This year the kids exhibited in the Young Makers area and got to see the faire from a very different angle. Their projects can be seen on the Young Makers and Young Makers Yolo blogs, but the projects were only part of the experience. They learned so much from exhibiting: how to display in a way that would be informative and interesting, what to do when a crucial piece was left at home, how to cope with fatigue and innate introversion while visitors stopped by and asked the same questions over and over.

I think we all left with new appreciation for those who put all their time into the Maker Faire weekend organizing, volunteering, demonstrating, and giving talks.

I briefly stepped on stage myself as a parent involved with Young Makers. Tony, the host/moderator, asked how Young Makers could be integrated with homeschooling, and I rattled something off quickly. But it's a perceptive question, and it has stayed with me.

In thinking about it, I realized that the Maker phenomenon and homeschooling don't necessarily go hand-in-hand. Very few of our local homeschooling families have shown an interest in the Maker Faire—or even Education Day, the Maker Faire preview which is geared toward school-aged kids.

And the majority of the Young Makers projects came from schools or independent groups of schooled kids.

But as an unschooler, I clearly remember hearing Tony, Dale and Michelle talk last December about their vision for Young Makers. They spoke of it being youth-driven, interdisciplinary, open-ended, and with an end goal of exhibiting and sharing rather than competing. This resonated deeply with me and with our choice to educate our children outside the school system and away from fixed ideas about what one needs to learn at any given age, from arbitrary categories of learning, from grades and awards and external motivators. I thought about these things often as the projects progressed, stalled, and progressed again. In that sense, I suspect our family has more in common with other Young Maker families than with other homeschooling, and possibly even unschooling, families.

This afternoon S and I were riding our bikes, looking at jays and talking about nothing in particular, when he suddenly said, "I want to remember to ask C to show me how he made his project. I want to make one for my bass, so that when I sit in my room and play in the dark, I can see lights flash around the walls. If it's hard, I'll just work on it slowly since I have all summer."

I couldn't say whether this was a reflection of homeschooling, unschooling, Young Makers or some combination of them all. But it was sweet.

3 cuckoo marans join the 2 ameraucanas

2011-05-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

More new chicks.

I know, I know...I know. But I happened to mention to my neighbor, the neighbor who raises hens solely for feather and egg variety, that I'd seen local sources for Cuckoo Marans, layers of deep chocolate brown eggs.

Image via Wikipedia

Maran eggs

Next thing I knew, the neighbor was driving out to a farm 45 minutes away. She thoughtfully brought back a few extra chicks for us to raise, as well. Our Ameraucanas were getting restless in the rabbit cage, so DH built a bigger enclosure out of some old closet doors, leftover baseboard, and a partial roll of hardware cloth. It's sturdier than our old cardboard castle and with a few modifications, should be useable as a chicken tractor later on.

So the 3-week olds have more space to move around, and the 10-day Marans are secure in the rabbit cage within the new space. We'll blend these two sets gradually, then eventually get all the hens used to each other. We have 11 older hens, the 9 March chicks in the barn, and these 2 sets of young'uns. Not the smartest set up, but I think it will all work out eventually.

And the March chicks? They're all well. This one, whose tailfeathers we've been watching grow longer and more beautiful by the day, even started crowing.

how to make a sun jar

2011-05-02T21:30:00.000-07:00

The original Sun Jar was designed by Tobias Wong, but diy versions have been all around the web for years. I'd had a vague interest in making them, so when solar garden lights started becoming smaller and cheaper last fall, I got some and experimented.

Yesterday I saw an ad insert featuring solar lights at The Dollar Tree. You can't get much cheaper than that, so it seems a good time to share this version with you. It's the fastest, easiest and now, cheapest way I know to make a sun jar.

For each jar, you need:

a solar garden light (the kind that sits on a stake)
a small canning mason jar with a clear lid (Ikea SLOM jars work great)
glass frosting spray
clear silicone adhesive

The most critical part to keeping this project easy is finding the right solar garden light. Look for those in which the solar unit is a single, compact piece on the top of the fixture. I used these, by Westinghouse:

You can use other types, but it may involve deconstructing the solar unit a bit. This type of light, besides being small and inexpensive, makes it all very easy.

Make a mask with newspaper and painters tape, and spray the inside of the jar with frosting spray. A few tips: spray outdoors, away from wind, and in a well-ventilated area; shake the can thoroughly before spraying; and keep the can moving slowly and continuously. Finally, use a light touch—the paint doesn't show up well until it dries, so have faith and add a second coat later if you need to.

Unscrew the solar light unit from the bulb and stake. If you're lucky, it may fit right into the jar lid. If not, use a few blobs of the adhesive to attach it to the top of your jar.

Run a bead of silicone around the edge of the light unit to secure it—

—and that's it! You have a solar jar. You may have to remove a protective tab (orange with an arrow in the photo above) to let the battery connect. Close your lid, and place your jar in full sun to charge.

I made a lot of jars last year, thinking they'd be good Christmas/Solstice gifts, but the winter sun is really too weak to give good charge to the solar cell. They're much better from this point on: the longer, brighter days translate to more glow time in the evening.

This year I thought I'd add simple hangers. 12 gauge aluminum jewelry wire, wrapped and twisted around the top of the jar, worked perfectly. Each light needed about 30-36" of wire.

The nice thing about aluminum wire is that it bends and twists easily. The problem with aluminum wires is that it bends and twists easily. In other words, it's easy to work with but also easy to mangle. I prefer to think of it as a deliberately rustic style.

loop the wire around the jar

aluminum wire is soft enough to twist with your fingers

it can be finished off with pliers

the finished twist

pull a loop out from the opposite side...

...and twist the loop with pliers

thread the end of the handle through the loop you've made

charging

With the little handle, you can hang it from a tree—

—or hang several in a row under your eaves.

Pretty, aren't they? Like little glass moons suspended in the night. Maybe they should be called Moon Jars instead.

chicks and eggs

2011-04-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

When the chicks start regularly roosting on the top of their cardboard enclosure, they'll probably do well in the barn. We moved their heat lamp, and set down more litter and a bigger waterer. They were curious about the new place, but seemed to like it fine.

We had another reason for moving the chicks. Due to a mishap in the original order, a second group of chicks was being sent. From this batch, we received three Ameraucanas.

