Sewing Hexi Puffs

Are you sick of pictures of this project yet??  I feel like I need to work on something else for awhile, but if I do, I'm afraid this will never get done!

 Last progress picture

 Where I'm at now - that's 106 puffs all sewn together.  Somehow I thought it would be bigger than this by now :o)

 Don't they look so sweet together?!  I am also totally loving the weight of this thing.

 Some of the "special" ones - still trying to keep those somewhat near the middle.

The book I am reading.  It was recommended by one of my daughters.  Not quite sure what I think of it yet, she loved it so I will keep reading to see if I like it better as I get more into it.

Sharing over at Tami's, Ginny's, Kristine's, and Sara's.  Come take a look for more great Works In Progress!

Noon Art - Little Treasure Boxes

A new school year, a new noon art.  I organize (with the help of some amazing ladies!) noon art every other Thursday at our elementary school.

 We set up the tables - 9 of the 6 foot variety and lay out all the necessary supplies.  This year we made tablecloths to cover the tables and boy what an improvement that has been!!  Now when the glue gets all over the place, instead of having to scrub and scrub and scrub the tables, we just pull the tablecloths off, bring them home and throw them into the washing machine - easy, peasy!

 Lots of sequins, beads, markers - can't go wrong with sequins!

 Someone donated these little "specimen" containers for noon art.

 The kids loved this activity.

 Boys and girls alike - we had as many boys as girls in attendance.  That has been my goal the past two years since I started doing Noon Art -- to find projects that would appeal to both boys and girls equally and it has to be something that grades 1 through 5 can do in 20 minutes.  WHEW!!

 Lots of sparkle on this one :o)

 More than 100 kids came.  Many of them made several of the boxes - we went through about 350 of those little boxes.  It was fast and furious in Noon Art this day!

 This boy made about 12 of the boxes - he made one for all his siblings, parents and grandparents and of course the custodian - how sweet!

 If a little glue is good, more is better :o)

 We also put out left over Mardi Gras coins from a party my friend had thrown.  We absolutely did not anticipate how popular those were going to be.  One huge box of coins - GONE.

 So sweet.

 This girl thought she had "made a mistake" on hers and came to me in tears.  I asked her why she thought she made a mistake and she told me because she had glued things on the inside of the box.  I let her know that there are no mistakes in art - you can do whatever you want and it's perfect.  Then I asked her if she would like to make another and she nodded her head and got back to her art - glueing things on the insides of her boxes.

 This is one of my son's boxes.

 This is another - he loves to make 3-D stuff.

 I love the combo of pen and glue on this one.

This one is interesting - the student colored on the bottom of the box a solid color and then drew balloons on the top - you can't really tell here, but it does give a good shadow box appearance.  I tell you, these kids are fabulous!!  I love laying out supplies and seeing where their creativity will take them.

I can't wait for the next one!

Sharing at:  Fiber Arts Friday, Tami's, Creative Friday, and I've Made Friday

A Discouraging WIP

I am still working away on my placemats and things were going quite nicely when I noticed a couple of problems :o(

 Do you see it?  Up there, that little blank space with no blue lines?

 Here, let me give you a closer look.  I don't know why that happened, but for a small section, I must have woven differently, so that the white weft was above the blue warp.  AND...that's a long way to unweave...to unweave or not to unweave, that is the question.  AND, I've never unwoven and am not sure how to do it without all kinds of tangles happening!

 There is also a bigger problem that I just noticed that is throughout the ENTIRE piece.

Notice that "little" gap right there, the one where it looks like a line of warp is missing?

Well, it looks like that because there IS a line of warp missing--not missing exactly, but I skipped a dent in the reed when I was warping the loom and I didn't notice until now!!  This is the third of four placemats!  How could I have missed noticing that there is a huge gap in the weaving??!!  I walk by this loom and gaze at this piece many times a day--am I blind or something?  Just unobservant, I guess.

This is so discouraging.  I'm not sure what to do.  Finish and hope that at least some of these problems seem a little bit less after washing these, or just scrap them totally and start afresh.  For the time being, this WIP is on a complete and total TIME OUT!!

