Busy with school prep

We were perusing the fabric store for something specific awhile back and found a variety of fun colorful nylon fabrics that got my wheels turning...  Noah will be heading into the big world of kindergarten this fall and I prefer that he carry something distinctive and NOT themed with licensed images.  Even with the fabric being a clearance find, the cost of zippers and fabric and strap make this likely to cost more than the products I might have found at the store. Then you add how many hours building it up, and it's hardly worth it, except that he likes it :)

Here's the finished product!

Built from:

I drew up my own pattern based upon backpacks we have.

And got this stash of products:

I included organizer elements in the front "pencil pocket".

The bottle pockets fit perfectly!

There are a couple things that didn't go as planned, but I think it will work just fine anyway...

Did you notice the light padding to make it comfortable on his back?

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and I think I will be able to find him in the crowd with his yellow with blue and orange trim backpack.

Now, we just have to get to the store to fill it with the long list the of supplies that the school requires...

Different kind of remodeling project

I had this pair of pants that I really liked, but they were too small for me.  I tried to wear them on "skinny days", but they still weren't comfortable (read popped snap when I sat down).

I faced the facts this weekend and decided to make them useful form my family. My goal was to make them a size larger than the model pants, so they would fit longer, while keeping the cool pockets.

Here's the stylin' new cords on the N'ster. Mission accomplished, they definitely fit big and he likes them. Hopefully they'll work perfect for the big K this fall.

Have you ever remodeled/resized clothes? Ah, the things I find to entertain myself on these cold, cold winter days!

Auntie Lissa builds

You all know that I read too many crafty idea blogs for the time that I have available to do crafty fun things.  I really should read less and do more, but that's a whole different topic.  Ana White posted this cute little lap desk in October as a part of her Christmas gift idea series.  I happen to have a couple of learners that I prefer to give homemade gifts to, so I set up the miter saw.  I got intent on building, so didn't take any pictures along the way (and even if I had, I couldn't share them at the time or the surprise might have been blown).  The biggest challenge in building these was that most of our tools are at the condo, and as we learned from the bed project, side building projects are not welcome at the condo.  I literally finished them up and wrapped them on Christmas Eve.

We made one fun modification.  When shopping for the desk top piece, we saw that instead of plain plywood, we could get chalkboard or whiteboard for the top surface.  Whiteboard was the instant answer, and it seemed to go over extremely well, so glad we made that choice!  Because the whiteboard was a little more flimsy feeling than plywood, I cut one additional piece to support the middle of the top.  That doesn't mean they're built for dancing on, though, girls!

I hope they will have lots of creative fun with them - learning, drawing, tea partying, snacking...  

It's probably time to start planning for the big first birthday party coming up in April.  Hmm, which fun kids craft is next?

Eagle

When Noah declared that he was going to be an Eagle for halloween, I nearly had heart failure.  How would we pull that off??  I'm a fan of costumes that are practical and re-useable.  Stuff like cowboys and builders - grab a good hat and wear jeans with a particular type of shirt.  Then the jeans and shirt will just go into his clothing stash for the rest of winter.  Can't do that with an eagle.

We subsequently were invited to a neighborhood halloween parade and since we've recently moved, we want to make sure we meet neighbors.  And, they are going in costume to a nursing home for school another day.  3 uses convinces me that it's worth some time to put together.  I should be praising God that he wants to be an eagle rather than a monster!  So, I fixed my do-I-have-to attitude and got my crafting on.  

Thanks to this eagle, I had a good bit of guidance to make the costume.  First, I cut out a ton of white and brown feathers.  We bought a brown hooded sweatshirt to base the costume off, and a pair of brown pants to wear it with - this satisfies my need to include the costume in his wardrobe for the rest of winter.  I also got him to behave nicely in the fabric shop with me for me, so that was a bonus.  We bought 1 yard of brown felt, a half yard of white felt, and a quarter yard of yellow felt - a fairly orangey yellow.  I cut out a big bunch of feathers, and while cutting figured out that if I sewed them onto the sweatshirt, I wouldn't be able to keep that in his closet or I would have to rip out all the seams for the feathers.  I'm not sure what the model I looked at did, but she claimed no-sew, so I think she glued her felt feathers onto the sweatshirt.  I ended up cutting a large rectangle for the back, 2 narrower ones for the front and a pair of large triangles for wings.  I sewed layers of feathers onto these rectangles.  I also copied the hood of the sweatshirt in white felt and sewed on the white feathers and beak.  I just used safety pins to attach the parts onto the sweatshirt...  A picture's worth a thousand words, right?!

Eagle in progress, first few rows of feathers attached.

Pile of feathers ready to attach.

Another row done.

My model checking my progress.  I need to get some feathers up by the shoulders yet.

Head assembled. 