Actually, I have a hard time looking at this picture. On the same day we took it, our terrier killed the beautiful chick in front. S was extremely distraught; I felt horribly guilty over my negligence about locking Maggie up. It was a mournful afternoon.

But life is a mixture of the sad, the sweet, the joyous and the fun. Our neighbor dropped off a box of her eggs for us. She keeps bantams, including banty ameraucanas who produce tiny green eggs. I love the mixture of sizes and color. (Yes, freshly collected eggs from hens sharing nests are sometimes dirty, especially when it's wet outside; we wash all our eggs just before cracking.)

One day I sat and made tissue paper eggs, which I had seen on this show passed along by a friend.

The next day C decided to do pysanky eggs, which we had tried when the kids were younger. C does not often ask to do crafts these days, and I was surprised that he even remembered this. When S saw his brother making eggs, he asked to do some of his own. S had no recollection of doing pysanky before.

Pysanky eggs are a fairly long process of alternately drawing with wax and dyeing in successively darker colors (there are special pysanky dyes, but we used regular Easter egg colors from the grocery store), then gradually melting off all the wax with a candle flame. It's very relaxing, even if we are far from expert at the process. I had to laugh when I saw the finished eggs and realized that C, our sports fan, had made one egg into a football.

This is the season that reminds us how life cycles on: from baby chicks to older chicks to hens; from a child decorating eggs to a young man decorating eggs. Being able to share these days with my growing kids has been and still is a blessing, and I am grateful.

guest post: Tibetan prayer flags

2011-04-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Many years ago—well before children—DH and I took a bicycle trip up the Himalayan mountains to Ladakh, in far northern India. It was there we first encountered prayer flags. Several generations of flags would be wound around rocks or between trees, a welcome burst of color in an otherwise fairly stark mountain region. I think that's probably all I thought about them at the time: that they were colorful.

And then seven years ago, a friend brought a gift of prayer flags to the house. She explained that the intention was for wind to blow prayers of peace and happiness (printed on the flags themselves) out into the world. This knowledge made me a little happier each time I walked outside and saw the wind catching the flags. It was even okay to watch them slowly tatter and break down into shreds; the friend had explained that this would happen as the prayers spread.

This winter the flags finally blew down and it seemed a good time to put up another set. A conversation arose on twitter and some us—friends who have never met in person—decided to hang them together. Would this maximize the effect of the flags? It would at very least give us one more connection to each other.

Sam hung hers in the morning:

Mine in the afternoon:

Karen's went up the next day:

A few more people noticed and commented, which made me think about some friends who are Tibetan Buddhists. One of them, who prefers to go by her initials, agreed to write about prayer flags for this blog. I apologize for the long introduction but hope you will keep reading, because I love all that she has learned and shared. Thank you, ZYP. I'm honored to have this as my very first guest post.

Prayer Flags

by ZYP

When I agreed to write about Tibetan prayer flags I discovered that flags were a specialized field of interest. Vexillology, I learned, is the scholarly study of flags.

I know about the symbolism of Buddhist prayer flags, but I was curious about how they came into use historically. As I began researching the history of flags on the internet I became increasingly vexed by the lack of clear historical references about my topic. I wondered if ‘vex’ and ‘vexillology’ share a historical root.

‘Vex’ is an old word still used to communicate irritation, difficulty and puzzlement. It comes from the Latin root ‘vexare’ - to agitate, or to harry.

Vexillology has its root in the Latin word ‘velum’ - “a sail.” Vexillum, then, is the ancient Latin for flag and banner.

People have used flags as a method of communication since ancient history. Flags in ancient times were not like the cloth flags we see hoisted or hung on straight poles in modern times. Flags throughout history could come in various shapes and materials. They were made of animal skins, wood or metal before cloth became the standard. Flags could be referred to in other terms such as: standards, banners, pennons, pennants, jacks and vexillum.

The history of flags is dominated by militaristic associations. The earliest referenced example of the modern use and style of flags comes from the Ancient Greeks. They painted symbols on their shields to show tribal loyalty or battle unit.

The oldest reference I could find about the use of a flag is set in ancient Persia several hundred years BCE. The story is about a blacksmith named Koah who inspired his fellow Persians to overthrow the tyranny of their ruler. Koah reared a banner made of his leather blacksmithing apron to arouse and unite his followers. The banner grew in size as people adorned the apron with embroidery and gems. People people believed the banner held a superstitious power. The fate of the Persian kingdom was believed to be connected to this banner as the kingdom warred with neighboring states. When the banner was finally captured by an opposing army, it was thoroughly destroyed.¹

I find it interesting that flags were mainly used for military purposes throughout much of ancient history. That association explains the gradual development of rigid rules and protocols for flags. It is as though flags represent the spirit and power of entire peoples. Desecrating a flag was serious business in ancient history and it is still serious business today. And that brings me back to the idea that vex and vexillum could be connected - at least experientially. Wherever banners of conflict fly, difficulty seems to follow.

In contrast, flags took a different path in the Himalayan Plateau during the course of history. To be sure, flags were used for military purposes in ancient Tibet, but they were also used for peaceful gatherings of the nomadic tribes. Eventually followers of Tibet’s oldest spiritual tradition, Bon, used flags in rituals for luck, happiness, healing, and protection. Tibetan Buddhism adopted the ritual of prayer flags and infused it with its own symbolism. But the aspiration remained a wish for good fortune, health, wealth, long-life, the power of accomplishment, and all good things.

Buddhism entered Tibet from India around 200 CE. It spread slowly in the first century but then began to flourish. As Indian Buddhism was adopted into Tibetan culture, the traditional Bon religion and Buddhism influenced each other. Today Bon and Tibetan Buddhism share some basic symbols and rituals, and the differences between others can be subtle. According to both traditions prayer flags are imbued with the power of the symbols printed on them. Both traditions consider the wind as a magnificent horse upon which blessings ride. Some people call prayer flags Lung-ta, or Windhorse. Lung refers to the body’s subtle inner energy, or wind. Ta means horse. Windhorse. Traditional language refers to prayer flags as Dar-chen or Dar-ding. Dar means flag. Dar-ding are long strings of flags flown horizontally between buildings or trees. Dar-chen are narrow flags flown from poles.

