The persistence of things…

I am always surprised by what comes up as my most frequently viewed posts on this site every week. You would think that over time, older posts would drop off out of memory and newer posts would be trendy and often looked at. Not so. Oh, sure, newer posts get a ton of views for a day or three, but there are several posts that are just so darn persistent. They show up in my list of top posts for the past week every… single… week.

It’s true.

There are five posts that I’ve written that have gained this incredible stickiness — without my doing anything to promote them. I find it curious that these five topics get searched for (and found) so often. I find it curiouser that, despite several of them being 3+ years old, not a week goes by without at least 3 of these 5 posts showing up in my list of top posts for the week. This week, all 5 of them are there.

What is it about these 5 posts that has made them so persistently popular over the past 3 years? I have no idea. But maybe you do — so without further ado, here are the posts that keep getting page views week after week:

1. Polymer science with jelly balls.

2. From Coca-Cola to terrarium.

3. Crossbows and pencils and electrical tape, oh my!

4. The Tea Party Birthday Party

5. How to build a better volcano.

The one thing they have in common is that they are all crazy things I have done with my kids at some point. Some are based in science, others based in art, and all were just plain fun — if you find doing slightly crazy and possibly dangerous things with kids to be fun.

We like slightly crazy and possibly dangerous things to do with kids around here. (You might have noticed.)

And yet, this year, we have hardly done anything that truly qualifies as slightly crazy and possibly dangerous. Not since November 2012, at any rate. Not really.

I blame it on school.

This has been, bar none, the most time-consuming school year ever. Between homework and band practices and more homework and extracurriculars and yet more homework, we just haven’t been up to our usual shenanigans. We’ve done a few things, like the Radical Structures workshop at the library a few weeks ago (which I totally didn’t tell you about, nor did I post pictures) and the annual front yard snow fort that grew far taller this year than it ever has in years past (and I also didn’t tell you about, nor did I post pictures, for I actually forgot to take pictures), and K has become completely enamoured with learning computer programming thanks to Virtual Ventures at Carleton University (yet another thing I haven’t told you about. Apparently I’ve been rather secretive about the coolest things we’ve been doing these last few months).

But despite all that busy-ness, we haven’t done anything crazy.

Because really, if you think about it, the one thing that those 5 posts have in common is that they are slightly crazy. Maybe even more than slightly crazy.

And seeing them up there week after week reminds me that one of the things I love most about being a parent is getting to do slightly crazy and possibly a little bit dangerous things with my kids.

Like microwaving marshmallows.

And building penny shooting machines.

My goal for this upcoming weekend — and yours too, should you choose to accept the challenge — is to find something slightly crazy and rather silly and possibly even a little bit dangerous to do with my kids. Preferably something that makes us laugh until we are breathless with it, our souls shining with joy inside and out.

I call it The Silliness Project. Who wants to join me?

 

 

Friday’s Little Thing – Orchid

:: Friday’s Little Thing is a moment in time I wish to remember. Please feel free to join me in sharing your own moments and link to them in the comments. I would love to see them! ::

Paper dolls

Our Miss B is obsessed with paper dolls lately. Last year, I bought her the book My Book of Little House Paper Dolls after seeing how much she loved reading about the life of Laura Ingalls and her family.

At the time, she cut them all out as carefully as could be and played for a few weeks, but soon they were tucked away for another day and then eventually forgotten.

Until now.

In the last few weeks, the paper dolls have made a reappearance. Not only are they back, they’ve acquired some friends. Many, many friends. Everywhere I turn, I keep finding little pieces of paper clothing, paper hats, paper shoes, and even paper pets.

And where I don’t find the dolls and their accessories, I keep finding little strips and squares and triangles of cut-out paper scraps that, if assembled correctly, form the perfect outline of a little paper person or a paper dress or a pair of paper pants.

Our girl B, you see, has learned the magical power of Google.

Did you know that if you do an image search for “paper dolls,” you will find hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images of paper dolls that you can print out?

Some are sweet. Some are definitely old-fashioned. Some look like Holly Hobby. Some are from old store catalogues. Some feature the characters from Downton Abbey — and since Miss B is just as addicted to that show as I am, she has printed out several copies of those ones.

Others are more modern, if by modern you mean featuring unnaturally thin people with skin tight and too revealing clothing options.

And Rihanna – whose paper doll page claims it will be “the best dress-up fun you’ll have with a pair of scissors.” And Disney princesses. And a scantily-clad Legolas from Lord of the Rings, too.

I might need to print myself a scantily clad Legolas.

Ahem.

There are zombie paper dolls, too. I found several flavours of paper zombie dolls, all highly entertaining but seriously disturbing.

