Big Boy Bed

Any guesses who that boy is in the big boy bed???

 It's Nikkels!!!!!!!!!!

I had been digging my heels in a bit making the transfer from crib to bed.  Part of it had to do with not wanting to admit my little guy is not so much of a baby anymore.  But mostly, I wasn't sure how the transition would go....would he be out of his bed a million times in one night?  Would he be up at 5:30 in the morning staring at me from the side of my bed asking for breakfast?  Things are good in a crib...you put 'em in there and there they stay! Life is easy like that.  But, it was time.  PLUS, I had all these fun new things for his new room!  For starters, we painted the room blue as it had been RED....like crayon red.  The previous owners used this room for their office and it worked for that, not a little boys room.  So, I painted it blue and made the construction theme duvet cover and curtains.  The stuffed fabric, Smile, above his bed was in my room when I was a little girl. 

I made the duvet cover with the trucks for the top, and the underside is a soft flannel.  I put snaps in at the bottom of the duvet for easy washing and also attached snaps to the inside corners of the duvet and also to the comforter itself so it doesn't shift.  Snaps seem pretty easy to match up so I'm pretty pleased with how that turned out.

 The curtains are just sewn with finished edges and the hardware was from IKEA.  Super easy.

And now he gets to have big brother read him stories at night!

 And how is the transition???  Going well!  The first night he didn't make a peep.  Nap the 2nd day was no big thing as he was so tired.  But the 2nd night he was out a bunch of times....he'd peek out his door, then tiptoe to Dot's room.  I'd walk him back and he'd get back in bed.  Finally when he peeked out his door and saw me standing right there, that seemed to do the trick.  Each nap is getting easier and bedtime went really well tonight.  He seems happy enough as long as he can have some books in bed to read to Roger, his teddy bear.  And we haven't had any early birds....yet!

Farmor's Weaving

My Farmor in Sweden was an extremely talented textile artist.  She goes beyond the title of "weaver" when you see some of the things she created.  I sure wish I could ask her how she did things or to see her in action weaving.  One piece in particular is this tapestry that hangs in my cousins house.  My Dad sent me these pix and there has been much discussion, examination, and head scratching trying to figure out how exactly she made this.

You see, the yarn that runs up and down are the warp strings, they are the ones that go thru the loom.  The yarn running left to right are the weft that you shuttle back and forth on the warp.  So, there are these little "loops" that stick out from the main fabric.  The big question is how did she get them to stick out without ruining the tension of the rest of the warp strings?

It's clear to me that she had a separate bobbin or shuttle for each "bump" section and she wove more passes of weft on each of these "bumps"....but how did she release more warp strings without disrupting the rest of the main fabric?

Well, here's my take on it.  I was done with my sampler project and figured I would mess around with it before I cut it off the loom.  I believe that she hooked up those "bump" sections of warp string and wound them on the back beam of a 2nd loom...like she put two looms back to back and dressed one loom the normal way, but then took those sections of warp and used the wrapping back beam on a 2nd loom.  Since I don't have a 2nd loom, I had to weigh down those "bump" rows to create surface tension that matched the rest of the warp....so I very poorly wrapped my 3 "bump" sections around a 5 pound weight and hung it down the back of the loom.  I also didn't count for equal spacing...just kind of divided the warp strings into somewhat equal parts.

I made a bunch of bobbins and worked across to create the "pockets".  The weight didn't provide the best tension so it was really tricky to keep the warp where I need it to be and I encountered some "waving" of the fabric as it pulled differently so I place a wooden stick in the loops to help give it some structure when I started with main fabric weave after the "bumps".

 So, here are my pocket "bumps"...while very rough and obviously poorly constructed, I think I figured out how she did that tapestry and that's pretty much all I wanted to do was to figure it out.  And as you can see...once I did that....that was enough for me!  Haha!  It blows my mind that she made the huge tapestry. It is a treasure for sure!  

Loom Warping 101

I took a weekend weaving class a few weeks ago and since then I've been busy getting mine up and running.  The first thing I needed, that I didn't have, was a warping board.  I looked at some online but was turned away at the $150+ price tag for a few pieces of wood and some dowels.  So, of to Home Depot I went to get the supplies to make my own.  That's right...I spent a weekend with power tools!

I got 2 - 6' boards of oak to make the frame and 4-3' dowels for the pegs.  A little measuring, some sawing, some drilling, sanding, pounding and there you have it!  A warping board for around $30!

