Velveteen House Creativity

I knew Dawson had come home ... and with friends. Monte and me were watching a movie. When done and I came downstairs, they were in my studio. My initial feeling was "PANIC"!!!!! I have this initial feeling too when coming down to the kitchen in the morning after Dawson and friends have been active into the night. I try not to be a kitchen witch. But I have asked that they clean up - and my preference: I don't care about stuff in the sink, but I like clean counters. So we went to bed and they carried on into the night in my studio. The next morning, all was clean ...

I took some pics to capture their process. Dawson was at the sewing machine. Tim had left material and scissors on the dining room floor (he'd tried making himself some pants - it didn't work - didn't ask Dawson's advice ... Dawson knows, he's tried the same thing). Having given up, Tim was serenading them with playing Dawson's metal cello. Splarah showed me her iPad - showing a kids apron and chef hat pattern, and was cutting out the pieces, giving them to Dawson to sew.

It was Splarah's neighbor's birthday - turning 3. Splarah's mom was giving her Splarah and Abby's old little kitchen set, so Splarah wanted to make her an apron. Dawson said, "don't go get fabric, my mom's got a 'fabric store' in our garage. He knows - I've given him free reign of the boxed material in the garage - which he's made use of for years. They also made a chef hat and apron for her 5 year old brother.

When I came down in the morning, there were the hats and aprons! Notice the contrasting material used for the apron back? The pink one has a pink check for the apron back. The chef hats have velcro in the band for tightening and expansion fit around their heads. Didn't they do a great job? and SO cute!


Why did I title this "Velveteen House"? I did posts about our Velveteen House several times in my old blog. Remember the Velveteen Rabbit book? Remember the classic dialogue in the book about 'What is real?' ...

"What is REAL?" asks the Velveteen Rabbit of the Skin Horse.
"Real isn't how you are made" (they were looking at all the fancy toys surrounding them in the nursery). "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?"
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful, "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up, or bit by bit?"
"...You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

... Well our home has been well-loved, lived in, and worn. Lots of wonderful memories bounce from our velveteen house walls.

Tie-Dye

Knowing we were going to be gathering for 4th of July AND I needed to use up all my old dye, I tie-dyed a bunch of stuff: T-shirts, camisoles, and bamboo socks, and too, some summer onesies I'd got for the Grandbabies. So yesterday everyone got at least one shirt with matching socks.

Also, it's fun to see people using things I've made and given them. Last Christmas I tie-dyed aprons for gift-giving. Travis wears his apron all the time when cooking - especially grilling, as he did 25+pounds of ribs this 4th of July, using my mom's dad's bar-b-q sauce recipe.

H,B,&W Visit

Heather, Bill, and Will stayed with us a big part of June. They were in limbo: moving and Bill on leave. They bought a house, but not able to move in till mid July. So rather than live in a hotel, they stayed with us.

I found out, tho I knew already, my house is not child-proof. We got through this time period fine with rubberbands on kitchen cabinet knobs, though Will was starting to figure out how to pull, stick hand in, and grab something. We kept tightening the rubberbands. I also covered some shelf areas with cardboard. Cushions and chairs blocked things too. As time went on, Will ventured further, finding more things to get into. Someday, cuz soon visiting Emery will be crawling too ... and then they'll be toddleing ... little hands finding things I don't notice - I'm probably going to have to rearrange things. Will loved going into my pantry and grabbing cans off the shelf, or thinking onions were balls, and then there was the 300 sandwich bag pick-up!

Our new season of life! My daughter-in-love Sarah is writing a blog called The Reluctant Mom and I realized myself in her posts and my current season. So I'm calling myself The Reluctant Grandmom. Not that I don't like this new season and grandkids. It's just that I'm not a typical gal that loves to hold babies. I wasn't the typical girl that babysat. Baby sitting still scares me. But having Heather and Will live with us off and on last year really helped me a ton in this journey. So bear with me my family, as I grow with you, as our family is growing.

Monte captured some great pictures with his iPhone. Bill and Heather were setting out on Father's Day to go to the Evergreen Rodeo (while I babysat!), and Monte took a pic of them by the porch post. Then before they left he thought of taking a family picture. Aren't they a cute family? Heather conceived while here that month, so they'll become four.

Weaving in the Garden

Monte built me this weaving loom for our yard. It's made out of cedar, so it will weather as all our other fencing, gates and deck - that is, neutral gray. When reading a garden color book last summer I learned that nature's neutrals: rocks' and woods' grays, are the best surroundings for showcasing nature's colors.

In this summer's "Living Crafts" magazine, there was an article with instructions for building this loom. Because of my love of textile arts, which includes weaving, Monte thought this would look cool in our yard. More on these kinds of looms are at www.weavingalife.com.

It's warp is jute. I'll be weaving in garden materials. As weeds and flowers dry birds may make use of stuff - like for nest building and feeding. I might plant vines to climb up the posts some years.



'Tis the time of Summer Solstice, Midsummer Nights Dream, and John the Baptist Day. I did a post on this season before.

Dawson's welded me some metal arches for vines to climb. Everything's planted for this season's enjoyment and eats. I totally enjoy summer and gardening and sitting out on the deck reading and enjoying the gardens, butterflies, and birds.



The black pots are growing potatoes and some winter squash. I did a post that mentioned planting potatoes in pots with a link to more info about.

Busy with Textile Art

I'm taking a class: "The Language of Color & Design", by Heather Thomas, who's book is coming out this fall. We meet once a month and my final class is next April ... isn't that way out there!?!! I'm loving it. Each month is show-and-tell with lots of fun, creative gals. It's challenging me each month to study and practice. I'm finding myself eating, reading, sleeping, dreaming ... color. I'm exploring all varied textile arts. Needlefelting wool has been my main medium for awhile, but I've returned to dyeing.

Rather than winging it - I am creative. Rather than having success in my unknowing, I'm wanting to understand more about color and design. In the practicing and gaining knowledge I know it'll free me to discover new ways to explore textile art design. It's all about color relationships.

I've worked through a month of Black and White, and the Gray Scale - discovering value and texture though neutrals. Then a month of Monochromatic; then Complementary color schemes. Now I'm challenged to expand the complementary color schemes. I've been journaling and creating a handmade book each month of my journey. I've posted most of these studies at my Flickr photo site.

Last month I taught felting classes and used my doll example for this past month's color challenge. I was fighting with her attire, not liking it; it didn't feel good. When I looked at her torso dress color next to my 3-in-1 color tool, I realized I wasn't working with a violet shade - trying to add it's yellow complement - but it's red-violet. That's the color combination I really was wanting to do all along. YEAH! I ripped off the other violet and yellows, picked out more shades and tints of red-violet and it's complement: yellow-green. I love it! When the colors are right, they pop!

Dawson also recently taught me how to use his oxyacetaline torch and welder. I made a metal chair for my little wool sculpted lady. I'm going to research soldering and see if I can produce a similar product with a lighter weight metal and no torch and welding stuff. I could do it, but it's kinda scary!

So I've been busy. I'm treating it as a job, working at it almost daily. But then too, this past month has been heavy gardening, getting all my flower and veggie greenhouse starts tucked in the ground - envisioning the flowering beauty to come and good eats!

New Look for My Blog

I can't not write, it's so much a part of me and I've been missing it. So we'll see what now ...