Footrest

Our old armchair is getting worn, so I went online and bought some fabric from Jo-Ann.com. It was a little bit of a gamble, because I didn't bother to get a swatch first, but I like the new fabric well enough.

I started by removing the footrest. It was attached on the underside with screws. The fabric was attached with staples, which made removing the old fabric fairly easy also. The old fabric was really dirty, as well as being worn. I had not thought about how much dirt can accumulate over the course of 25 years!

I used the old fabric to measure the new piece and stapled it on. For the back, I used a piece of cheap quilting cotton that I had lying around. No one will see the back, and this fabric is better quality than the cambric that was there before.

You can really see the contrast between old and new when you look at the footrest from a sitter's position.

Done for now! I'll tackle the little board between the seat and the footrest next.

The cardboard stool is complete!

I finally finished my second cardboard stool about a week ago. I forgot it in my car the day I brought it to work, so I sent one of the older kids out to the car to get it. My boss let him do it, then took my car keys from him. I spent the afternoon wondering how much trouble I was in, but the boss simply wanted to tell me a story: apparently, someone had given a youngster permission to get something from their truck several years ago. That young man "drove to Boston, where he played bumper cars with five other cars before he was caught." I'm really glad the youngster I chose was more responsible than that!

Here is my stool in its final permutation:

In the last picture, I was going for a shot of the large table, which needs either replacement or repair. I noticed the stool in the background, and thought I'd include it. The stool is the perfect size to fit a smaller youngster at the small table in this picture.

ceramics

Last week, I took my first wheel-throwing class at Assabet After Dark. We started with cylinders, which I found a little challenging. I kept wanting to make them taller than they were inclined to be. The clay would fight me, or I would end up a little off-center, or the cylinder would become a bowl as soon as I looked up. I probably leaned a little, pulling the sides off center as I went.

Somehow, cylinders don't feel finished to me, so it was a relief last night to find that we were to work on bowls instead. It was no surprise that we needed to make a cylinder to end up with a bowl, but it was really nice not to have to stop at a cylinder. I made four bowls, some of them very nice ones, if I may say so myself. I would like to have more pictures, but my hands got pretty messy, so here is what I have:

It has been a busy time outside the craftshop, so work in the craftshop has been slow. In the last few weeks, I have managed to make some progress on my cardboard stool. I am currently in the process of covering it with fabric. I am using scraps, so the end product will have four different fabrics.

I also made a heart-shaped basket and a pop-up card to show to the kids at the Club.

Valentines Day was on a Sunday this year, so I showed the kids how to do these things during my usual Friday art time. They really enjoyed these projects.

The last few days have been fairly busy. I finished gluing the other leg of my cardboard stool. I didn't take a picture of that, as it looks exactly like the first leg. Right now, it is in the craftshop, drying.

I finished my spotted lantern fish. I still don't know whether I like the end result, but I certainly enjoyed the process. The biggest problem was that I got glue all over the front of the project. It was really hard to handle all of those bitty little pieces. I'll take it to the Boys and Girls Club and let the kiddos decide what it is worth--someone can use their homework points to buy it, and they'll have a little piece of original art of their very own.

 I also turned one old t-shirt into heavy yarn for a rug.

I really enjoy making new items from worn out things that don't seem to have any life left to them. This shirt will make a great contribution to my next rug.

Another cardboard stool

The kids at the Club still vie against each other for opportunities to use the stool that I made from corrugated cardboard. I needed to clear several boxes out of my attic anyway, so I took the opportunity to start on another stool.

This picture shows my progress from a few days ago. Today, I cut several more panels and carved the central square out of all of them. I hope to cover this one with canvas or some other material, now that everyone has seen what they are made from. The current one, while still really sturdy, is showing some wear, and I would like to protect its surfaces so it will last longer.

I did one other thing yesterday, although I forgot to take a "before" picture. My friends Fred and Pat Trusell gave me their loom, and I went to their apartment to pick it up.

Here it is, all in pieces in the back of my car. It will have to live in my attic until Anna goes off to college next fall. I have permission to use her bedroom as a weaving studio once she is at school. Fred tells me he will come to help me put the loom back together when the time comes. Fred made the loom himself, and the Trusells used it for decades, so it is a great honor to be the one to receive it.

Maybe I'll never need these skills that I am learning. Somehow, though, I feel so much happier knowing how to make some things myself, instead of having to go buy them from complete strangers who live on the far side of the world.