Most of the traditional symbols and prayers still used today were designed by great Buddhist and Bon teachers back through history. The flags were hand painted at first, but the designs were eventually carved into wood blocks for printing. Today, the traditional wood block designs have been converted to allow silk screen printing. This is the most common method of making prayer flags in the West. Unlike military, state or national flags, prayer flags are left to flutter in the open until they fray and fade. They can be hung anywhere a breeze might catch the cloth.

Traditional flags are strung in a series of 5 colors: yellow, green, red, white and blue. It does not matter if yellow is first or last as long as they are in this sequence. The colors are symbolic of the 5 elements that are the most subtle expression of physical existence and activity according to Buddhist philosophy. Each element has unique qualities that interact with each other element. Yellow symbolizes the earth element, green symbolizes the water element, red symbolizes the fire element, white symbolizes the air element, and blue symbolizes the space element.

The elements are sequentially more refined or more substantial depending on the direction they move. The sequence of the flags and elements can symbolize bringing something good into existence if the movement is from space to earth. In the other direction, the sequence can symbolize that suffering dissolves into the space element. The space element is another meaning of Lung. Within the space element all things are pure.

Prayer flags also contain images of mystical animals and other beings that convey meaning and activity. The symbol of the mystical Windhorse is on one of the most popular images found on prayer flags. Its symbolism conveys the idea that the desired result will be achieved quickly.

Some flags contain Tibetan prayers or short teachings on them. Some flags have sequences of syllables that have great spiritual meaning all wrapped up in symbolic language. These are called awareness spells, or mantra. I think of mantra as being like a coin purse you can keep in your pocket, but when you open it, you know the wealth of the entire universe is in there.

The colors alone give prayer flags meaning. The elements are further enriched with other symbols and words to give them specific powers and focus. Finally, the ritual of raising the flag involves being in the right frame of mind. From this perspective, raising the Windhorse becomes internal as one aligns one’s energy and aspiration and extends that wish as a prayer to help all beings. The flag gathers all of this energy and it is sent out freely on the wind to benefit everyone and everything everywhere.

For more information try this link. And this one.

¹Source: G.H.Preble. The Symbols, Standards, Flags, and Banners of Ancient and Modern Nations. Referenced by: Pier Paolo Lugli, 8 June 1999 here.

S's new computer

2011-04-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

S, our 12 year old, has been wanting a new computer for awhile now. The rest of us have individual laptops, but S has made do with a frankenputer made of cribbed components. It was fine when he was animating tiny movies but once he discovered gaming, the sludgy speed became a problem.

So for the last several months, he's been saving his money and asking for odd jobs. He sold his beloved Nintendo DS to raise funds quickly. And he researched every day, figuring out exactly what he needed and watching prices slowly move into his purchasing range.

Today DH took a couple hours out of work to drive with us to Fry's and pick up a dual core tower. S was ecstatic, and we were happy for him, too. But what I loved best was that when we got home, his brother C showed him how to add more memory—

—and surprised him with a game from his favorite store.

Then the two of them, rightly pleased with themselves, wore their plastic geek glasses all night long.

spring

2011-04-11T23:18:00.000-07:00

The rains have stopped, and we are again drawn outside. The chicks are more than 3 weeks old already, with nicely developing wing feathers. They're still in the garage, but should be ready to move to the barn in another week or so.

top to bottom: Silver Laced Wyandotte, Buff Orpington, Barred Plymouth Rock

There are weeds everywhere.

We work at them with every method at our disposal, hoeing and pulling, mowing—

and burning.

And anyone who wants to help is welcome.

Happy Spring!

buying a singer 301

2011-04-04T13:15:00.000-07:00

A Bay Area friend mentioned that she was looking for a Singer 301 and as luck would have it, there was one available in our area again. It was being offered at a garage sale on a day I couldn't make, but DH happily went in my stead—he loves anything mechanical, and he loves a good garage sale.

Knowing how solid these machines are, I was pretty certain he'd come home with it; and he did. It's a beautiful beige tone.

With the exception of a couple of tiny chips in the paint (one is visible in the photo above at the upper right near the handwheel) and a dark ring on the cabinet, it is in very clean condition. Look at the inside:

DH added some lubricant to the gears and oiled the moving parts, and the machine was ready to sew.

When buying a 301, it's important to be sure the bobbin case is present. The bobbin cases sit vertically and can easily drop out when the machine is moved.

And if you're a nerd, you may also want to check the serial number to date it.

Singer's site lists this machine as being made in 1956 in Anderson, South Carolina.

For $125, the machine came with nine bobbins, a box of attachments, an original Singer screwdriver plus a couple of extra screwdrivers, a buttonhole attachment, a zig zag attachment, and a photocopy of the original manual (the woman selling it had two 301s, but apparently only one manual). Manuals in .pdf form can also be downloaded for free here.

But the best thing that came with this machine was its cabinet:

This is actually a No. 47 cabinet, originally sold with the Singer 15-91s in the 1930s and 40s. Almost certainly the original owner (the grandmother of the woman who held the garage sale) had decided to upgrade her machine in the 1950s but kept her cabinet. My photo makes it look like one leg is lighter than the others, but that's just the sun. It's truly a lovely piece of furniture, with turned legs and an inlay of burl in the doors. I don't even mind the water ring. To me it suggests that its owner regularly kept a vase of fresh flowers on her machine when it was closed; it must have sat in the living or dining area.

Open, the cabinet has space for its accessories and half a dozen spools of thread. It operates with a knee press, keeping the floor space uncluttered.

How does it sound? It sounds just like a 301 should:

—and makes a perfect stitch:

I so enjoyed sewing with the machine in the cabinet that I suddenly remembered this table we'd picked up on, yup, Freecycle.

301 tables are fairly hard to come by, and when DH answered the post he'd told the woman offering it that she might want to consider selling it instead. She didn't: she just wanted it gone. It had a broken leg mechanism, and all she cared about was that it go to a home where it would be repaired and used. DH was able to fabricate the part, but I was so used to my 301 as a portable that I had not gotten around to trying it until yesterday. What a revelation: instead of bumping up out of our awkwardly round kitchen table, the 301 can sit flush in an uninterrupted sewing surface. I may even use it to finish the star quilt.

