Basking in the Chrimbo Glow

You can tell it's the day after Chrimbo because I ate toffee, fruitcake, and cold, leftover Chinese food for breakfast. Plus, I haven't showered or left my pjammies in a few days, and my only goals for the day are to shower, to sled, and to nap.

In years past, I've gone crazy making gifts of Chrimboness for the various people in my life. This year I just tried to keep up with special orders for sales and the baking of various Christmas candies and cookies. However, when asked for her gift list, my sister specifically requested with respect and love, "I don't really need anything. I don't know. Why don't you just make me one of those little crafty things you do." Free reign crafting? Yes!

crochet stockings

I really wanted to make her crochet slippers. When we were children we got crochet booties from some old lady every Christmas. My sister always wore hers. Now I get to be that old lady! Last year I made my family stockings in the style of Great Aunt Lolly's crochet stockings that we'd grown up with. Once after a bit too much eggnog, we snatched those stockings off the window and wore them around the house on our feet so I knew they were functional. And since I wanted them to be really warm, felting was a must. I used a big crochet hook and double-stranded the yarn. When I finished them, they were huge and I was convinced I'd have to also give my sister a foot stretcher if I wanted them to fit her.

However, they felted up very, very nice.

 

I totally love the way they turned out. I wore them around for a while. You know, to ensure quality. I gave them to her yesterday, and she either liked them or is an excellent liar.

Little Man asked me for an all-green hat with a pom-pom. I think he was just trying to make me feel good, but it totally worked. I made the Girlchild a hat with a flower on it. I made some for special orders this Chrimbo that she'd asked for, but they were selling like hotcakes in the store. It was nice to give them hats that were first draft rather than all the "too ugly to sell" ones that I typically give them. Here they are in them and their handmade pjammies that my blogmate Alison made and gave them.

And there's the whole family (although I am behind the camera) doing our annual Chrimbo Day Sledding with warm heads.

  

Now that I've showered and spent a few hours sledding, only one goal remains to be accomplished.

Alison: Head ornaments

I'd been making cloth dolls and ornaments like mad. Lost all the pictures of the early ornaments and dolls though. So discouraging. These are my latest ornaments. I have eight smaller cloth dolls traced on muslin and ready to sew, as well as two larger ones. Those I will begin after the holidays.

The latest - with human hair, thanks to Ben Maddox.

heads - ornaments - after they're painted.

Just after they're baked and before they were painted.

This is what happens when you don't hear the buzzer on the oven.

This is one of the first head ornaments I made. I like its simplicity and serene look.

Kelee: Get Stuffed, All About Crochet Felt Stuffed Animals

Every time I see a mother antibacterializing a grocery cart handle, I picture that baby as a college student snorting something white off of the toilet at a rest area. When I'm applying the second batch of sunscreen to my kids, I try to guess what kinds of tattoos they will litter about on their smooth skin. When I am arguing with them about how much no-sugar-added fresh-pressed organic juice they can have (well, it still has a lot of sugar even if it is naturally occurring sugar), I picture them taking shots in their college dorm before they even go out for the night. I'm not a pessimist. I just enjoy the juxtaposition of the amount of care and detail that a parent puts into a small child's well-being and the amount of harm and danger into which a teen to twenty-nine-year-old puts him/herself. Even as I sit here writing this (having sent my preschooler off to school with a hat, mittens, and reduced-salt peanuts), a gaggle of teen girls walks by sans coats and smoking. I get it – the rebellion, the feeling invincible, the spreading of wings. I know it is necessary and healthy (not the smoking), but I am already dreading when it happens to my kids. I hope they'll be late-bloomers and make it to college before their debauchery really sets in.