I would never have thought to look for paper dolls online, though really it only makes sense since you can find almost anything online, after all. My first instinct is to look for a book.

When I was a young girl, I received as a gift a book of paper dolls one year that I still remember vividly. They weren’t just flat little dolls with flat little clothes — there was a picnic table whose legs bent up to form a 3D table complete with benches, and a baby carriage, and — my favourite thing of all out of the set — a 3D water fountain with two sweet little birds taking a bath.

You can’t imagine my surprise when I googled “paper dolls” and discovered that this long out-of-print book has been digitized and is available as a free download.

And yes, it has now been downloaded and is printing onto cardstock even as we speak and will be tucked inside a certain young lady’s Easter basket this weekend, guaranteeing a house strewn with even more paper scraps about 10 seconds later.

I hope your Easter weekend is as full of joy as ours is sure to be!

A finished object or three…

Friday’s little thing last week (which should probably more properly be called Thursday‘s little thing) was a rather odd lump of something-or-other that, if truth be known, I am extremely pleased with. It turned out just right, you see, and relatively on time.

Friday, I acquired a new nephew. At 6 pounds and a bit, he is a tiny wee boy. Lucky me got to meet him within just a few hours of his birth and oh! what a treat it is to hold a truly new little man in your arms!

Of course he needed a little Auntie love in the form of a handmade blanket, so he got this:

It is a simple chevron baby blanket, and the pattern couldn’t be simpler — so I have included it below.  That said, I am not a pattern designer, so you may have to do a little “interpreting” to figure this out. Please do let me know if there is something that is awkwardly phrased and I will try to explain it better.

It was so much fun to see my new nephew wrapped in his very first made-with-love blanket within just a couple of hours of his birth. But what, you may be asking yourself, does that have to do with Friday’s (Thurday’s) odd little round lump of a mystery object?

Well, my nephew has a sister. An older sister who at 5 years old is bouncy and happy and full of energy and oh-so-eager to have a new sibling. Too eager, perhaps, in the over-enthusiastic-and-not-always-gentle way that bouncy little girls can be when they really, really want to help Mama change a diaper or rock a baby or sing a lullaby at the top of their lungs. So while her brother gets a blanket, she gets this:

It’s a Waldorf-style doll, made of natural cotton “skin” and stuffed largely with wool roving. The wool interior means that he has a heavy head, just like a real baby, and as you carry him around, he will soak up some of your body heat and radiate it right back at you, making him warm to the touch.

His pants are a scrap of linen I had lying around, and his shirt is cotton, and his hair is a crocheted cap of curly merino wool.

And best of all, he comes with a small diaper for those essential diaper changes, and a miniature chevron colour block blanket of his own.

So without further ado, here is the pattern for an almost-matching pair of chevron colour block blankets, one for baby, and one for a doll. Happy crocheting!

Chevron Colour Block Baby Blanket

Materials:
1 ball each of 4 colours you like in a soft worsted-weight yarn.

CAST ON: With first colour and a 4.5 mm crochet hook, make a chain of 113 stitches.

DECREASE STITCH: Yarn over and insert your hook in the next stitch. Pull up a loop. Yarn over and go through the first 2 loops on the hook. Yarn over and insert your hook into the next stitch. Pull up a loop. Yarn over and go through the first 2 loops on the hook. Yarn over and go through the remaining loops on the hook. The end result is a triangular-looking decrease stitch.

ROW 1: DC in the 4th chain from hook, counts as first 2 DC stitches. DC in the next 8 chains. *Chain 3. DC in next 10 chains. Skip next 3 chains and DC in next 10 chains. Repeat from * to end of row. Chain 3 and turn; this counts as first DC. The chain should be starting to take on the chevron shaping with the points of the triangle rising at each chain 3 and the valleys happening where you skipped 3 chains.

ROW 2: DC in each DC until you reach the chain 3 space. DC in the chain 3 space, chain 3, DC in the chain 3 space. DC in the next 8 DCs. Decrease the next 2 stitches together (1 decrease). Decrease the next two stitches after that together (1 decrease). The decreases should line up nicely with the skipped chain stitches from row 1, helping shape the fabric into a V. DC in the next 8 stitches, which should bring you to the next chain 3 space. Repeat like this across the blanket until 3 stitches before the end. Begin a decrease in the 3rd stitch from the end, but instead of decreasing into the next stitch, decrease into the space between the last 2 stitches, effectively decreasing 3 stitches into 1 stitch.

Repeat row 2 until you do not have enough yarn of the first colour to finish a new row. Change to the next colour and continue working rows in the row 2 pattern. Repeat with each colour until you have a finished blanket with 4 blocks of colour. Bind off securely and sew in all your tails.

