angry chicken

charcoal drawing

Delia (9)

Delia (9)

Lydia (6)

Sadie (11)

Lydia (6)

I thought it would be fun to do some drawing with the girls using only charcoal so I rummaged in my old drawing box and found some teeny tiny bits of vine and compressed charcoal that I had from about 20 years ago. They did the trick but I need to get some more. I had them draw with the charcoal only, using the sides and the tips and just filling up newsprint with different types of lines and marks, so they could see what the medium can do and how different it is from crayon and pencil. Then I had them smear with their fingers, cotton swabs, and tissue, and then erase to add white, highlights, and clean-up around the edges. We fixed them with hairspray and I was instantly transported back to drawing class—that chalky feeling on my fingers and black smudges on my face. 

They weren't quite prepared for how messy charcoal drawing is and kept wanting to wash their hands in the middle, but I told them not to bother, and to use the extra charcoal on their fingers draw with. I could see them sort of click over into art mode and forget about the mess and just create. It was very cool. They were so proud of what they drew.

I would love to make some vine charcoal, has anyone done this? I didn't in school mostly because I preferred compressed charcoal because it can really go black, vine always left me wanting more. Regardless, I think it would be so fun to make some homemade vine charcoal, other than just burning the end of a stick and drawing with that.

hotels

Pete and I saw the Grand Budapest Hotel last night and were thoroughly entertained. The images, especially in the first 10 minutes, were so beautiful. I wanted these images up around me all the time, so I printed out my own postcards on matte photo paper to put up around my desk. Google images has a ton of lovely stills from the movie, including this amazing grouping of ephemera which has me all excited. I opted not to print a postcard of Harvey Keitel's excellent tattoos, although Pete wanted me to.

Hotel related—I laughed out loud when I saw the videos at the end of The Rumpus Interview with Jacob Tomsky. They are at the bottom of the interview. I haven't read his book, Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality, but it's on my list and it looks really good in that cringe-y way. When I was doing commercial interior design I worked on a lot of hotels and heard a lot of crazy stuff from the managers, and even crazier stories from the staff. I almost don't want to read this.

I do want some vintage hotel stationery now.

homemade fire starters

Delia wanted to make some fire starters. She remembered that it was a skill on DIY she could earn and is always looking for a reason to play with fire or melted wax, which is understandable to me. I was sort of a firebug, too. There are so many recipes and methods for making these. We read a few recipes and then just used what we had around on hand and what seemed safe to burn.

She gathered newspaper and dryer lint. She busted out the cutest elephant paper shredder in the world to shred it. I got this for the girls a few years ago on a whim and they love it and use it all the time. So do I.

Then she poured in melted soy wax that we had left over from our candle making. I love soy wax so much.

She wrapped them in wax paper to make an easy wick for lighting. Also, it makes them look like little candies, which she finds very pleasing. We used these in the fireplace, and they worked—but we learned a lot. Using a lot of wax is fun and pretty, but it just melts like crazy and covers too much of the material inside, so it didn't burn right away. Next time less wax would be better. Or, just using the egg carton method, but she said they weren't as cute. I understand.

Once the wax melted away and the paper finally ignited these worked great. There are many recipes for these out there, most of which seem great, some I'd worry about breathing in the fumes of what they were burning, so I feel good about these we made. Next, I want to make a tinderbox from an altoid tin, like I saw demonstrated at Fort Clatsop. Also, I really want to put together this Altoids Survival Kit 2.0.

peg dolls

During the hustle and bustle of the holiday madness we bought this book— Making Peg Dolls by Margaret Bloom, at the wonderful Portland toy shop, SpielWerk Toys, just for ourselves. Sadie and I fell in love with it immediately. It has so many adorable peg doll ideas with patterns and directions, all organized by the seasons. It took us until now to start projects from it. These were made in about an hour, the paint on them dries really fast. I helped Lydia with the stitching and the face painting on her birds. The girls know their way around making peg dolls and clothes pin dolls—Delia even helped me teach a class on making some over on Creativebug.

This might be my favorite page, but the halloween one is pretty outstanding, too. There are some great tips in this book. The only thing that I find vexing about felt is gluing it to itself. Felt on wood is fine, but felt on felt can be really difficult.