2 weeks old

2011-04-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

We are going to lose all vestiges of "chickness" very soon. They're two weeks old and already starting to look a little ungainly.

Scraggly tails, big feet, mixed patches of feathers and fuzz. They're still adorable, though, and their personalities are already quite evident. The splotchy little Wyandotte on the lower right is often the first to come jump on my open hand when I take some feed in. She also chases the others away from me, which may be a play for queen of the roost or may turn out to be the first sign that she was, in fact, a rooster. Time will tell.

If you're a parent who has experienced the feeling of your children growing up astoundingly fast, think about the poor hen who sees this change in a mere two weeks:

minecraft golden apple block

2011-03-30T17:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick rainy day project I did for S, who loves a game called Minecraft.

We were looking at objects in the game and came across the Golden Apple. S remarked that it was a very rare but good find, as it restores all your health.

Doesn't that sound like something from a fairy tale? Find the Golden Apple, and all will be restored! I envisioned a little quilt block in the shape of a Golden Apple, something an ailing child could lie upon to feel better.

[Note to self: next time, learn about the game before making fairy tale assumptions. Partway through the pillow, I casually asked S, "Why would you need your health restored in a game?" He looked at me incredulously and said, in a tone one might use to explain why we wear coats in winter: "ZOMBIES, Mom."]

I thought this project might be useful to someone else who might also want to create a quilt block from a simple, pixelated icon. So here's how the Golden Apple was pieced.

I started by enlarging the icon to a size I could work with, like so:

For a block in the 6-8" range, the basic unit would be 1/2" square. Since quilting has 1/4" seams, we need to add 1/2" to every finished dimension. In other words, a 4-block piece would measure 1" square in the quilt, but would need to be cut at 1-1/2" in order to have 1/4" seams on every side.

This is how I diagrammed it. (Sorry about the sloppiness and water drops. It wasn't my intention to blog this when I started.) The block is divided into 6 rows, each row the height of its largest component. I changed how I pieced it as I went along. All that really matters is that it be divided into rows which are sewn together afterwards.

Here is an example of how Row 4 would be cut and pieced.

before

after

Notice how much it has shrunk in width. Six seams means it was diminished by 3" (1/4" on each fabric edge, or 1/2" per seam).

With each row in place, it soon looked like an apple, albeit a little elongated due to seam allowances not yet sewn.

A few borders, and it became a pillow front:

Having those narrow 1/4" seams rubbing against the pillow made me a little uneasy, so I cut a backing of muslin to the size of the pillow front and machine quilted around the black outline. You could put a piece of thin batting in between the pillow front and the backing. You could also quilt inside the apple. But without some quilting, it's likely to fall apart over the course of several washings.

This is how you lay the pieces for a simple envelope opening. The outside/top flap will go on first, and the inside/lower flap goes on next, both of them with right sides facing down toward the right side of the pillow top. I've offset the inside/lower flap a little to the right so that the order is more visible.

A quick stitch around the entire perimeter, turn it right side out, and it can be filled with an inexpensive pillow form from Ikea. S can now use it in event of the zombie apocalypse.

larger quarters

2011-03-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

Tiny tailfeathers:

And a tiny proto-comb:

We've been dealing with some pasty butt (I've linked to a page explaining it, but if you're sensitive, you may want to skip it) in a couple of the chicks. Last night I sat down and performed the unglamorous job of unplugging the Rhode Island Red; another chick will get a simple cleaning today. Her health is not at stake, whereas I was becoming concerned about the Red.

Over the weekend we scrounged some cardboard cartons from a local business and set up a larger environment for them. This looks crazy, but it should keep them from perching or flying over the edge once they're teens.

This morning, we moved them in.

And now they really have room to grow.

chick update

2011-03-26T10:11:00.000-07:00

The chicks are growing quickly, going from little round balls of fluff to slightly more stretched-out birds with lengthening necks and a few more wing feathers. I wanted to document the development from amorphous fuzz to the beautiful feather patterns of the Barred Plymouth Rock and the Silver Laced Wyandotte.

Barred Plymouth Rock, 3 or 4 days old

Barred Plymouth Rock, about one week old

Silver Laced Wyandotte, 3 or 4 days old

Silver Laced Wyandotte, about one week old

After our first heat lamp blew, we got a fixture with a red-colored bulb. It doesn't have the glaring brightness, which is nice for the birds but not so nice for trying to capture them on video. But you can see that they are active, pecking and scratching and moving around a lot. These are all good signs.

new chicks

2011-03-22T16:08:00.000-07:00

S, age 3-ish, with a newly hatched chick

We haven't had new chicks in a long while. The last batch we got, 3 years ago, came during a distracted period in our house; and we relied on a good friend to start them for us. Previous to that, we'd had a fairly steady combination of new chicks hatched here and hens we adopted from people who had given up chicken keeping for one reason or another.

This year, Jake of Tour de Cluck put me in contact with some people who were organizing a chick purchasing co-op. The minimum order from most hatcheries is 25 chicks. Our city has a limit of 6 hens per household, so combining orders is a way to get a specific mix of breeds in smaller numbers.

The chicks arrived yesterday morning with feathers beginning to show at their wingtips—if memory serves, that would put them at 3-4 days old.

a little Rhode Island Red

We brought them home to our set up consisting of an old rabbit cage, a heat lamp, a chick waterer and feeding tray. They are on the workbench near a window so sunlight can reach them during the day.

A blanket adds insulation, and hay makes a nice floor and bedding material. For the first few days, we want to keep the chick environment at around 90 degrees. We'll gradually lower that, as their feathers come in, by raising the heat lamp and pulling away the blanket.

Here are the chicks:

To the left is a Buff Orpington. In front of her, a Silver Laced Wyandotte. Right in the center, facing left, is an Ameraucana (a mutt which has the dominant trait of laying blue-green eggs). And just to her right, a little toward the rear, is the Rhode Island Red. Another Wyandotte is front right, and another Buff is at the right edge of the picture. The black one in back is a Barred Plymouth Rock.

S, now much older than he was in the top photo but still a softie when it comes to baby animals, picked out a fluffy Buff Orpington.

This breed is my favorite, as well. They tend to be gentle and easy going, lay large brown eggs, and are themselves plump and hardy.

Ameraucanas, by comparison, despite laying those beautiful green eggs, are usually skittish birds who only lay well for the first year or so.

