A loom!

I casually asked my friend if she owned a loom while we both sat knitting socks. She on her first pair "in a decade" and more than half done while I stumbled along on my first sock ever to get past the first inch. It was, given her personality, a reasonable question. I expected her to say that yes, she did own one and was involved in some grand community group to weave blankets and such to benefit the local, or not local, something. It would be normal for her. 

Her answer came quickly. "Why, yes. I've never used it and it has to go in the next two weeks. It was given to me with the agreement that I'd give it away when I was done with it." 

My girl was waving her arm wildly before the words were out of her mouth. She had been longing for a loom. It turns out this loom is a 6-foot floor loom. It takes up one half of the available floor space in BTG's room. She and her friend disassembled the whole thing, labelling parts with names they made up to describe it and loaded it all into the back of our van. We arrived home at 9:30 from a week's trip with snowstorms and illness. I was tired. She stayed up till midnight to reassemble it then spent the next weeks poring over websites and books to find the missing pieces and figure out how it all worked and then to create. 

These are two of the first three projects she has made. The green one was my Christmas gift!

An obsession with paper

It started innocently enough as a way to occupy his hands while he listened to me read our history or read-alouds. First some simple shapes, then more complex stars and balls. Youtube is rich with step by step tutorials. His current focus has been these little animals that pop up regularly on the origami shelf or atop picture frames. He's happy to share his knowledge with his brother or in the form of gifts to friends. That white star in the window? It's one of 4. Just because I asked for them. And the pink flower dresses up my Christmas cactus when it's taking a break from producing.

Felted pictures

A year ago our handicraft work was felting on flat surfaces and in the round. Here the children each chose a painting of an artist to copy and used raw or coloured wool applied to a felt background. They had each been given a baggie of colours to help direct the choice of painting. Depending on personality, they spent much time or little on their project--and that did not go as I'd have predicted it! But I loved watching the process of choosing the painting, trading colours where necessary to get just the right one and felting with care or abandon to achieve just the right effect.