This year I tried some german organic easter egg dye along side the last of the food coloring capsules I found in the cupboard. I don't think the colors were notably different, except for a beautiful peacocky/turquoise blue we got out of the german dye. Perhaps it looked so vibrant because the blue was on the lone white egg we had. I think that is my greatest lesson learned: rubber bands, stickers, wax crayon, organic dye, food dye, homemade colors... nothing matters so much as the color of the egg, as the base you begin with.

I try to buy flowers every week. The Italians do it, the French do it. It cleans the air, it is visually pleasing. I think I first got into this from reading Apartment Therapy or maybe it was the book.

I buy them at my Farmer'sMarket, and because there is a "day old"stall,keep my weekly budget to $10. Usually it is $5 or $7--just a few stalks of something pretty. Once I splurged ($12), but then I got an ant invasion.

Last week I lost my wallet en-route to the market, and so no market, no flowers. Rainbow, my crazy local grocery store, doesn't sell flowers. So I made my own,from the leftover scraps of my favorite diy Christmas wrapping this year.



























This fall, a relative sent us some old childhood books of my father-in-law. Really, most were disintegrating. But some had lovely illustrations, and I had three framed as a present for my father-in-law.The framers wrapped the package in some simple craft paper, and j and I added confetti flowers.


























I cut circles around some flowers, amoebas around others, threaded craft wire through their centers and added some tissue paper leaves.

They won't cleanse the air, but they are green... and entertaining!

Clarion Alley (our walk to the playground)

Most Mondays, when I take my son and his friend to the playground, I bring knitting. When we first get there we usually try the music class and depending on how that goes, there is then a visit to the merry go-round, seesaw, and spiderweb: all of which involve me, pushing, balancing, spotting. But after that, we visit the awesome tricycle-riding alley behind the rec center. And while there rare one or two other moms I sometimes chat with back there, often, I am alone or with two nannies, chatting in Portuguese with each other, and I knit.

I am not very good at knitting, but I love it. I am aware of some soothing quality in the motion: and it speaks to my type-A need to always be multi-tasking. And the fibers feel lovey, soothing and soft, across my hands. A little bit of sensory therapy during the day. It is easy to watch the boys and do at the same time, and really they don’t want my total engagement in this section of the playground, interfering with their cops-and-robbers fantasies.

But yesterday, I brought my Kindle instead. No music class, and no tricycle racing, in honor of Dr.King’s Birthday. And I knew there would be lots of kids to occupy them, a free moment for me. And I just can’t put down this book. And later, all day, I could feel it: miss the moment of forced awareness, the pleasure of the fibers against my skin. And in the afternoon, I didn’t get most of my to-do list done; instead, crumpling exhausted on the couch. I dragged through the afternoon, dinner was late, and I was strangely not present.

There is some research that shows that babies and small children need gross motor stimualtion in order to be able to access small motor skills successfully. And of course, the Waldorf philosophy stresses the importance of handwork for children. But what about adults? Do I need small motor stimulation to be able to successfully complete gross motor activity? Does it get reversed with age?
I wasn’t able to find anything, googling. But I picked up my knitting, last night, before bed: and I’ll be knitting today, too.

I tend to set my intentions for the week on Sunday, and honestly, when I am feelng a little at a loss, my Nikki McClure calendar helps me out :)



But really, what a great-- ideal-- practice to wake every day, take five minutes, and set intentions there and then. A single word, and image to return one to the peace of those early morning hours, before the coffee, before the animals squealing for breakfast, the baby asking to play, the husband hunting for keys. It's been said and done before, but I'm not sure as beautifully or as evocatively. I think I need my own gingko stamp....

I love the baby's cotton hat from Last Minute Knitted  Gifts. For me it turns out right everytime, and I love the feel of the coarse/soft nubbly/chunky yarn on my hands as the hat comes together.


And now on to the scarves. Or the play food. Or the mittens...

I had some thoughts of making some play “bugs” for Jout of this plastic tubing, wooden beads and coated wire I had left over from another project. Not sure where I’m going with this stuff, if anywhere, but I like these proportions.

Posting  this as a bit of a reminder to recycle, and for some inspiration.



Last year J was Max from Where the Wild Things Are. I bought a white bunting-y two piece fleecy outfit from Old Navy-- the top had ears, already. I made a crown out of yellow felt, M bought a faux fox tail from Etsy at the last minute. The dinosaur feet slippers came from the Gap, J had them already.

I am thinking a similar neutral body suit type thing this year, a felt ruff and head piece, and re-using the tail. Hopefully that will = LION.

I just saw these on PurlBee:

I was really struck by these images I came across on the Upon a Fold blog this morning:


Apparently, they’re french, and part of the Curious Collection Contest.