But I can't resist a pastel green egg, and C asked specifically for more Ameraucanas this year.

The breed that is new to me is the Wyandotte. I've always loved their feather patterns and decided to take advantage of the purchasing co-op to get a few. I'll try to post pictures here as the feathers grow in.

star quilt: finishing the top

2011-03-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

This evening I made a change to my post on homemade fabric starch after more experience with it.

And as for the star quilt, here is what happened today.

First two inner border strips:

And the next two:

The second border:

And at last the star quilt top is finished, after 17 years of false starts and meanderings.

It may disappear from the blog for awhile, while we order fabric for the backing and decide how to use it. If you have experience working with Minky, I'd love to hear from you.

star quilt: homemade fabric starch

2011-03-06T11:37:00.000-08:00

There is a question of prewashing fabrics before putting them in a quilt. I used to do it without question. Then Diana, the friend with the 301, mentioned that she never prewashes fabric. The sizing aids in precision cutting and piecing, she said, and when the quilt is washed, any shrinkage just gives it an old-fashioned quilted look.

So I stopped prewashing.

Recently, though, another friend emphasized that she always prewashes her quilting fabrics—argh! I decided to look into it.

It seems that, beyond the shrinkage question, there is some concern about fabric dyes bleeding out into lighter colors during the first wash. If that bleeding happens after the quilt is already together, all your hard work is ruined.

There is also the question of different fabrics shrinking in different degrees.

This quilt was started so long ago that I had prewashed most of the fabrics. Only the last few squares were made with fabric that I didn't bother to wash. Perhaps a goofy, misshapen quilt is in the future but at this point, if it's a finished quilt of any kind, I'll be happy.

My border fabrics have been sitting around long enough that they were also prewashed, except for the yellow. So I washed and dried that to match.

And then, doing some more reading, decided to starch the fabric to put back some of the stiffness that washing took away. I learned at this point that starch, being edible, will attract silverfish and other critters. A tradeoff that is mitigated by, yes, washing the quilt after it's been pieced.

On the plus side, it is easy to make homemade spray starch. There are many recipes. I chose the simplest, which made just enough to fill the spray bottle I had on hand. For future reference, I listed the ingredients on the side of the bottle. Some day I may make a cute little recipe label, but this is adequate for now.

Homemade Fabric Starch

Dissolve 1 Tbs. cornstarch in 1 pt. cool water. Bring to a boil, stirring or whisking to dissolve cornstarch completely. Let cool, then add 2-3 drops lavender essential oil and pour into a spray bottle.

You can add more cornstarch if you want a stiffer fabric. The original recipe called for lemon juice, which I changed to lavender, as lavender is a natural insect repellent. Maybe this will compensate for any starch that happens to remain after washing.

There are boiled and non-boiled versions. Being lazy and impatient, I made a non-boiled version first, and it worked nicely the first day with a little shaking now and then.

However, after it sat overnight, the cornstarch was a solid mass on the bottom of the bottle. It struck me that I had just made a bottle of Oobleck! Trying to loosen the cornstarch, I ended up tapping the bottle so hard that the plastic cracked.

I decided at that point to boil the rest and sure enough, the cornstarch dissolved completely without any subsequent settling out. This is the recipe I would recommend and will use from now on. Boiling and cooling didn't add that much time in the end.

So there you have it:

Step One: Prewash fabric to shrink and remove excess dye.

Step Two: Spray with homemade starch during ironing to put back sizing elements lost during washing.

Step Three: Quilt as usual.

Step Four: Wash quilt to remove starch from Step Two so quilt won't be attractive to bugs.

Or, if you love the simple, unfussy life: don't prewash, assume that shrinkage will only emphasize the stitches and enhance the loveliness of the quilt, and use this at first washing.

star quilt: planning the borders

2011-03-05T21:36:00.000-08:00

C doesn't sleep with a lot of bedding, so this quilt will instead be something he can wrap in while reading or watching a movie on a winter night. But the center block section is only 3'X4', which is too small. Adding plain fabric borders is the easiest way to enlarge a quilt like this, so over breakfast with a couple of quilting friends this morning, I scratched out an idea.

This was to be a blue 3" border to float the star blocks in, a thin yellow border for contrast, and a wide, dark blue border to really give it some width. I knew I had fabrics at home which would work for this.

At home, I laid whole pieces of fabric on top of each other to see how it looked.

Answer: awful.

There were so many blues in the star block backgrounds that the single shade looked muddy and out of place. I wondered about using only the yellow and the dark celestial print. The yellow did pop the stars out and unified the blocks nicely, but with only two colors, the darker border would have to be disproportionately large. I also found it a little boring.

We were surprised to realize that we all liked this last version best. DH felt it was like looking into a cloudy night sky and on up to the stars.

I wouldn't have thought putting a blue against another blue would be the smartest choice but after all, this is a quilt of only two colors. So unless I have a change of heart overnight, that's the plan. Perhaps the next blog post will include a photo of the finished top. :)

star quilt: countdown

2011-03-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

After piecing together these blocks one by one, I can tell you that each square entailed, after cutting a rough piece of background fabric and some lighter colored strips for the stars:

4 big slashes
9 seams
9 presses with an iron
and 20 trimming cuts

So it made me happy to realize that all it would take to put 48 blocks together was:

12 seams

Just 12 passes through the sewing machine, and I'd have the main part of the top pieced!

The first 5 seams would be stitching the columns to each other using the chain piecing technique.

Here they are sewn together. The rows are only connected via a bit of thread.

Clip the threads and you have 8 rows, each comprised of 6 connected blocks.

At this point, the seams are pressed flat so that the rows fit together more readily. Normally, you would press toward the dark fabric and not the light as I have done here; but the random block layout and the need to stagger the way the blocks are pressed caused there to be some variations.

Seams 6-9 involve sewing sets of rows together.

And seams 10-12 are a matter of sewing those sets to each other.

Voilà! The main blocks put together with 12 seams. In theory, it could have been done with fewer, using more chain piecing and snipping; but this way I didn't have to worry about losing the arrangement.

