happy halloween!

Look at this sweet little girl I happen to know. How cute is she?! Her amazing mother Liz conceived and sewed this whole costume up and I think it turned out so, so beautifully. Look at all those details: the little bracelet, the antennae, the wings, the cut-outs in the skirt...

I wish this picture showed her jolly little brother, a very good-natured caterpillar, content to lie on his back all bundled up in his fleece costume. Very hilarious!

And look - my friend Lora just sent me this of her little ones (who are trick or treating buddies with the other butterfly - can you tell?) You would not believe the detail, like I said about the first costume, on these butterflies. And all completely handmade. Phenomenal! Halloween really brings out the craftiness in some people!

lounging pillows

Here are some lounging pillows I recently made for the t.v. room. I bought the pillow forms at IKEA. The covers are sewn with piping around the edges and a long zipper. I sewed two in an hour. They're pretty quick to make, if you already know how to sew a pillow with self-welting. Do you like the mysterious man with glasses? Some of you might recognize him. He is my sweet, wonderful husband. I was thinking of putting a face on the creme colored pillow too. Maybe I'll make more pillows so everyone in the family can have their own. That would make for some pretty comfortable lounging on the floor for Friday night popcorn movie night--the favorite weekly tradition.

bohemian patchwork

This latest design is full of energy: think patchwork from neverland. H. loves it. I think it's the kitty button that won her over! There is meaning behind this design (something more thoughtful that I'll describe later.) Doesn't H. look like a little cat nestled in the chair?

More fall sewing

Early Sunday morning I was getting the kids ready for church and decided that the four year old needed a new black fall dress. Can you tell I am really into this squared-yoke look right now? I might sew another pair of buttons beneath the current two. What do you think? Or just leave the two?

thanks, nicole!

Look at what nice Nicole sent me for stephmodo's i heart swap! Thanks, Nicole! What pretty things!! (and, not pictured because I ate them all on the ride home from the post office - a huge bag of candy corns and candy corn pumpkins. Yum!)

double luck

Lynne sent me two amazing packages last week. Along with many other beautiful surprises, there were two beautiful handmade linoleum-cut prints on heavy textured paper. She also made this stylish little dress with its two pretty buttons on a white squared yoke. It is made of a heavy woven fabric that should wear really well. Everything was packaged so beautifully; it made my day. Talk about luck!

some sewing

My mental list of sewing projects is really long and exciting... but I'm lucky if I actually execute any of my plans, these days! Here are a couple of things I made last week, between working on my son's first official school report with him (dogs) and saving the baby from her four year old sister (whom I heard saying: "you are a bad, bad baby!") On the bad baby is a little tunic & on the couch a small cushion.

Tar Beach

I love the book Tar Beach, by Faith Ringgold. Her illustrations are phenomenal, and the story is very poetic. The book is the basis for a really fun art project we did in my son's first grade class a couple of weeks ago, and again last week in a little community art class I teach.

If you are looking for such an idea, here is my basic plan:

Supplies - lots of little fabric squares, a large piece of paper for everyone, glue, and crayons or markers

Read the story, and then have the kids think about a really great memory, dream or fantasy (or, just any idea/image that's meaningful for them). Then have them make a fabric border by gluing fabric squares around the edge of their paper. It's a great chance to talk about pattern, color, contrast, the color wheel, texture... then they illustrate the center for their own "story quilts."

(My cute son, by the way, finished his project in about 5 minutes. And the picture he drew in the middle of his paper was a hurried one-color rectangle around which he wrote: "long ago people made quilts." I guess the project didn't quite capture his imagination. I don't know why I'm surprised, since the thing he said after we DRAGGED him through the Gee's Bend quilt exhibit last year was "zero is a number. It means nothing. I liked zero of those blankets.")

woodland room

I just finished this little Red Riding Hood bed for H. I bought the bed frame at that same amazing estate sale where I found the cool chairs. The bed frame was originally an unattractive orange colored finish. I painted it white, then slowly, slowly have worked on the woodland scene. H.'s room was originally linen white, but I decided to make the bold move of painting it green. I was inspired by Hilary's son's green room(www.weewonderfuls.typepad.com). The table is used for changing the baby and folding laundry. The table cloth is an antique French linen sheet. (I'm crazy about these. You can find them on ebay.) The washer/dryer are hidden away behind the white linen curtains. What you can't see in these pictures--I'll post more later--are the tiny white balls sewn all over the curtains. That was a bit of a painstaking endeavor that I accomplished during car drives to the beach this summer. The dresser was originally a cherry-stained filing cabinet that I painted white years ago. The lamp is an ebay find.

