Exercises in weaving

, a photo by mom2rays on Flickr.

I decided for my next weavings to work with scraps of organic cotton, and cotton/linen blends to make some towels. I love how they came out. The boys chose from the selected yarns and told me which ones in what order. These towels are SO SOFT!!! I must make more. I'm really enjoying weaving!

A woven scarf for Janet

Finished scarf for Janet, a photo by mom2rays on Flickr.

Before the move to Seattle, Janet gave me an Ashford 16" Rigid Heddle Loom. I warped it right away and a project languished on it until two nights ago when I cut it off. It started out as a table runner or stole and when I saw its ugliness off the loom it became a kitchen towel.
I bought the Rigid Heddle Weaving class at Craftsy.com and with some renewed confidence and insight to trouble shoot, I warped for a scarf. This for some reason came out WAY better than the first project did. As soon as its done drying I'm going to ship it off to Janet. I hope she likes wearing it.

my baby can ride!

my baby can ride! a video by mom2rays on Flickr.

Zuri received a Strider running bike for her second birthday. She received a Specialized pedal bike without training wheels for her fourth birthday. Unfortunately she hasn't been on it much. Today was her fourth time on the bike. And she rode it! I'm so proud of her. She has to gain confidence and coordinate turning and stopping, but she can ride! I think having Sippy, her first baby along for the ride helped her to focus. She was very concerned about crashing and hurting Sippy in the process.

Studio and Schoolroom redo

I showed you how it looked while we were in the process of the redo of our studio and school room so here's how it looks now that it's cleaned up. On the right side of the room we've placed all of the desks, the kids have some shelves to keep their desks isolated for ease of concentration and focus. As before, when we need to work together the center table is available.  My studio is on the left.  It now extends further down the room and is more functional.  

At the far end of the room we have our whiteboards and under the window the clickclack. It's great for reading time, there is storage underneath for board games and it folds into a double bed for guests.

The center table how holds the kids sewing machine (on loan from my mom) and our globe.



As I mentioned above there are bookcases/shelves between the desks to aid in the kids focusing.  On the shelves between Zuri and Mardie's desks we keep the daily use supplies like pencils, markers and colored pencils on top. Below are many of our classroom non math manipulatives and puzzles. Between Charmie and Mardie's desks I keep our greatly reduced workboxes. For this space, and where we are in our work, this simplifies things. I also keep the boys text books here. It's much simpler than keeping them with the other classroom materials. There's a lot less hunting and frustration this way.



To the right of Charmie's desk is a shelving unit that is an extension of my studio. My spinning wheels, some fiber, some yarn, some works in progress and related fiber tools are housed here in baskets.



The left side of the room (right side in this photo as viewed from Zuri's desk) has my studio. My sewing table setup hasn't changed. This was the best placement and allows for me to be able to work and keep an eye out on the kids simultaneously. Rocky and I share the desk.  As before, we work facing each other.  When I'm good and don't collect things on my desk it's plenty of space for both of us.



I cleaned out  the credenza that came with the desk and now store some of my office supplies and teacher's materials in it.  We were able to find IKEA office chairs in the "as is" room for well under 1/2 price!  Nothing is wrong with them, they were just no longer in the box.  They are very comfortable and well built.  They do not match.  We weren't trying to match them.  Rocky and I are built differently so it makes sense that we would be most comfortable in differently shaped chairs.  My chair is a wool version of the leather one we bought for the living room desk.  IKEA doesn't make it anymore sadly, but it's the most comfortable office chair I've ever used. Rocky's is green and black.



In the middle of the studio wall is my cutting/pinning/ironing table.  I've had to have one side folded down since we moved it up here.  This new configuration of the room allows me to have it all of the way open.  I have had ironing/pinning mats for a long time for this table, but the size didn't fit and they overlapped.  I finally cut and sewed them together to make one large fitted mat, vs. two ill fitting ones. Under it I have storage drawers that hold our math manipulatives, our school craft supplies, my mailing supplies and scale, as well as my cutting instruments. I'm going to be adding one more set of drawers in a few weeks and our science materials should then fit here as well.



Beyond the cutting table is a short bookcase of school resource books and a second with unused school supplies. I try to get supplies when they are affordable which isn't exactly when I need them.  I have to store them somewhere. Having them in one place allows me to keep an inventory of what we have and also itemize what we need for future sales.



The closet also got a redo.  It was full of videos/ DVD and VHS (yes we still have a VHS player), Wii games, board games (now under the clickclack), and over flow toys that we had temporarily taken out of rotation.  There was little useful organization, though Rocky had made multiple attempts.  It was a clusterscrew because it wasn't kid friendly and when opened almost always vomited its contents all over the walkway into the room.  I hated it because it was never tidy.  The solution; after we removed the items to more kid friendly storage areas was to move the remaining plastic drawers with fabric and yarn into it.  These drawers were previously on the landing at the top of the stairs and an eyesore.



I know it's A LOT to have it all in one room, optimally this would be in two separate and large rooms.  This is the modest space we do have and it all works. I feel so blessed to have this space to be used for a studio and school.  The space is very conducive to us working together. Everybody has their own space if needed yet we can come together for games or projects that require our combined efforts.  After some time, the room is becoming what I envisioned it being when we bought this home.

the storm before the calm

the storm before the calm, a photo by mom2rays on Flickr.

This past weekend Rocky and I needed to redo the school. We had to put the click clack (the black sleeper couch) back into this room. The chairs we had up here needed to be integrated elsewhere into our home. They ended up in the living room. Many things were taken out and shipped off to charity. And the space got a lot worse before it got better. You see we had gotten our school room where we thought it needed to be here.  But as I learn, I realize that no thing that I design or use is constant.  It's always changing, always in need of improvement. Always needing to be modified because I change and my needs change.  That's what has happened in this room.

First Vacation

We just got back from the Lake for our first vacation of 2012!  We had a blast last week and can't wait to get back.  Check out what we did on our RVing blog!