My Dad has been planning to make a sand box for all four of his grandsons for a little while now. Luckily, he collects all kinds of old things, and my Mom thought that an old wooden boat stashed in their barn would be the perfect sandbox vessel. The old flat bottom Old Town boat would never see water again, but its shape and depth would make it a good sandbox for the kids. Its subtle curves and wooden boatiness would appeal to all of us "big kids" who have fond memories of cruising around Thousand Islands, Canada in our old wooden boat. I had nothing to do with this project but admire the results, but I am planning to make some flags and pennants for the mast.

First my parents scraped the old paint.Next, they painted the whole boat with oil-based white primer. (I am sure my mom is so happy that I am posting photos of her in her painting clothes- Martha be damned, nobody wears khakis when painting!)

Then my Mom painted the outside blue and my Dad fixed a rotten side rail. I don't think Julian was actually painting, he is serving as a supervisor here.

While the paint was drying, they prepared the site by laying down landscaping plastic and laying down a bed of gravel. We were going to use pressure treated lumber as a foundation, but had gravel left over from another project. Strider donated a telephone pole piece to use as a piling and also brought the bamboo mast. I can't wait to get some of that crazy thick rope they sell by the foot at the hardware store to secure the boat to the piling.

Julian would like to add a pirate ship plank and we need a gangplank so the little kids can get into the boat. I am going to sew a rain (and cat) cover from sturdy nylon. My Mom is planning to plant perennials around the back of the boat to anchor it into the landscape, and I think the sand boat will work really well and be a fun sandbox that the grownups like as much as the kids.

I think I am finally finished with a project I have been working on for a long time. When I made a little sewn felt horse (pattern from "Toymaking for Children") for our nature table a while ago- maybe 2 years ago- it really bothered me that the seams made the horse look fake and toy-like. It was cute, but I wanted a more realistic horse to pull a garden cart full of felt pumpkins in the fall or carry baskets of flowers in the spring. I tried to make up a knitted and felted horse pattern by messing around with the knitting pattern for a horse, also in Toymaking for Children, but it never looked right. Frustrated, I abandoned the horses. Early this spring, I started experimenting with renewed vigor, forgot about trying to find a pattern to adjust, and just started from scratch. 10 or 12 or 15 misshapen horses later, I came up with these guys:

I am happy with them. My favorite is the gray one- her name is Dusty. Here she is from the front-

Here is a side view- isn't she elegant? I violated my "no acrylic yarn" rule for her mane and tail- it's super thin acrylic/poly blend I picked up at a thrift store. It's perfect for hair.

The Palomino is sweet too, he's missing a tail thanks to Avery, who likes him as much as Dusty does.

I made a Western saddle and the black horse is modeling it here. I don't like her mane as much, regular yarn looks too coarse. It's also hard to see her features, the nose and mouth don't show up. I needle felted a white blaze, and I am pleased with that. The saddle is made from Laura's walnut-dyed felt. Do you recognize the saddle blanket? It's cut from jute upholstery tape.

I am going to format the pattern to sell, but first I need to find a tester or two. Any takers? The knitting goes quickly- you can knit one in an evening. It takes one 50g ball of worsted weight yarn, and the seaming is not picky because the felting hides any stitches. When you are done, the horse looks seamless, as the mane covers the only seam. Sigh. That makes me so happy!

Michael's recent birthday was cause for some last-minute crafting. Julian is 6 and wanted to draw him a picture, but as he is a prolific artist, I wanted to come up with something that would be more lasting and meaningful. Since Michael just got some new sunglasses, I thought it would be simple to make a felt sunglasses case. First, Julian drew his own design on regular paper- a robot dancing. (That kid is the coolest!)

Then, I held the paper on a piece of felt and stitched through the design. I was using three strands of waxed embroidery thread, so my stitches were pretty chunky and we decided that we could leave off the robot's fingers and the outside of his eyes.

Then, I carefully ripped off the paper. I used a pin to shred the paper into small bits, and they were easy to tear out, but a paper made for the purpose would probably be easier to work with.