More than anything, they reminded me of some Christmas decorations I once saw in Korea (the most Christian nation in Asia). I was walking down one of the very busy concourses that seem to be typical of all streets in Seoul one morning,on my way to yet another meeting about one piece of technology or another, when I saw men suspended from the side of a squat, almost brutalist-style office building, maybe 30 stories high, with a digital display affixed to the roof. They were maybe 3 of them, using rock climbing or window washing gear, I’m not sure, to slowly descend the building while affixing squares of green paper, maybe tyvek. I watched for a day or two, as the building was transformed, a green field in the middle of the technology capital of the world.

I didn’t take this photo, apparently someone else was captivated by the building, as well:

(photo by SuzyQuzy)


I can’t recreate the tech-a-palooza at my house, but I wonder if perhaps J and I might try to make a lion with some post-its.

This yarn started out as baby booties-- twice (I love Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but that pattern is just beyond me).  Then one shawl-- but the yarn was just too droopy and worn. And I  don't think yarn this fine or size 2 needles are for me.

So I finally gave up. I cut it off. Stopped judging myself for not being able to make it work.

It feels so good.

This drawing is one of the first things I ever made for J. I wanted to so much to create for him, from the moment he was born. and since he wasn’t exactly eating solid food yet(!) - my usual mode of creating - I had to find other forms of expression.

Pen and ink drawing (although I think I may have used a caligraphy brush here) was a great outlet for me, and a much cheaper alternative to the black and white flashcards recommended for newborns.

I found it again the other day as I sorted out my back room, and I think I might frame it and hang it here, in the entry way.



...right outside his room.

J is really looking forward to going to Cape Cod and seeing "fishies in  ocean!' (oh, and Nonna and Babbo, too).

He asked for more fishies and I obliged:



Schleich animals are, in general, a bit pricey, but at $4.99 he might just get a fishie to play with at home, too.

I  know,  I just declared a handmade Christmas throwdown, but J gets a (little bit) of a pass. And Schleich-type animals are recommended for the Reggio Emilia and Montessori approaches. In general,  I  try to be guided by Reggio, Montessori, and Waldorf toy principles. Mostly, I look at toys that seem like they will enable imaginative play and reflect/encourage what seems to be  children's innate sense of wonder/attachment/engagement with the natural world. I have learned so much, and had my heart opened so wide, just from watching J look at a leaf, stare at a pond, touch some sand.

I went to Craft Night at Jordan Ferney’s studio last night, which was a lot of fun... interesting people to meet, fun snippets of conversation to overhear, and I made huge progress on the hat J asked for (maybe I really will make him a sweater for Christmas!). I really enjoyed being around the group of women working on and expressing their creative ideas.

But really, this post isn’t about any of that.....

I didn’t have time to make the peanut-sesame cookies I’d planned (even though they are so fast!) so I stopped and picked up some Kika’s Treats... lucky for me (my excuse for eating some...)! They were the hit of the night.

I am always so proud of the work La Cocina does, and so happy to be able to introduce new people to the results. Not just because years ago I helped babysit Caleb(!), but also to think my small, random, intermittent volunteering efforts there maybe help another woman realize her (delicious) dreams... or even just the occasional purchase.

Somedays I am so glad to live in San  Francisco.... even if we don't get summer!


image copyright Kika's Treats

I’m not sure how it started, but it’s been a really fishy summer.

Maybe it was Leo Lionni-- we’ve been on a Leo Lionni and J and I have really enjoyed reading “Swimmy” together. The watercolor illustrations of the jellyfish, the eel, and the “sugar candy rocks” (coral) are really amazing. Perhaps it was when we went to the Academy of Sciences (thanks mom!) and saw the very same things, that sealed it. I certainly liked being able to come and read the book, and say, here, see, we saw this. And then the next day, we painted some of the fish we’d seen. It was a great way to stretch the museum visit-- free for us thanks to my parents’ generous gift, but it would have made me feel good/better if we had paid, or if we’d bought the book instead of checking it out of the library.



But then it went on and on! When we drove north for the 4th of July, we stopped at a winery with and incredible koi pond; J and I played there with the fish for almost an hour. And so then when we came home, at J’s request we sat and  painted “yeggow fishies,  oran fishies”:



I’m not sure what other fish activities we will do this summer. We’ll visit Lt’s Island, where you can see a lot of water bugs, and I might try this craft: .

What I’d really like, though, is to magically know how to crochet or be a good enough knitter to make this necklace:

I’m not sure if this research will turn in to an article-- or not-- or if so, where, so I thought I’d do a bit of a link dump.

I was looking for some “shop” type classes in the Mission for my MissionLoc@l column, but really couldn’t find much of anything, although I did find these two interesting articles on why there aren’t more shop classes.