Worked pretty well!

The warping board keeps the warp organized, prepped for the loom and measures each strand the perfect length.  Once it's all done, you take it off and loop it in a chain like this until you are ready to put it on the loom.

Love that he is so interested in the loom and ready to help.

 Attaching the warp.

 These are the heddles.  They hold each warp strand through an eye in the middle of the heddle.  Each heddle is attached to one of the shafts that raise up and down which ultimately helps make the pattern.  This takes a long time to get just right.

 Once they are all through, you get to attach the ends and tighten up the warp....

 and finally get weaving!

 So fun! This is just a sampler to get a feel for different patterns and designs that can be done.  It's been fun, but now ready to finish sampler and move on to my first real project.....a scarf!  

Weaving Weekend

I had an awesome weekend at my floor loom weaving class.  19 hours of crash course weaving!  I learned how to prep the warp on the warping board (seen below) and attach to the loom.  I had never done this step before and it's a little crazy, but totally fun.

Once you get the loom dressed, you get to start the weaving...the really fun part!  Since this was a class, they gave us two patterns to choose from, neither of which I was in love with, but hey, we're learning the process here and that was the most important thing.

The warp strings are the purple and gold, with the weft for weaving a burgundy/wine color.

The next three pix don't show the colors right...the top ones are more accurate, but I'm taking these at night in crappy lighting because I'm too excited to wait til morning.  :-)

 I haven't decided what to do with the fringe yet.

 And see that pretty wood bowl and candle holders?  Made by my Dad!  Looks good, huh?

 So, now I'm ready to tackle a project on my own loom.  Will keep you posted!

Grandpa's Paintings

I have a few of my Grandpa's paintings and they are beyond special to me.  I also have his easel which brings me more joy than you could possibly imagine.  I was only four years old when my Grandpa passed away so I never really got to know him.  I remember him from our visits to Minnesota in the summer and from their trip out to Virginia to visit us.  I remember him being so funny -- singing Christmas songs and mixing up all the words - I remember laughing and laughing.  He liked to take have his apples peeled, so of course I wanted the same thing.  I remember Grandma scolding him for drinking the milk right out of his cereal bowl instead of using a spoon...

and him giving us a wink and smile as he did it some more when she walked away.  

He loved to paint.  He taught himself and painted what he knew...the outdoors, nature.  

There is something special about a piece painted by someone you know and love....each brush stroke captures a feeling, a thought, a moment in time.  And what's really cool, is talking about his paintings and looking at them with my daughter...she inherited his talent and I think he would be proud.

Anyway, some of the paintings are in frames that are a little dated...

like this one painted in 1971.  

Framing art is ridiculously expensive and so, for now, I decided to try to revamp this frame using a little paint. I'm being thrifty and creative....I'm sure Grandpa wouldn't mind.

So the frame went from this....

To this....

I wanted to use the blues and grays in the background and the rocks for the frame.  I decided to spray paint it using Rustoleum's Slate Blue.  Then I used some metallic gold to fill in the details.  I simply used a paper towel to rub the gold on, then another to wipe it away.  The gold gives it a little warmth with the oranges and golds in the foreground.  I'm really happy with it...and it looks smashing in my art room! 

Then there is this one, Winter Farm - 1978.  This painting was featured in a Duluth calendar in 1978.  My Great Auntie, his sister, was also featured in that same calendar.  Cool, huh?  I love the blues in this one.  The frame is also dated, but I like it better than the previous one.  It seems to fit the painting...but an update could work, just not sure how...any ideas?  

  

Art Room

I am ridiculously excited to share with you my new art room.  We have a colonial style house with the typical formal dining room and formal living room on the sides of the entry.  The dining room is fine, but that formal living room is just silly.  Since we moved in last August all that room has had was a hutch, an old couch (that was supposed to go the basement but it wouldn't fit down the stairs) and a sofa table (which now will act as a sewing table).  It was empty, silly looking and pretty much a romper room for the kids.  We have talked about tearing out the back wall to join the living room on the back of the house...but that would be quite a costly project.  So, for the last few months we have just left it alone and figured time would tell us what to do with it  - putting pretty furniture in it to make a room look nice, but never used, was never an option for us. We just don't live that way.  Anyway, one day I was sitting in there and thinking to myself that I wish my art area downstairs in the basement was up here...since this is where the majority of my life is lived with the kids - hey!  I could turn this room into my art room...and that's how the room became this......