Very early in the morning of Sunday, October 16, I forced my kids to go with me to take the dog out. We went to the next door park so everyone could run about – everyone except me and the dog since we don't run. I saw a squirrel crossing the road and before I even thought about it, I heard myself saying, “Look at that squirrel wearing a little hat.” Only it wasn't. I tried to play it off like a joke. I couldn't get the image of a squirrel wearing a tiny red crocheted hat that tied on out of my head, though. I considered contacting other local yarny people to yarn bomb the local wildlife, but rabies makes me nervous. I realized that if I made the squirrel out of yarn that I could make it wear a wide variety of hats and clothing. I'd crocheted small, cuddly creatures before, but it's been a while. It's on my “I've Been Meaning To Do That” list, which is a lot like a “To Do” list that is infused with regret and guilt. So I did it. Only I made a cat, which my daughter promptly claimed as her own. She is very cute and smart-looking in her red and black sweater vest and matching red skirt. I felted the bejeezus out of the poor cat, too. I soaked her in super hot coffee-tinged water and threw her into the dryer with a weeks worth of whites. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

Probably a year or more ago one of my customers -- let's call her Sharon Z. No, S. Zecchinelli -- gave me the ultimate DIY kit of needle felting goodness. She'd tried it and decided it wasn't for her. I'm always happy to welcome new crafts and crafting supplies into my harem. This needle felting stuff has been weighing heavy on my I've Been Meaning To Do That list. Needle felting the face onto the cuddly stuffed crochet animal would be something like killing a bird in the hand with two bushes. 

There was something about making this very cute, preppily dressed cat that made me want to make something a little more, er, edgy. As edgy as a crocheted woolen stuffed animal could be. Let me introduce you to Punk Bunny. With her dainty features and soft pink nose and lips, she has a lot of cuteness to overcome, which is why she rebelled with a carrot tattoo on one arm and a heart on the other.

You can tell she's smart, has a dry since of humor, and switched from saying "tinkle" to "piss" around eighth grade. Punk Bunny runs around with a crew of fellow punks from good homes. Like Punk Elephant. He is, as you can obviously tell from the plaid shorts, British. Although his trunk is covering it in this picture, that is a peanut on his shirt. My blogmate Alison needle felted the nut on his shirt. You can tell by his rotund belly that there is not many a teatime that he misses. He's very hardcore right up until his Gram picks him up to drive him home from school. 

They've been childhood chums with Punk Sheep since nursery school. He's dainty and has a secret crush on Punk Bunny. He's self-conscious about his skinny legs. 

Alison suggested we put "Sheep are the shit." on his shirt. I didn't want to have to explain that one to my recent reader daughter. His hair is real sheep's fur. I needle felted it into his head, and his face and hands are undyed yarn. He has a really sweet face. 

Punk Pig really has the most to overcome. First of all he's pink. Being cool increases in difficulty exponentially the pinker you are. It's a fact. Punk Pig has got to constantly watch his weight because being a fat pig is just too cliche. Only, counting calories is also not very cool.

The Punk Animals like to hang out, listen to music, smoke ciggies, and pretend to be cooler and tougher than they are. 

As you can probably tell by all the crocheting and blogging and hanging out with small children and baking of cookies, I am neither punk nor edgy. That's why the edgiest thing I could think of was adding "z" to the end of a word rather than the standard "s." Don't let my hardcoreness startle you.

Right now these guys are for sale at Artist in Residence gallery in Enosburg Falls. I have to tell you, though, we miss them hanging out around our house. Sometimes when the kids and I were watching movies, we would set these Punk Stuffies on the couch to watch with us. My daughter said if they don't sell in three weeks then I get to bring them home to reside with us.

 

Here we are at the gallery crappily explaining how to needle felt.

Making all these just made me come up with more ideas for more crochet felted animals that I want to make. I'd like to get to work right away on them, but I have a feeling it will just get added to my I've Been Meaning To Do That list until after Chrimbo.

December 4 Reception at Artist in Residence

Kelee: Cow Skeletons and Aliens in The Cave of Legends; Or Screen Printing T-Shirts

We've been meaning to make some The Flying Disc t-shirts ever since we opened our Record and Coffee Shop back in 2004. After a six year blur of latte making, record alphabetizing, guitar string ordering, baby birthing, relocating, and coffee drinking, we ordered a DIY t-shirt printing kit all of a sudden a month or so ago. We ordered it from this company online (screenprintingsupplies.com) because it's owned by a person, because the kits come with everything you need to get started (except shirts) and because the kits come with instructional dvds.
The process started here at the computer where Ben spent many creative hours getting the design exactly right. Mostly by emailing my old friend Greg from EIO Design and getting him to do the design work. I'd highly recommend Greg's design skills except I don't want him to be too busy doing your design work that he doesn't have time to work on our next idea.

