projects are progressing but we seem to be adding 3 new projects for every project finish (not that we are finishing that many projects right now). and at the same time we are giving our room a huge makeover; so far we’ve rearranged things, but hopefully we will buy new furniture items (we have already gotten a few things at an antique store in CT last week).

we’ll try to have redone/updated all of the project pages before school starts up (the first day is the 8th, but then no school until the 13th). still, this and next week are pretty busy.

lastly, i’ve finished the wallet, including the zipper, (first project with a zipper! ), and have now got to make the pattern and try to make it sell-able.

we are going out of town tomorrow, and hopefully the yarn, needles, and glue we ordered will arrive before we have to go.

e’s lanyard bowl is on it’s way to being finished, though it is pretty small at the moment. my idea for a bowl did not work, unfortunately.

i am practically finished with the wallet thing (the one i’m trying to sell the pattern to on this site), but i still have to work on writing up the pattern.

we have started a new project, although at this point we just have an idea and materials. the goal is to make a frame or mirror–either work–out of a hairbrush. i pulled out the plastic that keeps in the bristles, and we are going to cut a long narrow slit across the top, for sliding in a piece of glass, a picture, and a backing.

the blanket border is done–we have only a few loose ends to sew in. yay!

i am starting to replace the photos on the site with ones that have a lower resolution (one more appropriate for web-viewing).

z

i know i said we would blog once we got back in town, and, yes, it has been two weeks since then… sorry.

i’ll start at the beginning…

a couple of days after we came back, the corn husk mats had shrunk, making the once-tight and sturdy mats become flimsy and  pointless. next time we know.

lesson: when weaving with corn husks, let them sit for a day or two before using them

here are pictures from when they were still fresh.

soon i’ll also put up pictures from the beach, and hopefully I will use photoshop to start watermarking and shrinking photos that have already been posted, to protect them and save space. I can’t get the latest version of photoshop because this computer doesn’t meet the requirements, (it’s not the right version of mac), but i have a trial version of photoshop elements 8 for now. the trial only lasts 15 more days, half of which time i will be in connecticut, without this computer. hopefully i’ll be able to finish watermarking and shrinking by then. (cross your fingers!)

on the trip to my aunt’s house, i made e start a pouch for me, planning to keep it as another pocket inside my wallet. since then, i have finished the pouch, and it is too thick to put in my wallet. instead, i am making little pouches to be sewn inside for holding coins. i have made two so far, but only sewn on the first one. it is so cute that i thought i would write up a pattern and sell it for a couple of bucks. i’m not sure if that is possible on this site, but i’m looking into it. would paypal be an option? anyone know how that works?

we have run out of yarn for mom’s shrug, so i ordered some yesterday, along with some needles and tacky glue. the needles are for a friend’s hat, which we have been promising to make for her. the glue is for bowls, which i will spend the next paragraph explaining.

the chair–the one that we painted and that e is going to put an embroidered seat cushion on–needed a seat, so we got some cotton clothesline cord from rite aid and looked up directions and weaved one. these are the directions we used. it took us many hours to finish, spread out over several days, and there are two of us, so if you are planning on doing this yourself, set aside a day or two to work on it. right now it is in our room, drying after we treated it with scotchgard fabric protector, a spray that makes clothes and other fabrics, resist liquids so they stain less easily. we’ll use that for the placemats, too.
we had leftover cord (on purpose) which we are going to use to make little bowls. i got this idea from a martha stewart magazine article. you can see the instructions for the project here. she also gives instructions for using the same material to cover desk lamps, here.

e has finished borders for half of the placemats, but we have to wait another week or so for yarn to arrive. it says it will take 7-10 days to arrive, but as long as delivery time is under 10 days, we will probably be able to bring it to connecticut with us and work on our projects for the week that we are staying there.

as i mentioned above, we have been promising a hat to a friend. i’ve been working on that while the shrug is on hold. mostly, though, it has given us time to rearrange our room and get ready for school.

i just looked through recent chats, and it seems i haven’t mentioned the card i am making. it is taking a while because part of the card is laying on my windowsill, with parts covered up by other paper. the idea is to have it fade so much that the parts covered from the sun will stand out enough to be recognized as an image.

the header and logo are done now, and if e ever makes a hive i’ll add that in. we tried the theme coraline for a couple of days so we could have a background image, but the font is too harsh and we don’t get as many options, so we are back to vigilance.

lastly,  a couple nights ago, as e and i were going to bed, the subject of lanyards came up, (i’m not sure who thought of it first). we have 5 or 6 spools of the plastic strands commonly used to make lanyards, probably from some camp we went to years ago. the colors we have are bright, and not likely to look good with anything, and a whole city could not have enough uses for lanyards to use the amount of plastic we have, so we brainstormed different uses lanyards could have. could they be part of a sculpture, or even a sculpture itself? could multiple lanyards be worked and interwoven every so often to make a bowl? could the strands be woven into a mat? (a placemat? i’m still working on what a plastic mat could be shaped into) we are aiming to try different techniques this weekend and see what we can come up with. wish us luck!

we’ll try to post things more often in the coming week, until then

z

Previous Post

yesterday, our aunt asked us to husk the corn, and, of course, we had to use the husks for something. we took them and weaved them into a square. At first, we were thinking we’d make placemats for everyone for dinner that night, but there weren’t enough husks and we ran out of time. after dinner, though, we made another thicker, more oddly-shaped version of the first square using a different technique.

we’ll post pictures and diagrams once we get home to our computer.

also yesterday, z had an idea. z hates having to write about herself in third person, (like right now), so she thought that she and e could write in different color fonts.

z is now going to write in olive green!

e will write in turquoise!

e finished the bee (not the hive yet, though) so z updated the header, but she did it at home with a trial version of photoshop elements 8, which is much harder to make an animation with than photoshop cs5 and wouldn’t let her turn off loop or decide how long each frame stays. hopefully, she will be able to make it better next wednesday at class and add in the hive.

we are at our aunt’s house on the beach for the weekend and it is wonderful. we can hear the sound of the waves against the shore and the chirp of crickets at night. there are windows all along the wall near the water, which let in a ton of light and allow us to watch boats on the water from the couch in the livingroom where we are knitting. we have been knitting/crocheting all day, but z finds it so relaxing here that she has a hard time knitting the shrug (she thinks the yarn is annoying and the stitches too tight).

e has done the first placemat border, after a number of start-overs (as z thinks all projects should start), and is halfway through the second.

z has finished the first sleeve and is inching her way through the second.

we got up with the sun this morning (6:00), to go to the shore, but z has been sleepy all morning and we both passed out after lunch. (in fact, everyone in the house took a nap after lunch–us, our dad, our dad’s girlfriend, our aunt, and our aunt’s friend.