All these 1/4" seams have shrunk the piece a few inches each way. It is now roughly 4'X3' and will need some borders if it is to be large enough to sleep under. Another drawback to working so slowly on a baby quilt: when the baby grows, the quilt has to grow, too!

star quilt: using an old iron

2011-03-02T23:11:00.000-08:00

C's baby quilt has had a few incarnations in its 17-year life. It started as a handsewn applique quilt on a bright pink background (I know: ewww).

When C was old enough to voice his opinion, he let me know that as long as I hadn't finished, he would rather have a quilt with "sparkly stars" on it. I began anew with some standard star blocks, and the project evolved from The Baby Quilt to The Star Quilt.

A couple years after that, I saw a star pattern that truly looked like it was sparkling, so ditched the old blocks to start over once again. With great optimism, I even purchased some fabric that was printed with "2000" because, I told C, that was the year by which he'd certainly have the finished quilt. We began calling it The Millennium Quilt.

Fast forward 11 years. Where does the time go? Well, I had another baby; we joined our local homeschooling community in earnest; and my quilting friends with whom I had been meeting monthly either moved away or had life changes that made it harder to get together. Or maybe the life changes were mine. I don't think there was any one reason in particular, but the Baby-Star-Millennium Quilt somehow took a backseat to other things for a long, long while.

However, I've been working on these blocks many afternoons in a row now, and this morning I woke feeling sure I would finish.

Except that the iron would no longer heat up.

From my fabric shelf, I pulled down a vintage Singer electric iron I'd found at a thrift store a few years ago. It's a tiny little thing, but heavy. A whopping 250 watts. Notice it not only has no fabric settings, it doesn't even have an on/off switch. Plug it in, and it starts to heat up.

Singer iron "Model T"

I figured it should work just fine. It did—maybe a little more than fine, in fact, because the fabric instantly scorched.

But sense memory came through again: as soon as I smelled that burnt-marshmallow scent, I remembered that Mom had always kept a folded, dampened cloth by her ironing. It both cooled the iron down and protected the piece from direct heat.

In this way, I was able to piece the last few stars. There are 48 total in this quilt, but I ended up with 15 extra blocks. As I went along, I could see that some of them just weren't going to make the cut. I love the celestial pattern in this background, but finally had to acknowledge that the fabric was too thin and flimsy:

And this background looks distractingly pale next to the other blocks:

These just came out ugly and misshapen:

And in some cases, I simply pieced too many of one shade:

I'll use the rejected blocks for other projects but meanwhile, here are the blocks that made it into the quilt. Arranging them was a little like doing a sudoku puzzle. No adjacent background fabrics could be the same.

After getting the fabrics lined up, I turned some of them around to give the quilt more twinkle. I hope these are the sparkly stars C had in his head when he was a little guy.

Next stage: putting the blocks together.

I'll be using the new iron I got as soon as I had time today. The little Singer can go back to its place on the shelf.

quilting on a singer 301

2011-02-25T09:15:00.000-08:00

quilting UFOs

The term UFO is quilting lingo for "UnFinished Object"—all those bits of fabric which were intended for quilts but haven't quite made it there yet. They might be in any stage: single blocks, partially pieced tops, even quilts that are nearly complete but haven't been bound around the edges yet.

I recently took out all my ufos and decided to get them into quilts once and for all, no matter how long and tedious the process. Both kids are suddenly more independent, and there are large swaths of time that I haven't had since they were small. I counted: there are at least ten quilts' worth of blocks stacked up. Among them is C's baby quilt.

C turns 18 in a few months, so this has really gone on too long.

I'm sewing on a singer 301, which is my very favorite machine for this kind of work. I'll never forget arriving at my friend Diana's years ago to sew together for the first time. Stepping inside, I could hear the soft rattle of her machine running the living room, and a sudden Proustian rush caused me to blurt out, "That's the machine my mom had when I was little!"

Of course, I had no way of knowing whether it was true or not; I'd learned to sew on a Touch and Sew. But somehow the distinctive chug of the 301 made me think of sitting under a table, or of drifting off to sleep. When I found one for sale nearby, I bought it immediately, even though it seemed expensive at $100. I just wanted to hear that sound when I sewed.

And as it turns out, the machine has been well worth it. The 301 makes a reliable straight stitch, needs almost no adjusting and, at 17 lbs, is light enough to move easily while also sitting solidly on the table.

It's also beautiful. I believe it's the last black-and-gold sewing machine Singer made, although it also came in tan and tan/white versions. Someone once said it looks like an old locomotive engine, and I think that's pretty good description.

More recently, S remarked that it reminds him of Christopher, the alien in the movie District 9. It's...possible, I suppose, depending on your point of view. Can you see it?

In any case, this has been my go-to portable for years; and I have been using it to finish up these old blocks, particularly the blocks that will make up C's quilt.

(Please bear with me a minute while I shift gears.)

When Dad died 3 years ago, my sisters and I discovered how much and how thoroughly he had saved. It wasn't quite an episode of Hoarders, but let's say it made my fabric stash seem tame. In spare bedrooms and up in the garage rafters were boxes full of ledgers, receipts, photos, letters—50+ years of a family's minutiae. I wish I'd been able to go through everything at leisure, but we were focused on getting the house ready to sell so instead buzzed through it all quickly, glancing and shredding over and over again. Because there were three of us tossing these papers in succession for hours each day, I considered it sheer luck that one piece which ended up in my hands was a receipt dated a month after Mom and Dad married. It was for a sewing machine.

A Singer 301.

The machine had cost $175, which I'd learned a few minutes earlier was Dad's entire monthly salary at the time. It was their first major purchase together.

Mom's 301 was clearly an indispensable tool, an investment in keeping household costs down. I'm sure the reason its sound was so recognizable to me is that she used it daily when I was young, making clothes and toys for three growing children. She even made us quilts from the leftover fabric. Mom's sewing skills far surpassed mine, but the quilt she made for my bed was not a pastime she could afford to spend years on. It was made without the luxury of choosing prints and colors, pieced simply, and batted with a wool army blanket.

I remember looking at this quilt knowing which garments each of the fabrics had come from. At night, its weight was warm and comforting and helped me sleep. I suppose that is the reward all quiltmakers want, to know that someone is sleeping peacefully under their work.

With that in mind, I'd better get back to the quilt I've been making C for the past 17 years.