Spotted Lantern Fish

I have been trying to do a little crafting every day. I have been posting on Facebook, since the effort was spurred by my cousin Kelli, who had a crafting initiative called "Hibernate and Create" on Facebook for the month of January. Now that January is over, I am going to try to post a little bit about what I did each day here on my blog instead. Kelli's project got me moving a little faster, but it also made it clear to me just how much making I was doing already. Thanks, Kelli!

For the last several days, I have been working on a spotted lantern fish made from found materials. I found a picture that I liked in my marine life book, and I drew a copy onto a scrap of wood. My other materials are Sharpie, yogurt containers, glue and paint.

I made templates for the head armor using some old typing paper I found lying around.

Here's what it looks like right now. I can't decide whether I like this project as an object, but I am certainly enjoying the process of making it. I think I will find a button to glue on for the fish's pupil, and I need to add a few more beads where the fish would have lantern cells. I also need to finish up the fins. Maybe I can complete my fish tomorrow! Then I just have to decide what to do with it.

I have been taking part in a crafting initiative that my cousin, Kelli Sweet, started. Her challenge to all of her acquaintance was to do at least 15 minutes of crafting and post on it every day for the month of January. While I have not quite managed to keep up with the daily nature of the challenge, I have been getting into the craftshop consistently, and I have started and completed several projects.

One of my favorites was a stool that I made out of corrugated cardboard.

It is 14" tall; I designed it for the younger children in the Learning Center at the Boys and Girls Club where I work. I started with the carton that my daughter's Christmas present came in. It was a double layer of corrugated cardboard--about as sturdy as a box can get.

I used a broken old self-healing mat for my template.

It took a few hours to cut out the legs of the stool. I started with a craft knife, and I managed to tear the skin on my finger before Chip discovered me trying to cut double-thick cardboard with it. He immediately went and got a box cutter for me. I love my husband!

Once I had them cut, I glued the pieces together to make two laminated legs.

The pieces that I had cut out of the center of each square made excellent supports and spacers for the center of the stool. Next comes the seat.

I glued multiple strips of cardboard together to make a laminated block. The center piece that I installed the day before held everything in place with the glue dried.

The only thing left to do was try it out! Here is Anna, age 17, trying out the stool. It is rock-solid and much more comfortable than it looks.

I took it to the Club the day after I finished it. The children there have been vying for an opportunity to use it, and I have several requests to make more of them.

January 11, 2016

I have been a fitful blogger, partly because I wanted to include pictures. I was extremely frustrated, as I was having a hard time arranging the pages with both pictures and text. The other day, Jim asked me why I wasn't blogging much, since I had been so interested in it when I posted my first few entries. When I explained my frustration to him, he suggested using a different web browser, so here I am, trying this out in Chrome instead of Firefox. Here goes nothin'!

It has been a very satisfying year in the craft studio. I have done everything from fiber arts to paper crafts and upcycled miscellany. Many of my projects have been of a practical nature, as I love combining the aesthetic and the useful. I particularly like containers and receptacles. It has also been a year full of big changes for our family. Without further ado, here is some of what I and my family have done in the last year:

Anna and I did a lot of gardening.

Junior prom, May 25.

I have been trying to become more self-reliant for the last decade or so--providing more and more of my family's needs myself, instead of going out and buying them. We did buy veggies this year, but not nearly as many as we used to.

A tree fell on our house just before our two big party days.

Our son, Jim, spearheaded the building of a shed for the Cider Knoll Community Garden over the summer of 2014 as the centerpiece of his Eagle project. On June 6, Troop 2 held an Eagle Court of Honor for him at our church.

This shed was Jim's Eagle project.

Eagle Court of Honor at our church

On June 7th, Jim graduated high school. He was beyond relieved to be finished, and he is much happier in college.

James Read, Marlborough High School class of 2015

Band concert, June 2015

 Several years ago, Jim joined Chip in the community band. Here, you can see Jimmy in the back with his trumpet (second from the left). Chip is directly in front of him. Now that Jim is at college, he can't make it to rehearsal, so he has given up the band for now, and he is exploring other possibilities for the moment.

All the cousins down the shore

I have been doing more crafting now that winter has come again. Below are a few projects I have done for my cousin Kelli's "hibernate and create" group crafting activity. The idea is to do some crafting for at least 15 minutes every day during the month of January. I have made a lot of stuff this month, but I don't foresee buying many supplies at the moment. I still have about 20 years worth of built-up crafting supplies, so I won't buy anything until I need something specific. Letting my materials guide my crafting choices worked well for me in 2015. I plan to continue until I run out of both ideas and supplies. Here's to a new year. Cheers!

A banner I made as an example for my kids at the Boys and Girls Club, where I work

Drawstring bags made with leftover yarn

I'm making a stool out of corrugated cardboard.