One recent morning my son Eli bounced out of bed, having dreamed of flying kites, asking me couldn't we make a kite, this morning, right now? Strider was available to hang with Isaac, and I had nothing else going on so we got down my kitemaking book, looked at all the amazing kites in its pages, and got hooked by the fish windsock. OK, it's not actually a kite, but it suited Eli's needs. There were not directions on how to create this lovely fellow, but the book mentioned tyveck as a sturdy kite making material, and that got my wheels a turnin'.  Luckily we have an entire roll of tyveck in the form of house wrap for the house addition project Strider is working on. We were able to use the white portions between the Lowe's logo. I also had a box of cool old permanent markers I got recently at a yard sale that I've been itching to find a use for.
 
I sketched out a fish shape and sewed the two long side seams on my machine, leaving the mouth and tail open. I turned it inside out, and we got to work decorating. I used the picture in the book for inspiration, and put scales down his side and Eli and I colored them in. I know that by the finished product it looks like I must have been prescriptive in my working with Eli, but he happily worked slowly and methodically on a few scales and a polka dotted tail while I did the rest.

We used hot glue to fasten the wooden ring in the photo inside the fish's mouth. I folded the extra material down inside and glued it too. A couple lengths of waxed linen later, and our windsock was ready to adorn our herb garden.

What a great way to start my day! The fish has been outside for a few weeks now and the red marker is fading a bit, but other than that it is holding up really well. I thought this project might be a good one for my first try at a tutorial. Any takers?