I wonder if he'll remember the sound of it being sewn.

freecycle

2011-02-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

A donation of tools to the Young Makers group got me thinking about Freecycle and how much I love it. It's a simple concept: keep items out of landfill by passing them directly to other people in your community who can use them. You can offer items or ask for items; more often than not, a match will be made. A friend told me that the very first ad she saw on Freecycle was for 30 bobby pins. 30 bobby pins?! But within a few days there was a second notice stating that the bobby pins had been claimed. You never know.

Long before this blog, I considered starting one called The Freecycle Chronicles after I'd noticed how Freecycle was a catalyst to so many good experiences. I once picked up someone's extra plums, for example, and got into a long discussion on her doorstep about Village Harvest and Senior Gleaners.

Then there was the young woman who asked for canning jars and when I offered some I wasn't using, left me a jar of spiced pear butter as thanks. The same woman later picked up an old table I had refinished and no longer had space for and, at a different time, some wool for a needle felting project she was finishing; she only needed a little bit, and I happened to have the colors she requested. You tend to run into the same people over and over in the Freecycle community, which is kind of fun.

In the photo above, S hangs in a string hammock chair, given away because the cushions had gone missing. I can't imagine that he would love it any more with cushions. He sits in it nearly every day that the weather allows. He reads in it, draws in it, sleeps in it and simply looks out at the yard.

In the background of the same photo, you can see the trampoline we also got from Freecycle. One thing Freecycle really encourages is being bold about taking things apart and putting them back together. We have assembled two trampolines (the first blew into a fence in a strong wind and crumpled like a piece of paper) without instructions; it usually takes all of us working together to do it, but that's a good time, too, isn't it?

Here's the cat tower we picked up for a friend who wanted one for her newly-adopted kitten. It came scratched up, but we asked on Freecycle for carpet scraps and amazingly, received some in a matching shade of blue. Then S and I learned how to recarpet a cat tower together. All except the lower three platforms were redone.

We have passed the kids' bunkbed to a young couple who had just received custody of their nephews; passed a vintage Singer sewing machine to a Renaissance faire costumer, passed along furniture, books, a secondhand trumpet, even moving boxes. Just as we finished the cat tower, someone else asked for carpet remnants and we were able to give them what we had left.

And we have picked up: the entire sound system for our outdoor movie theater, a replacement measuring cup for the rice cooker, and parts for DH's robot project—among many things, all of them remembered with gratitude.

Spammers do hit Freecycle with regularity, but once you learn to spot the telltale signs (an item too good to be true, usually paired with a generated-looking gmail or yahoo account), you can just ignore them. For homeschoolers, Freecycle can be a source of books, art supplies, building materials and the sort of indefinable inspiration one gets from thinking about, in a brief time period, a box spring, quilt batting scraps, parts to an electric door opener, a grapevine wreath, and a roll of shrink wrap (all of which passed through Freecycle this morning). For diy'ers, it's indispensible for odd parts, tools, yarn, 2X4s, and old cotton t-shirts for rags.

And for everyone, Freecycle is another way to be connected to the people in your community, to help and be helped, strike up a conversation, learn something new, save time and money, and step on a path which might lead anywhere.

My favorite Freecycle find? It's Maggie. She barks too much, is overly territorial, and often gets into things which make her stink. We were her fifth home in 2 years and 4 years later, she is still insecure. But she is also sweet and truly devoted, lying quietly on my lap as I type this. You just can't buy that.

Join Freecycle here.

updates

2011-01-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

First of all, I'm embarrassed to admit that after a year of this blog, I only just put in a proper email subscription option (see box, right).

I'd added a third-party gadget early on, but never had occasion to use it myself and so did not realize it was a giant spambot. If you ever tried to subscribe via email, I can only offer sincere apologies. The FeedBurner subscription service should be working fine now.

I would not have learned any of this had I not been working on a second blog. DH and I are starting a local chapter of Young Makers. As part of this, we were advised to set up a website; we thought it would be most fun to have a multi-author blog that the kids themselves could contribute to. Whether or not this will actually happen is anyone's guess, however. My past experience setting up (at different times) both a website and a wiki for our local homeschooling group taught me that most people have little interest in sharing resources and experience.

In the meantime, the new blog is starting to record an unknown path of making projects in a group setting. If I'm posting even less frequently than before here at unschoolplus, its likely because I'm working on things at Young Makers Yolo. Please check it out here if the projects and resources might be of interest to your family.

Oh, and you can also safely subscribe. :)

midwinter s'mores

2011-01-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

Last summer some friends were planning a day at the beach and asked our family to bring something for roasting marshmallows. Our first thought involved sharpening some willow twigs, but soon we had another whim and were making a run to the thrift store for 10-cent forks.

In a few minutes, these:

became these:

As things turned out, fire permits were not being issued that day. We held a regular potluck at the beach and stored the willow forks in the garage until the other day when, upon cleaning the pantry and finding graham flour (why would I have bought graham flour?), I decided to make graham crackers.

Alton Brown's Graham Crackers (slightly amended, based on reader comments)

8-3/8 ounces graham flour

1-7/8 ounces all-purpose flour

3 ounces dark brown sugar

3/4 tsp aluminum-free baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/8 tsp ground cinnamon

3 ounces unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes and chilled

2-1/4 ounces honey

1-1/2 ounces whole milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place both flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon into the bowl of a food processor and pulse several times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles cornmeal. Add the honey, milk and vanilla extract and process until the dough forms a ball, approximately 1 minute. Press the ball into a 1/2-inch thick disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Unwrap the chilled dough and place it onto a large piece of parchment paper and top with a second sheet of parchment paper. Roll the dough out until it is 1/8-inch thick (or even thinner—the kids and I preferred thin, crisp crackers, while DH liked them thicker and chewier). Slide the rolled dough and parchment paper onto a half sheet pan. Remove the top sheet of parchment paper and cut the dough, using a rolling pizza cutter, into 2-inch square pieces, by making vertical and then horizontal cuts all the way across the dough. Trim off any excess. Using a fork, poke holes all over the top of the dought. Leave the crackers on the pan and bake on the middle rack of the oven for 20-25 minutes or until the edges just start to darken. Remove from the oven, set the sheet pan with the crackers on a cooling rack, and allow to cool completely. Once completely cool, break into individual crackers and store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

That evening, we built a fire in the fire pit and finally got to use our willow-and-thrift-store roasting forks.