H.'s bedroom is in the top of the house with distant views of trees and woods all around. It's so lovely. I think a woodland bedroom fits perfectly in this space.

play

Have you ever listened to your kids conversations as they are engrossed in pretend play? It's quite fascinating and revealing of their little personalities. This is H. at play in the basement/playroom. The play tent was a recent project. (I'll give instructions later.) The posters are from a street vendor in Dijon. They are school instructional posters from the fifties. The colors are so rich and brilliant on a nice heavy matte paper. I love the simple domestic scenes especially. (For a closer look at them, check out the May archives.) H.'s red dress was a project from last winter. My mom, the master seamstress, helped me sew it.

mushroom land smock

Here's a little smock I made recently for the baby. It was a very easy project. To make the pattern, I cut up an old plastic smock that had ripped apart. (If you're interested in the pattern, send an e-mail and I could cut one out for you.) Anyway, this only took about 45 minutes to make. I put elastic around the cuff and bias tape around the neck. I left about eight inches of bias tape on each side of the neck to tie on the smock. This makes a great smock for doing art projects, or for eating really messy food like spaghetti and yogurt.

halloween tree

A few years ago we made little blown-out halloween eggs, a la Martha Stewart (oh Martha, how talented are you and the people you employ!) They are not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the bum-pkin but we love pulling them out every fall and hunting for scraggly branches to hang them from.

My new/old chair in it's new/old spot

I've been having some fun arranging/rearranging the furniture this afternoon. I finally got the strength up to manoeuvre this pretty linen estate sale chair through the narrow doorway into the t.v. room. I must say, it looks perfect in this space. The only problem is that the chair smells like an old lady. Being the clean freak that I am, after admiring the chair in the t.v. room for about five minutes, I snapped a few pictures, then quickly banished it back to it's home by the front door. In such a spot, it's smell is more contained. I'm awaiting my friend's steam cleaner, which has been lent to another friend. In the meantime, I'll have these photos to remember how pretty it looked...

P.S. Do you like my son's self-portrait? He did this last year. I'm crazy about it. I also had a lot of fun playing around with a new wide angle lens. It's amazing how much of a tiny space can fit into one photo, though it does cause a fair bit of distortion. I wish it could cause smell distortion and morph my lovely linen old-lady dust chair into a sweet fragrant bouqet de fleurs.

a little halloween decor

Here's a morning glimpse of our fancy halloween decorations, 90% of which were produced last year in my son's kindergarten class. My special favorite is what my husband and I call the "bum-pkin", made out of nude-colored nylon and stuffed with cotton. Have a great weekend!

gold twirly dress

I sewed up this gold twirly dress a while back. It's one of H's favorites. In fact, she likes it so much that it has taken up permanent residence in the beloved dress-up box, alongside the sparkly Barbie dress, green tulle Tinker Bell frock and a variety of brightly colored silky skirts and dresses. This gold velvet dress is a keeper in this house. Notice the large velvet covered buttons, and the the velvet button loops. The shirt is from www.olivejuice.com . I found it last year in their sale rack. She has worn and worn it.

Art Mondays

Once a month I teach an art class in my son's first grade. It is so much fun, and so gratifying - particularly since here in California there is little time for the arts in public school. Last month we did illuminations. I brought in several medieval pictures (here's the initial S, The Conversion of St. Paul, c. 1440-50, by Antonio di Pisano) and then we made our own "ABC-darium" book of letters, each child making their own letter picture. The kids really liked (in addition to the pictures of knights and swords) the idea of hiding letters within a bigger picture, and also liked incorporating tin foil (poor man's gold leaf) into their designs.

There are troves of brilliant art history art project ideas on the websites of the major art museums in the education sections, if anyone is interested. Two of my favorite resources are the Getty Museum and the National Gallery of Art -- the National Gallery will even let you check out, for only the price of postage, all kinds of materials. I haven't tried it yet, but definitely plan on it...

I'd love to hear other ideas for great school art projects!