We got our unfinished pegs from Casey's Wood Products which shipped really fast, even though they are across the country from us. This was serious business—the sorting and dividing of the wood dolls. Lots of lists and notes and math.

oregon tide pools

We were able to sneak away for a few days last week to the coast and whiled we relaxed we worked on some projects for the homeschooling science fair the girls are doing. It was stormy, sunny, wet, windy, and warm—changing constantly. Awesome oregon coast weather. We love the tide pools so much and found a ton of critters to research. This site is helpful for identifiaction.

I stitched on my needlepoint until I ran out hot pink and then switched to knitting a hat. Sadie started and finished a little cross-stitch by SamSarah. She loves these charts in their Pearls series because they work up fast and she gets to add a little button.

We got through book two in the Percy Jackson series and I discovered, from a library book that my 6-year-old checked out, that you can make any box cake into cookies by mixing the cake mix with 2 eggs and 1/3 cup oil or melted butter and any mix-ins you want. Trashy baking excitement! It was perfect for travel. We made spice cake mix cookies with chocolate chips. They were delicious. We came home to some garage flooding and cat barf.

space, islands, & music. books I have bought for pete.

I just got this book, The Martian, by Andy Weir last week for Pete for our 16th wedding anniversary and he read it in two days. Giving fiction is always tricky, especially as a gift and especially having not read it myself, but I got a very enthusiastic recommendation from a bookseller at Annie Bloom Books, here in Portland, who said it was wonderful. He said it was like MacGyver being stuck on Mars. Sold. Pete said this was so stressful and exciting to read—the most fun he's had reading a book in a very long time. I love the cover.
How Music Works, by David Byrne. He hasn't read it all, but really likes it. He keeps going back to it. He's not a hardcore David Byrne fan, but is a music major, and is facinatined by these essays. I see this book out often, he's had it about a year. It's also very pleasing to look at. I do buy books for their cover.

Atlas of Remote Islands, by Judith Schalansky. I bought this for him years ago and again, I see it around a lot. Reading reviews will help describe it—it's beautifully crafted (which is why I bought it) and he says it's fascinating. Especially for someone into islands, which he is.

I haven't read any of these, but would like to, or more precisely, I like it when he talks about them and then I feel like I have read them and can get back to my historical romances and werewolf stories. I read legit stuff, to, but you know what I mean. I need to find a historical romance with a werewolf in it. There must be one, surely.

knitting for babies

Taking a break from my more ambitious knitting projects, I have been fitting in some smaller projects, like these booties and a hat. You can see them on my ravelry page, but I kept really bad records, the yarn info is long gone. The booties pattern is legit, the hat pattern I made up. I've been knitting booties from this pattern for many years. I think this is my 6th or 7th pair I have made. These were made for friends expecting little ones soon, very exciting!

I was in a spinning mood last night, which is unusual for me. I'm not a night person, I wish I were, but I am not at all. I am a morning person. At night, I'm not worth much, but I can do certain things that require little of me, like winding yarn and winding embroidery floss onto little bobbins. The paper things, you know what I mean. Spools? Anyhoo, I wound many, many little hanks of crazy messy embroidery floss onto spools, and then about 7 hanks of different yarns I had bought, stashed, and had not used yet, because they were still in hanks. It was so pleasing and mellowed out my crazy brain a bit. I am now looking for more to wind around the house.

Has anyone worked with Weeks Dye Works thread that comes in 2-3 strand floss? I find the idea of not having to separate strands thrilling, and so would my daughters. Pattern-wise—I was tipped to this site in the comments that has insanely cute cross-stitch designs that the girls now love, The Frosted Pumpkin, and these at Satsuma Street are unlike any I have seen before, the colors make me so happy. The girls also love the patterns in I am not a doll. We keep visiting Alicia's patterns and Hillary's patterns, too.

Random:

I just saw Francis Ha on netflix instant and liked it a whole lot. I have been watching movies while working out on the elliptical trainer in the mornings and have seen so many over the last few months. I have to watch them in about 3 sessions, depending on the movie, and I really like breaking it up this way. I get to think about the film between workouts. It's sort of the opposite of binge watching, I guess. Francis Ha was not at all what I thought it was going to be.