It wasn't quite a summer cookout on the beach, but s'mores are always a treat—the more so with these very easy homemade graham crackers and free-trade chocolate.

sugru cookie cutter

2010-12-20T12:56:00.000-08:00

We'd never heard of sugru before this year's Maker Faire, where it caught our attention by having hands-on demos and the unabashed enthusiasm of everyone who worked in the Shed. We came home with a pack, not entirely sure what we'd be using it for but thinking it could be a fun material to have around.

Fast forward to the other day in the car, when I idly mentioned that my ideal phone mount would attach to this part of the dash and be angled just so. S's instant response was, "Why don't you just make that with some sugru?" That's how much faith we have in this sci-fi amazing material now.

Sugru is a moldable silicone that cures at room temperature in a matter of hours. It adheres, flexes, and is heat resistant. And it comes in colors, which you can mix. It's like silly putty, but brighter and more durable. It's also like the grip on your favorite kitchen utensil—one you can mold to fit the contours of your own, individual hand.

In just a year, sugru and its users have repaired, tweaked and created a full gallery of applications.

We've used it for typical fixes, like this storage bin whose lid had cracked from being stuffed too full.

Or to cover up a large picture hook which didn't seem decorative enough to hang my favorite broom from.

I'm not much of a baker and have absolutely no talent for decorated sweets; nevertheless, something in me really wanted to make this melted snowman cookie as soon as I saw it. I'm also linking to it because of its story, a likely too-common tale of an idea published for free, only to have others appropriate it as their own.

But back to the cookie: her original directions call for cutting out the melted puddle shape with a knife. I knew I would not have the patience for that and thought it would be faster to make a melted puddle cookie cutter instead.

And yes, you guessed it, sugru was used.

In fact, this is the sum total of what was used: the metal strapping discovered at Halloween (I knew I'd be using it again!), some J-B Weld, and the sugru.

The strapping was bent into shape and epoxied.

Sugru was applied to the top, both to seal the shape and as a bit of a grip.

Had I meant for this to be a lasting cookie cutter, I would have used enough to cover the entire top; but I really wanted to just try this as an experiment first. What is on here is the contents of a single packet. It might take 2-3 packets to cover the entire top edge.

Here are the melted snowmen, made in gingerbread instead of sugar cookie dough (not an improvement, I have been told by the kids) and with the lazy-baker modifications of half a marshmallow for the head and candy-covered sunflower seeds for the nose.

Thank you, Meaghan Mountford, for sharing a fun and adaptable cookie idea. May you regain all the credit you deserve.

gingerbread house

2010-12-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

S recently turned 12 and decided to make a gingerbread house, just as his brother had done at the same age. We'd found it then to be a great project for thinking about measuring, proportions, structure and support—as well as, of course, candy and color and decorations!

So S drew up a design and cut the pieces out of cardboard to test them. Modifications and adjustments were made before baking them in gingerbread. We always use James Beard's recipe. It's spicy and deep, with a lot of molasses. Though we ice it for houses or for sharing with friends, it is best eaten plain so that nothing cuts into the rich, dark, almost savory taste.

James Beard's Gingerbread Cookie Dough

3 c. sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 tsp ginger

1/3 c softened butter

1/3 c firmly packed brown sugar

2/3 c molasses

1 egg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sift (or pulse in a food processor) dry ingredients together.

Cream together butter & brown sugar; beat in molasses and egg.

Add sifted dry ingredients and combine well. Can chill if dough seems too soft.

Roll out on a lightly floured board and cut with cutters. The thickness of the dough will depend on the size of the cutters. If using a large cutter, dough should be 1/3 or even 1/2 inch thick.

Bake on baking sheets lined with parchment paper, 8 to 15 minutes, depending on size and thickness.

We had to make two batches for S's house, though it's possible that had we rolled a little thinner and used a different design, a single batch would have sufficed. This recipe is also good for about 3 dozen 2" gingerbread men.

I have this Royal Icing recipe handwritten next to the gingerbread recipe, so I don't know where it came from, although I suppose most are more or less the same:

Royal Icing

3-4 egg whites

1 lb powdered sugar

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1/2-1 tsp vanilla or lemon juice

Mix together until well-blended, thick and glossy.

Here is S cutting out an end piece.

Easiest way to fill an icing bag is to sink it into a drinking glass and fold the edges over.

Decorating. S is something of a minimalist and also will not work with candies he doesn't like the taste or texture of. This means absolutely nothing gooey or gummy!

S noted an assembly mistake almost immediately. We had put the end pieces on the inside of the shorter walls, making a gap in the support for the roof pieces. Had we place the end pieces outside, the roof would have had a more solid place to rest.

We did our best to fill the gap with icing, but to no avail. Once the roof was frosted and decorated, the additional weight led to a collapse on one side.

Duly noted for next year, and S was unfazed—but he also wouldn't let me eat the broken part.

needle felting

2010-12-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

What I'm loving about this holiday season is how often we've been able to gather and craft with friends. The other day we went to C's house for tea served in antique china cups, Burl Ives and Bing Crosby, and needle felting.

Needle felting is probably the fastest, easiest and most satisfying wool craft there is. It also seems to be the one most attractive to the boys we know, perhaps due to the felting needle's resemblance to a tiny sword? All I know is my sons and their friends seem to particularly enjoy stabbing wool as a means of shaping it.

Some truly elaborate work is done with felting needles—do an image search on "needle felting" if you want to see a sampling—but it is also possible to get a perfectly sweet and simple shape in an hour or two, tea and singing breaks included.

C makes an ornament:

M works on a Christmas tree:

C and G work side by side:

S felting onigiri. All those blurry hands show needle felting motion as captured by my cell phone. (I'm old enough that it still amazes me to be able to use my little phone to take pictures and upload them to the web. How cool is that?)

And the partial results of that afternoon? J's spiral-adorned heart:

S's rice and sushi trio:

A Seussian Christmas tree:

I'll add one caveat about this otherwise ideal winter craft: felting needles are barbed, and it is pretty easy to stab yourself—and it hurts! The pain from a felting needle lingers enough that all the boys mentioned it. It's thus not a great activity for the young or very inexperienced, but for everyone else, it's a truly fun and relaxing way to spend an afternoon.