Chevron Colour Block Doll Blanket

Materials:

About 1/4 of a ball each of soft worsted-weight yarn in 4 colours you like.

CAST ON: With the first colour and a 4.5 mm crochet hook, make a chain in a multiple of 16 stitches to get the width of blanket suitable for the doll you are making it for. For the doll blanket above, I did 4 repeats, so 64 stitches.

ROW 1: DC in the 4th chain from the hook; counts as the first 2 DC stitches. DC in the next 3 chains. *Chain 3. DC in next 10 chains. Skip next 3 chains and DC in next 10 chains. Repeat from * to end of row. Chain 3 and turn; this counts as first DC. The chain should be starting to take on the chevron shaping with the points of the triangle rising at each chain 3 and the valleys happening where you skipped 3 chains.

ROW 2: DC in each DC until you reach the chain 3 space. DC in the chain 3 space, chain 3, DC in the chain 3 space. DC in the next 3 DCs. Decrease the next 2 stitches together (1 decrease). Decrease the next two stitches after that together (1 decrease). The decreases should line up nicely with the skipped chain stitches from row 1, helping shape the fabric into a V. DC in the next 3 stitches, which should bring you to the next chain 3 space. Repeat like this across the blanket until 3 stitches before the end. Begin a decrease in the 3rd stitch from the end, but instead of decreasing into the next stitch, decrease into the space between the last 2 stitches, effectively decreasing 3 stitches into 1 stitch.

(Basically this is the identical pattern as above but worked over sets of 5 stitches instead of 10 stitches.)

Repeat row 2 four more times for a total of 5 rows of the first colour. Change to the next colour and continue working rows in the row 2 pattern. Repeat with each colour until you have a finished blanket with 4 blocks of colour. Bind off securely and sew in all your tails.

Friday’s Little Thing

:: Friday’s Little Thing is a moment in time I wish to remember. Please feel free to join me in sharing your own moments and link to them in the comments. I would love to see them! ::

(Apparently I can’t read the date on the calendar and set the auto-publish for the 21st instead of the 22nd. Well we can just pretend you didn’t see this until tomorrow, can’t we?)

Pattern Review: The Lola Bea Diaper Bag

I am not a seamstress. I can sew, don’t get me wrong, but I would never presume to call myself an expert. Nor, in truth, would I consider myself terribly intermediate, either. I do best with straight lines and simple patterns and easy to follow instructions, and I am far too impatient to iron every seam between steps or pick out stitches that aren’t quite right.

Except, it turns out, when I decide that no matter what, this project just has to be absolutely perfectly perfect in every way.

Enter the Lola Bea Diaper Bag pattern.

I came across this pattern while looking for a simple tote bag pattern to make swimming bags for the kids for their swimming lessons. The pictures caught my eye and my heart and I thought to myself Oh, I wish I could sew things like that!

I clicked the “Favourite” button on Etsy and tried to put it out of my mind. I am not a very talented seamstress, you see. I do much, much better with hand sewing, and this bag definitely wouldn’t be well suited for hand sewing.

A month later, the bag was still floating around in the back of my mind and, with M so pregnant she looked ready to pop any day, I took the plunge and bought the pattern in hopes of actually being able to make her a diaper bag that wouldn’t embarrass her when out in public.  I figured that if it should prove too complicated, I would simply chalk it up as yet another failed sewing attempt and that would be that, with M none the wiser. Handmade with love was what I was hoping for. If it came out looking more homemade, I could always just keep it for myself. And if it came out (as I rather expected it would) looking like something a 2 year old cobbled together with the help of some string, spit, and glue… well, I could always cut it apart again and use the scraps for crazy quilting.

When I opened up the pattern and started to read, I started to panic.

The bag is fully lined with elasticized pockets, which I knew I could do as I have tried my hand at that before. But it also has an interior zippered pocket that is fully lined and perfectly centered in the middle, and a magnetic snap closure.

I was in over my head, and I knew it.

But then I realized something amazing: The Lola Bea Diaper Bag Pattern is a zillion pages long and the designer, Abby of Sew Much Ado, included detailed photographs of every single step. Every one.

Every step of this bag is explained in easy to understand language with accompanying photographs.

So clearly explained, in fact, that this was the result:

It is slightly floppier than it should be since I couldn’t find heavyweight interfacing and had to settle for a medium weight, but I am so thrilled with how it turned out! There are exterior elasticized pockets:

A lovely ruffle down the front with a magnetic snap closure (a first for me — I had never tried installing one before).

