Island Mama

I made myself a pair of wool slippers last winter, using an old sweater I felted. They have been so warm and comfy and I’ve worn them every day this winter, that I decided it was time to make some for my kids.

These are for Timothy, age 2:

All the materials came from the thrift store: the wool sweater I felted (there are always lots of those!), the soft leather I used on the soles, and the embroidery floss I used to sew it all together. They’re not perfect, but he seems to like them, he’s kept them on longer than he usually wears socks, at least. And they will definitely keep his feet toasty.

I’m still working on making up a pattern/instructions, which I hope to post soon. I’m planning to make a pair for Ben tonight (unless I fall asleep instead), and I’ll try to take photos of the process.

Inspired by these, we decided we needed a snake of our own. So, naturally, we bought a couple of ties at the thrift store and made Snakey. I don’t know what the originals are stuffed with, but ours has mixed dried beans for about three-quarters of it, then soft stuffing for a bit, then more beans in the head. Gives it a nice weight and dangly-ness (that’s a word, right?).

Both boys were very into the dried beans we used for filling him — they ended up all over the room, hello sensory experience! — although it took Timothy a while to figure out what we were doing. But once he did, he was right in there in the middle of it, grabbing his little fistfuls of beans and dropping them into the tie. It was cute. He didn’t seem to want to stop.

After Snakey was all finished, and Ben had cuddled with him for a while (“I’m gonna take the snake to bed, mama. He’ll help me sleep in my own bed all night.”) and named him, it was snack time. Snakey’s snack was totally set up and provided by Ben.

Playsilks are a Waldorf concept. They’re big silk scarves, in pretty colors, very versatile. But they’re expensive, usually around $10 – $12 each.

Having seen a bunch of people lately (here, here, and here) dying their own silk scarves, I was inspired to try it too. I bought a dozen of the 30″ x 30″ scarves from Dharma Trading, eventually found the Kool-Aid at the grocery store (I had no idea where to look! I’ve never bought it before!), and one morning a few weeks ago Ben and I worked on it. We did the simplest version we could:

• mix up the Kool-aid with water in a bowl
• wet the scarf, put it in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap
• microwave and let rest for 3 minutes each, twice
• rinse and hang to dry

Some people soak in vinegar and other complications, but I read somewhere that Kool-Aid is acidic enough that there’s no need for that. Our very simple method seemed to work just fine. I haven’t washed them yet, so I have no idea about colorfastness, but if the dye washes out, oh well, it just means we can play with dye again, right?

We also decided to experiment with some other household coloring agents. When we spill certain things on our clothes, they’re hard to get out. So it seems like they’d make good dyes too. The light gold and coppery ones in the bottom left were soaked with teabags and boiled with coffee grounds, respectively. The light pink one was just soaked in cold blackberry juice for a while. An hour, maybe. The lavender one was microwaved (same steps as above, basically) with a cup of frozen mashed blueberries and a bunch of water and some vinegar.

The kids have been playing with them a bit. They can be capes, pirate head wraps, blankets for babies. We can dance with them, bounce with them, wave them around. Ben likes to wrap presents in them. Timothy actually had lots of fun walking into them, through them and around them when they were hanging on the drying rack. Must figure out something we can hang them from that he won’t bump his head on, I think he’d enjoy that.

Just what I needed, huh.

Today I took a two hour needlefelting class. Needlefelting involves unspun wool fibers (roving) and a barbed needle. You poke and poke and poke the roving with the needle until it starts to firm up and take the shape you want. It’s fun. And addictive.

Our local craft store offers a lot of classes, and Eric and I have recently agreed that I should take one class each month, just to have some time away from the kids doing something I enjoy. I had been curious about needlefelting since I first read about it sometime last year, and this seemed like a great opportunity.

I came home with a really cute needlefelted snowman. And sore fingers.

Timothy needed something to keep his feet warm. I made these little boots from a fake suede fabric, and lined the foot parts with wool felt. They (mostly) stay on and his feet seem very cozy.

They fasten around the ankle with a little velcro strap. It works, but I’m already thinking of improvements….

Somehow I had visions of lots of sparkly glittery pinecones. And yet, somehow, most of our pinecones turned into gnomes and santas. Or reindeer. We had lots of fun.

Supplies:

In progress:

Products:

Meet them all.

We honor Buy Nothing Day today, and we have our own tradition of turning it into Make Something Day. Specifically, Christmas ornaments. The craft will change with the years and skill levels of kids, but the idea remains the same: create some new homemade Christmas ornaments each year to add to our tree. And perhaps to give away.

This year, our theme is decorating pine cones. We have glitter glue, glitter spray paint, a glue gun, some felt and googly eyes and fake hair and pipe cleaners…. should be interesting to see what we end up with.

We had a heavy frost this morning, heaviest I’ve seen in a long time, and we went out for a morning walk around our property to take pictures. Three of us had cameras, and there are distinct and interesting differences in the results.