Ben emails.

Then Ben set up the sweatshop/workshop in the laundry corner/garment corner of the basement/The Cave of Legends Recording Studio and Screenprinting Workshop.

He poured out some pink gunk from one container into another.

He smeared it onto a screen.
Ben centered the shirt on the centered-shirt holder.
With a swiftness unable to be captured with even the best cameras available,
he printed the shirts.
Curing.
Cleaning the screen.
First designs made!
The Flying Disc family cutes up the shirts.
For sale!
Hanging next to records.
Second Design.
Cow bones.

Alison: For my 16 year old (!) daughter

I made this today from photos I took while visiting my daughter in Germany. She turned 16 recently and is just an amazing person. I have been so fulfilled sharing a life with her. Here you go, Zee!

Showtime

Hats.

Dolls.

Crafty shows.

We will be at the Enosburg Opera House November 12, from 9 a.m. - 2 p.m.

Come visit us!

Kelee: Fall in Vermont Necklaces

Fall in Vermont is just as amazing as it's reputation suggest. Here, it is it's own season all unto itself. With it's own food and own traditions. The nights are chilly. The sky is blue, unless it's gray. The leaves are colored. Really colored.

I can think of two different trees that noticeably changed colors in the Mississippi Delta (not counting those weird Bradford Pears everyone went all hot and heavy over a few years back). Not two types of trees, but two specific trees. One was on the side of a cotton field on Old Carter Road between Yazoo City and Silver City. The other was in front of a white house in Isola. I'd always heard of people traveling to Vermont to leaf peep, but I never understood the concept.

“Yall are going to fly all the way to Vermont to look at colored leaves? But you can just drive down Old Carter Road and see that pretty yellow tree. Then imagine there are a bunch of them. Besides, it's cotton season.”

 A cotton field is lovely all to itself – white as far as the eyes can see in all directions and a fine, snowy dust of DDT falling from cropdusters flying overhead. Combines littering the side of the roads with fallen white cotton like flower girls preparing the aisle for a bride. And for what the leaves lack in color, the fall Delta sunsets make up for. I remember one year where the sunsets were almost overwhelming in their beauty. My father explained to me that is was because the light was reflecting off of the ash from a volcano that had erupted in South America and probably killed or maimed lots of people. Ah, the romanticized notions of a young schoolgirl. Crushed.

But fall in Vermont is a celebration of color. An explosion. Like Mother Nature ate a big box of colors and then threw up over everything. I hadn't really thought of it, but I'd sort of assumed that when leaves changed colors, they did it all at once. On a per leaf basis, however, they change over time. 

So one leaf can be half summer green and half brilliant red. Often in a tie-dyed pattern that could put the hippiest hippies to shame. Seriously, this is why the hippies hate fall. What?!

The intensity of the color was also surprising. The red is not a hint of red or tinted red.

It's Transvestite Lipstick Red. 

The yellow is, um, the color of something that is like totally yellow.

And the green is somehow different from spring green but every bit as bold. 

It all seems more fleeting than spring, Ponyboy. These leaves so vibrant and red one day, are crunchy and brown the next. I guess we could get all metaphory about spring and fall and birth and death, but my husband has been forcing me to watch the original Star Trek series and my metaphoring abilities have become as squinting as Captain Kirk's eyes.

When I walk my kids to school or on the various other exciting outings (bank, post office, and library) around the Village of Enosburg Falls, I am blown away by the colors. Every day it's different and lovely in its own way. Otto and I took a walk in the rain with the camera to gather these pictures, except the one of Kirk, of course. That's Otto by the fountain with his Perry the Platypus umbrella.

And, finally, nature inspired me to make art!

New polymer necklaces inspired by the colors of fall in Vermont.

Nature is so bold this time of year. It's only natural to want to celebrate it by adorning your neck with the same boldness.

Isn't it?

Yes, totally natural.

Now, go image search "fall in Vermont" and be amazed at the big picture of the gorgeosity of the big picture. Or better yet, come see it for yourself.