A messenger-bag style flap that I lined to match the ruffle and has the other half of the magnetic snap sandwiched between the layers:

The inside is fabulous, with lots of elastic pockets around the edges and a zippered pocket perfectly placed in the centre of the lining:

Do you see that zippered pocket? Do you see it? I am so pleased with that pocket. I have never, ever, not since Grandma R first showed me how to put in a zipper when I was about B’s age, put in a zipper. I have no idea why, but zippers have always scared me — nevermind fully lined zippered pouches that have to fit perfectly across the centre of the bag.

I ran out of the cute dog print fabric as it was a single fat quarter in the midst of a big bin, so I ad-libbed on the pattern a bit (don’t tell me you are surprised that I broke the rules again) and made the elastic pockets out of half print fabric and half lining fabric, and then did the same with the striped fabric on the other side so that it matched. Sort of. Since stripes and dogs don’t exactly match, but you know what I mean.

I also added a handy-dandy hook loop to hold your keys. Ever since getting a purse that had such a hook, I have wished for such a hook in every purse or bag or backpack I have ever had. So I gave her one. And I gave her a loop on the other side for attaching a pacifier or a little toy.

All in all, I am thrilled with how the bag turned out. I couldn’t have done it without such a wonderfully clearly written and thoroughly photographed pattern that really is more tutorial than simple pattern and taught me a lot about bag construction.

My final verdict: This is a 10-star pattern in a 5-star world and I would happily by more patterns from Abby again.

Spring babies

Spring is for babies in the animal world. Cows calve, foxes have their kittens, bears have their cubs, and birds… birds lay eggs. Many, many eggs.

Which this mean Mama tosses straight into the compost these days, having deemed that we have quite enough birds in the house already, thank you very much.

Strangely enough, spring is also for human babies this year, and my hands have been oh-so-busy making.

Mid-February, the sweetest little boy made his way into the world to a pair of parents who couldn’t be more thrilled. It’s been a long wait and, being some of our very bestest friends (and an honorary Auntie and Uncle at that), I went kind of crazy in the making department.

I can’t help it. Auntie M asked for handmade goodies — owls, in a hoop, for the nursery wall. I was more than happy to oblige her.

Not only that, she showed up at my door one afternoon with armfuls of yarn and instructed me to make her things. And I happily obliged her with a baby blanket and a bib, with a pair of blue baby socks/booties on the way. There is still more yarn left (she really did drop of armfuls) so I am sure there will be more hand knit goodies headed her way shortly.

And, tired of knitting and hand embroidery, I sat down in front of the sewing machine with a fabulous pattern I found on Etsy and I made her a diaper bag with the cutest little puppy dog print fabric accents. I’ll show you the results and give you my review of the pattern next post.

 

Friday’s Little Thing

Green growing things

Not that long ago, I started to fill the greenhouses with flats of soil and seeds sprinkled with water and topped with plastic greenhouse lids. It is an exercise in optimism, starting a garden from seed. You start with the most humble of ingredients, keep them warm, trust them to do their thing.

And then, in the blink of an eye, they do.

It never fails to fill me with awe and wonder and joy when I see little green growing things poking up out of the dirt.

  

The optics of books

When you are studying the properties of light, mirrors can be a lot of fun. Especially if you put them in a periscope and use it to spy around corners. Or watch the birds at the feeder.

Or spy on your brother without him knowing.

Spying is, after all, the very best thing to do with a periscope.

Other than decorating it.

It does have a rather lot of decorations. Monochrome decorations, I’ve been informed, since she felt like building a minimalist periscope and colour just wouldn’t make it truly minimalist.

(Where does she come up with these things?)

She put an awful lot of love into those decorations. Book love. See?

I Am Number Four and The Power of Six by Pittacus Lore are her current favourites, and she is desperately hoping The Rise of Nine will find its way onto our bookshelves soon.

We had borrowed the first in the Lemony Snicket series from a friend months and months and months ago, but the kids managed rather successfully to ignore it the entire time. Then, just as it was to go back, K announced that he had been reading it in French at school and it was really, really good. So B read it, and loved it, and we instantly had to find the next 2 books at the library and then watch the movie.

I had thought the others in the series would be close behind, but they weren’t. Curious to find it here on the periscope of favourite books. Maybe she doesn’t realize there are 13 books in the series, not 3.  Well, she does have a birthday coming up. Perhaps between her aunties and uncle and grandparents, she will acquire the entire series, or at least a start on it.

If not, there is always the library and a Mama who can exert a bit of gentle influence and strew the next few books around.

In the meantime, I keep finding a silly grin on my face every time I spy that periscope and all the book love it contains.