Sharing with:  Tami, Ginny, Ambassador Crochet, and Sara and Susan.

A Measly Four Puffs

That's all I got done this week - 4 measly little puffs.

I usually try to keep my blog upbeat and fun (that's how I usually am anyway), but this past week has been a little hard.  Sunday especially.  My mom went to the ER and I went with her.  She is fine, she is having a bunch of medical problems (nothing terminal - just the "stuff" that happens as you get older) and she is scared.  I brought my knitting, thinking I would get some of that done.  My mom really just wanted me to sit there and hold her hand and talk to her.  So, that is what I did.  I did manage to show her the virtues of Pinterest :o)  I think she might be now as addicted as I am to it.  We spent hours looking at things she was interested in and things she liked - easy to talk about all that.

Well, enough of that!  Mom is home and doing well.  I am tired, but fine also and the days keep marching on.

This week I want to plant some new things in my garden and work on my weaving.

Sharing at:  Gingerbread Girl, and Frontier Dreams.

Enjoying Daily Life With Kids

Our oldest turned 17.  Can you believe it??!  17 years old!  Time flies when you don't want it to!

 She wanted a plain white cake with chocolate frosting.  This is what we came up with.  4 layers of cake.  She and her friends loved it.  We had 12 of her friends over for dinner and a sleepover - boy, they had so much fun!!  I truly can't believe that next year at this time, she will be away at college.  She is a bright, thoughtful, well rounded girl and we love her to bits.

 I will still have other little monkeys at home keeping me busy :o)  10 year old daughter wanted me to put her hair in "many" braids.  This is what she wound up with - the best I could do.

 Several braids braided together.  I thought it looked nice.

 Obviously she did too!!  We left it in for a couple of days and her hair was super wavy when we finally took it out. 

 Someone lost a tooth.......

Don't mess with this boy and his dust buster!  He's good with it too!

Sharing over at Mindful Mothering

Sewing Hexis Together

Slowly, but surely I think this blanket will grow.

 Last picture of progress

Progress as of right now.  I started working vertically because I want all the "special" hexis - the ones with embroidery - to be in the middle of the blanket.  I will keep adding vertically until it measures approximate 4 1/2 feet, then I will fill in and add another vertical line of hexis on the other side.  Then the plan is to keep adding to the ends until it measures about 6 feet in length.  Then it will be long enough to cover both my husband and I from neck to toes.  It is slow going sewing these together with the mattress stitch, but I really like the result.

Sharing at:  Tami's, Sara's,  Kristine's, and Ginny's.  Take a look for some other fabulous fiber crafts!

Hexis and Homemade Candles with Kids

5 puffs this week.  I used the Candy Skein yarn that I purchased last week and love it!!  It's soft and doesn't split and those stripes are the best!

 Sometimes the kids come up with such fun things to do.  One of my kids had made candles on a field trip last year and wanted to make some again at home.

 We started by melting the just plain old white wax and added wax dye.  Blue was the color of the day.

 It was very hard to cut that wax in smaller pieces.  It took my big knife and that meat tenderizer (I used it like a hammer on the handle of the knife) to break off pieces.

 Cut strings for the wicks - they are too long, but the kids didn't seem to mind!

 Then we set up an assembly of sorts - several stops with a can of melted wax and a can of water.

 The kids then walked around the table stopping at each station to dip their wick first in wax and then in the water.  The had so much fun talking and walking!!

 Some of them made big ones and formed them into shapes...

 others just let the wax do whatever it wanted.

 The 7 year old meticulously made different forms.

 The 10 year old trying to get a skinny one to stand up.

 Still trying.  It never did stand up, but she didn't mind.

The candles of our labors :o)  Not perfect, but perfectly fun!  They want to make more as soon as we use these up.

I love these times with the kids where we can just stop all the crazy business and take a breath.  Do something fun together that they have initiated.  These are the times, I hope, that they will look back on and think how fun it was to grow up in our home with all their siblings.

Sharing at:  Carole's, Nicole's, and 5 Minutes for Mom, and Mindful Mothering.