This is what you see from the front entry.

I knew that for this room to work and not look like a pit, I needed a focal point, something useful, practical - but also nice to look at.  I knew I wanted a butcher block top which I found at IKEA in their kitchen dept - it's larger than their desk sizes.  For the base I tried all kinds of bookshelves, cube type shelving and was so discouraged by cheap furniture.  So I then started the Craigslist hunt looking for low dressers (but at least 36" high as I wanted it to be counter height), bookshelves, buffets, sideboards, etc.  And that's when I came across the store Nadeau in Uptown.  They have all kinds of things I just mentioned - painted, refurbished, etc and I fell in love with this little sideboard.  The cabinets can be opened from each side the drawers pull all the way through.  We drilled the butcher block on from underneath and now a stool can be brought up on each side. I think it will be a fun place to store fabric.

Don't mind the paintings on the floor...they need to be hung up yet and the Mondrian print needs to come down...just haven't gotten to that yet.  I also picked up that Poang Chair from Ikea...I wanted a little chair in there for reading, knitting...but nothing too big...Suzy, our 16 1/2 year old cat seems to like it.  I like the fun colors in the fabric print.  My sewing machine is on the sofa table...I need to find a chair.

 This is the same Expedit shelving that I had downstairs, but you may notice I changed the background.  People....never underestimate the power of a fabric shower curtain.  They are cheap, well made and they fit PERFECTLY behind the largest Expedit system.  Gives a nice pop of color instead of just the boring background wall.  Fabric shower curtains often have the latest colors and prints and since they are somewhat  water and mildew resistant, the fabric can also be used for covered porch/patio furniture.  They wash up really well..and again, you get a ton of fabric for a pretty good price.

 And check this out...this is a floor loom for weaving!  I have a floor loom!  (Thank you Cindy!) Seriously, my creative soul is just oozing with excitement to figure this thing out.  I know the basics of weaving and took a couple classes back in college and absolutely loved it!  However, I never learned how to dress a loom so there will be a good deal of learning going on before I whip out anything on this thing...so don't hold your breath.  But, I promise to share my progress.

 I also organized all my knitting patterns in plastic sleeves and put in 3 ring binders...they were a 100% disaster and I've been wanting to do that for a long time.  Then I sorted all my extra yarns by yarn type and put in those in the brown baskets on the Expedit shelf.  Kept my "pretty" yarns out in the open for inspiration...plus they just look nice.  ;-) There is one more row of storage yet under the brown baskets...there I keep some photo albums, art books and craft paper for Dot.  She likes to sit at the easel and draw while I'm working in here.

And if you look again at the first picture, we put in track lighting above the art table.  This room didn't have a hard wired ceiling light, so the nice people at Home Depot clued me in to this...the track lighting has a plug in that attaches to the end, runs across ceiling and down the wall to plug in the wall outlet. It's mostly hidden behind the Expedit. It's pretty slick and you don't really notice the cord against the white ceiling.  The plug it goes to is actually wired to the switch on the wall. Cool! Having it hard wired would of course be much better and not deal with the cord...but that would involve hiring an electrician...and this seemed like the most cost effective choice for now.

So, there you have it.  My art room will continue to go through more changes, but for now, I feel like it's finished enough to start getting creative.  Off to do some research on floor looms!

Christmas Endings

Remember those silly candy canes growing in sugar?  They finally were ripe and ready to eat!  Dot's reaction was AWESOME when she saw them! So fun!

Then we found Brownie with some of the other North Pole residents...looks like some kind of meeting...

Yup, a little discussion with Santa and other elves to see who is on the Naughty/Nice List.  Apparently, Susie the cat is the only one on the Naughty list!  Haha!  We think they were just joking around!  Thanks for another fun year, Brownie!

 We went the creative route for a few gifts this year.  The Grandparents got bookmarks of the kids.

Kind of looks like the kids were hanging on the page to save the spot.  I made a set for myself too.

 I made a few pouches.  This is a Doggie-Doo-Doo Bag Holder.  No, you don't put the poo in the bag, you put the plastic collection bags in here, zip it shut and clip to the handle loop of the leash.  No more digging around in pockets for plastic baggies.  This one has a little loop on the inside too for securing a house key/car key as well.

 And some little tote bags.  These were fun to make.  I'm still learning, but having lots of fun.