 I ended up hand-sewing the top layer of feathers because I didn't want the very obvious line of stitching going across them.  Now that it's done, I realize that it's not likely anyone would see that - my boy moves much too fast, especially when he's excited.  And, he's excited to be an eagle!

Still need to get the front covered up a little better.

I wish that sweatshirt didn't have those white stripes on the sleeves.

Perfect animal from the back, my model was happy to lay down "spread eagle" for me!

Happy costumes for childhood fun.  Next year, mom says she has something that will fit him from my childhood stash.  I think there are more "retro" costumes available on the other side as well.
When do we start the deeper conversations about beliefs around this one?  We'll just keep it light for another year or few.  Those conversations will have to start when scary costumes are asked for.

Tale of a travelling chest

It started something like this:
Jerry: "Do you guys have anything that needs to go up to the dump?  I'm taking this old chest up there and there's more space in the van. Or, maybe, you guys want this chest?"
Me: "What is the chest you are taking to the dump?"
Brian: "No, no, it's garbage..."
Jerry: "It's just this old cedar chest that got a little water damaged at some point and lost a leg."
Me: "It wouldn't hurt to just take a look."

I ended up saving Jerry a trip to the dump and causing my hubby to groan and complain substantially.  I think in the end, I have a nice piece worth far more than the $15 I put into it.  Heh, heh, I even managed to finish it in less than 6 months!

This is the broken leg corner. 

Here she is in all her dump-ready glory.

I peeled off the weird O's from the front and Brian helped build a new base to support it.

The handles also had to go.

Here she is!

After end shot.

That little white tag says: Cedar Chest $195. 

The inside is a very nice cedar that I was able to clean up with some magic eraser, a vacuum, and a damp rag.  Noah helped with the process, but I didn't get any pictures of him in his paint-wear.  In the end it's a pretty smooth, sharp paint job.  The color is Great Lakes by DutchBoy.

Since we're moving to a place where Noah won't have a window seat bench in his bedroom, it will probably serve as his toy chest/window seat.

Little craft

I've been keeping a few items from Noah's baby days in a drawer. That's not a good place for them. They wouldn't work in his baby book because they're too bulky. I finally took the time to get a shadow box and put it together to hang on the wall. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

A Pulled Pulk

After my post about eating vegetarian, you might have seen this title as some sort of soy replica of pulled pork, but this is about sledding.  About towing Noah around out in the snowy wilderness in a more comfortable fashion.  Ever since he outgrew the old Chariot, we've been pulling a sled by a short rope, or taking turns playing outside.  We decided it was high time to pimp-out the sled to comfortable parent mode.

We've assembled some tools and are getting a system figured out.

The engineer says you have to build in redundancy in case one part fails, so we have a pair of carabiners linking this system together.

Here we go!

Somebody's having fun!

Dad can comfortably snowshoe, little one doesn't get left behind.

Unless he jumps out of the sled!

We were able to snowshoe and fat-bike with this system.  We used a bunch of 6-8 inch strips of webbing with grommets punched into them to attach to the sled, the sled-end of the pipe, and the harness end of the pipe.  I sewed a harness out of some outdoor nylon (in a bright color that matches the sled), and a 2 inch strip of webbing and buckle.  We just drilled a couple of holes in the pvc pipe and bolted the grommets to the pipe.  We don't have the best grommet system out there and had a couple of grommets pull out of the webbing from the forces put upon them when in real use - good thing we built in all that redundancy!

It was sure fun to play engineer again, mix power tools and sewing, and make something very useful for playing outside!  

Have you ever used something similar?  I'm curious about different designs, so please share!

Doing a little knitting business in the car, amigo

Last spring, my reading list included several Debbie Macomber books where the main characters were avid knitters.  The tales peaked my interest in giving this craft another try; I don't think I've touched knitting needles since I was a child trying to learn from Grandma and her dear friend Harriet.  I didn't even have knitting needles in my crafting stash, just one lonely crochet hook that I used a few times in college.

So, I checked out YouTube and bought some supplies.

I finished Noah's sweater shortly after Christmas.  He isn't very interested in wearing it because he claims it's too big.  I think he'll get some use out of it next winter, and he has wore it a few times so far.  It sure looks handsome on him!

Knitting projects to date
- Doll blankies for Hannah's birthday
- Infinity scarf for mom for Christmas
- Infinity scarf for Carla for Christmas
- Leg warmers for me :)
- Noah's sweater

I got a few more projects queued up now.  I have a whole collection of knitting supplies that came from Grandma, including a project that was started.

Back to the title of the post - when we make the long car trip from home to the Superior condo, I have a substantial amount of dedicated time to keep my hands busy knitting.  When it's an easy pattern to follow, I can keep conversation going with my sweet driver and just knit the miles away (minus the frequent interruptions from the back seat).