And then it looked like this:

Whoa, that is some green felt! Anyway, Julian drew another robot, I stitched him on and yada, yada, yada here's what we gave Michael:

Michael likes it. I think he's a super cool dad and love it that he's proud to use it. He's really creative too, and lately he and Avery have been conducting impromptu photo shoots. As we don't let Avery use the camera, (he's two and we still have SOME things that are off limits around here!)Michael asks Avery what they should take a photo of and they compose the shot together. It's cool to me that he encourages our sweet two-year-old to be a part of that creative process. We've since been getting a lot of close ups of lady bugs and images of motorcycles driving on the road, but here's one of my favorites:

Hello internet! I've been reading your news voraciously, (Perez? check. Dooce? check. Craftzine? check. Good and Planty? check.) but I haven't been putting anything out there. Internet, I know that one sided conversations are hard to keep up, and for all 12 of you that read our blog (who I love to bits and appreciate so much) I am excited to continue chronicling our crafting exploits.

As this is a crafting blog, I am so happy I can skip over all the stuff that I has been occupying most of my time these last 4(!) months. (Fun stuff like getting our house ready to sell and such...) I have been cramming in some crafting, but as most of my stuff has been packed away, it usually involved a big mess, some swearing, and me saying repeatedly "Why did I not label these boxes" whenever I needed something like a hole punch or tapestry needle. Happy days are finally here and they started at an auction. Laura bought me a great work table at the Berea College surplus auction for 20 bucks. It looks like it was a lab table or something and has all kinds of stuff carved into it- "Tennesee Vols" ("sucks" added by a University of Kentucky fan) "Ruedy" and an alien looking hand. Best of all though it's really big and I have tons of room to set up my sewing machine at one end and work on other projects on the other end. I love, love, love it and know that I will make many cool things there. Thanks Laura!

She is re-doing her studio and gave me a shelf she doesn't have room for. I arranged my yarn and fibery stuff on it and it's a little place of organization and beauty in a tangle of other crafting supplies waiting to be sorted out. I put a bunch of yarn in the  yard sale pile and sorted out neutrals that I want to dye with. I love the rainbow order stash and it makes me think one thing of course- I need more yarn! Also, until I did this I never realized how much blue yarn I buy. I have been saving scraps and little bits for crafting and they fill a whole bin on their own. BTW- those are "decommissioned" tubs, Michael worked for the USPS a while ago.

Anyway, I am excited to finally  be blogging again, pleased to have my materials available, and space other than the dining room table to work on projects. I have a bunch of projects that are "rough drafts" or prototypes and my goal for this spring is to re-do them and find ways to make them super- cute and cool. I think I am up to the challenge.

I have been doing lots of new things in the last few weeks. Things that stretch my boundaries, push me to achieve new things. Sadly, they include: installing wall to wall carpeting, fixing a toilet flush mechanism and removing mold from window glazing with a toothbrush and Q-tips. We are getting out house ready to list and this time we are fixing it up and "staging" it big time. It looks great. It doesn't even look like our house and according to staging professionals, that's a good thing. I hope to get everything done in the next week or two, and then I can work on crafty stuff without feeling my "to do" list staring me down.

The cotton seeds came. I didn't realize how big they would be!

Those other 5 seeds are giant gourd seeds. I am excited to plant the cotton and found a source for flax seed. Landis Valley Museum grows, tends and processes flax each year and they sell the seed. 

Last week Laura showed me how she paints frakturs, Pennsylvania Dutch folk art drawings that were used for birth certificates, house blessings and other documents. Michael got me a nice watercolor set for Christmas, and frakturs feel like a gentle way to mess around with them, especially since I have no painting skills. Laura's usually include lots of little flourishes and decorations along with the text, sweet little birds and maybe an angel or two. Mine doesn't really look anything like a fraktur, but I made a garden blessing:

I am really not happy with the outer border, but otherwise, I like how it turned out, especially considering my drawing skills are sub-par.

Laura's laptop died last week and she has not been blogging because of that. She does have all kinds of exciting projects to share, and  has been getting lots of fun packages in the mail as she receives her orders for her grant-funded projects. Hopefully she'll get a chance to blog again soon.