Crazy as a LOOM!! and a 30 days update

IT’S Keep-It-Simple-SEPTEMBER!!!  Day 2–  YAY!!!!

We have had a great big weekend of craftiness!

The 30 days of nothing = something is going to be a challenge for sure.  Mostly like this though:  I paid more to debt than I usually do in an act of unreasonable faith.   I took care of stuff at the outset that usually gets left in the category of  ” If we have money left later in the month, I’ll take care of that.”  You know we DON’T ever… it runs right into other cracks.   So we have a budget for the rest of the month that would make a great  challenge/subject for a t.v. reality show.  I am optimistic nonetheless.  What else is there ?   “Happy” wins right now!

One of the completely awesome things we did this weekend was to build simple frame looms for team-sleepover.  I found the idea here. The idea was to use scraps and make rag rugs.

It is easy as can be– even making them for a whole team!  It takes about a half hour and around 8 bucks to make one. WAY less if you happen to have scraps of wood, screws and twine hanging about.  The frame in the tutorial is 4 feet tall, but you can apply the idea to any size frame.  You can use old picture frames– and your imagination to come up with other ideas of “found frames” that make it even easier!

So, you  get it built and then warp it.  We used cotton/polyester household twine– but you can use any strong fiber.  Upholstery cord is apparently very strong and a good choice.  I took a look at the rag rugs I was sitting on at the time and noticed that their warp threads were the thinnest looking cotton.  They have been washed, used and abused for a couple of years now–I decided then and there that twine was fine.

For the youngest ( Rosie) we color coded the strings so that she knew to either lift the blacks or yellows.  It made it much easier for her. She had limited patience for it– but likes it.   Self portrait….

We used donated old sheet and clothes that were wrecked– t shirts, pants and skirts.  Another really handy tutorial to have for this project is this which shows you how to spiral cut t-shirts and any tubular fabric so that you get a nice long strip.  You can also use these long strips for knitting, crocheting, braiding or making a really big web.  It was so much fun and something totally accessible for all ages.  It would be cool to use clothes that are memorable, but otherwise ready to retire.  Then you would make memory rugs much like they make memory quilts. Imagine– A maternity clothes rug, and “I used to be this thin” rug, a “these were my college t-shirts that I can’t throw away” rug.

The older girls were completely crazy for this.  They sat around the kitchen talking and laughing for hours! It made me think of our ancestor-women who likely did similarly.

I dyed some of the fabrics once we got tired of neutrals.

Where would my blog be without that clothesline?

After the friends left, Marigold spent the rest of the day listening to a book on cd and working like mad.  It was hard to get her to stop!  The cool thing also is that the looms are very lightweight and portable, so you can take them outside, or wherever you want to be.   They talked about all of the different things they could weave with– yarn, nature materials, twisted paper…. they tried plastic bags and decided that while it might be good for a decorative weaving, it would be really slippery and sweaty.

I’d like to try crazy -or otherwise- quilting with the girls too.  We are going to make an effort to be extra crafty this Autumn and Winter– with an emphasis on recycling/reusing.  For this month I think it will help as an adjunct to the 30 days experience and also as a -diversionary tactic.

The kids took the idea of 30 days really well.  We are talking more about what is “necessary” and not, and what we want to keep as really important to us.  It has been helpful to present it in a way that also included looking at how we can make our own personal contribution to helping with poverty, and the environment, not just ourselves.  It’s sort of funny…all of these topics are naturally occurring/converging for us right now with the kids.  Helping out with chores and They wanted an allowance, so we are dealing with that– what’s appropriate, and how to teach them about spending while we are learning about doing it smarter ourselves. That’s always a tough one– the dollar aisle at Target.  There are things that we rarely do anyway that are all of the sudden outrages– ” You mean we can’t go to the movies this month???!!!”  The truth being that we haven’t been all Summer!  Lot’s of kids’ questions about the environment and climate change.  Big areas of land in our area have been cleared recently and are now big bare areas to become office parks or something else awesome.  In a more trivial sense, we have had some book and movie discussions about life being different from ours as we know it– Fact / fiction, historically/ futuristically, as well as culturally.  Little House on the Prairie, The City of Ember, My Side of the Mountain….

Here are a couple of ideas I had– things that Matryoshka and I do with each other and would be good to share and learn with more people. One thing we can do is make a list of kids crafts or activities as a resource for all of us.  Books, resources, ideas– I’ll post them as a page on the sidebar for all to use.  Be a guest blogger if you read but don’t have your own– Just let me know!  I’ll start it anyhow, even if it’s just me.  It would be fun to do this with our favorite kids books too.  Matryoshka and I have one of those that I can share as well.

Here’s something that I have had a link to on my desktop for a really long time, but just hadn’t gotten around to watching it.  I just did, and it’s pretty great.  It’s around 20 minutes long and really worth the time. It’s got me really thinking about “stuff”.