Also, the east bay seems much more progressive in this area than San Francisco:

The Crucicble
Adventure Playground
Youth Uprising

Speaking as someone who’s re-done their own kitchen, gutted her own bathroom, and helped build and install a wall of built-in in the front room/library/dining room (it’s less than 12 x 12... I get to call it whatever I want!), I would love this sort of thing as an adult resource. But it would have been pretty cool to learn this stuff outside of building theater sets, too. Like a whole class? way cool. I hope my son is not manually inclined, given the dearth of educational opportunities in this area now.

I live near a community farm, near the site of one of the earliest post-industrial urban farms (i.e. after it was normal for pigs to roam the streets). And I’ve written a little about current urban agriculture experiments.

I have a certified black thumb and no backyard, so this won’t be me anytime soon, but I do think there is a relationship between the desire to farm and “crafting” in general. In an article I mostly liked, Peggy Orenstein equated this impulse with a flavor of third (or is it fourth) wave feminism. While I do think there is something about being pregnant-- or perhaps just having to take care of a small child-- that brings out the nesting/creating/providing instinct, I don’t think it’s just about women.  So I'm really enjoying (so far)  Shop Class as Soulcraft. From the introduction:

“... the overlapping territories intimated by the phrases ‘meaningful work’ and ‘self-reliance’. Both ideals are tied to a struggle for individual agency, which I find to be at the very center of modern life. When we view or lives through the lens of this struggle... as workers and as consumers, we feel we move in channels that have been projected from afar by vast impersonal forces...”

In other words,  it’s not "the economy, stupid", it’s the economy + our disenfranchising technology.

We went to a swimming hole in the east bay to get some summer and some sunshine.

I am the sunscreen fanatic of the family, usually so diligent. Some how, I forgot my back. It was one of my favorite colors, a deep fuschia. I hate that color when it is my skin.

I mixed a skin soother:
3/4 c c of aloe
1/4 c coco butter
contents of 1 echinacea tea bag
1 tbs buckthorn oil
a few drops vitamin e

Seems to be working. I whirled it up in the blender-- this is the 3rd or 4th skin thing I've made in it recently (masks for me, some eczema "poultice" for j). I came across this book in searching for a "tincture" for my back (what's the difference between all these terms?) and am SOOO tempted,  I just like the aesthetic of the book and it seems like it would be fun to read. Problem is, I might actually make something out of it and then I might use that as a justification for buying a new blender (this stuff is really hard to clean up), oh, and some nice new glass jars (love weck)...

We flew a kite over the 4th of July weekend. J’s first. It was plastic, and papery sounding, nothing like the turquoise silk kite with a white dove that I remember from summers when I was a kid on Cape Cod.

But oh, it flew, and how much fun it was here, on the rocky cliffs, watching the rainbow tug away from us.

I came home determined that we should make our own, and got this funny book out of the library. I’m not sure if it is even typeset-- it’s all in courier, but it is bound. The directions are strange and eliptical, and to be honest, I haven’t tried flying the kite yet, although I’ll report back on it when we do. I’m scared too, a little, too. I really love the kite.




J asked (as always) for “fishies” so I drew those, and then, inspired by the Japanese kites we saw at this exhibit at the library, I drew in a tidal wave and (a) Mt. Fuji.


I cut away most of Mt Fuji and the wave to try and shape the kite, but I still like it. Next time, though, or when we get to Cape Cod, I might buy a cloth kite, instead.

Simple Paper Bag Kite
adapted from Kites, by Margaret Greger
butcher twine
glue
electrical/rubberized tape
kraft paper or a paper bag
crepe paper or newspaper
2 1/4 in wooden dowels, 16 in long
crayon and markers to decorate the kite.

1. Roll out your paper or un-box the bags to lay flat, and decorate as you like

2. Cut a rounded diamond out, as per the picture, 16 in long and 8 in wide at the base. The wide point should be 10 in wide.
3. If needed, trim 1 dowel to fit lengthwise, then tape the spine on (the long dowel) the back
4. Trim the second dowel to fit width-wise, then tape the spar on (over the spine).
5. cut 4-8 long strips of the crepe or newspaper-- approximately 1 to 2 in wide, and at least 16 in long-- and crumple them up (this gives the tail body).
6. Un-crumple the strips and glue one end to the bottom of the kite, on the back.
at least 16 in long, and crumple them up to give them body.
7. With the butcher twine, cross tie the spine and spar.
8. Tie the controlling twine(leash) from the cross-tie.

Somedays it feels like the only projects that gets done around here is “make dinner”.
We have half-stripped wainscotting, shoe-moulding that is at least 6 months past-due on installation, an unfinished summer robe (well, I have the weather as an excuse for that one).

So I double appreciate having these photos to look at.

1. Just because I didn’t write about it doesn’t mean I/we didn’t do it:



this is an awesome pan-flute that M made J for his birthday out of hardware store supplies and some clay. It plays real notes and everything!

2. We are working on making a kite. It’s taking a lot longer than I expected, but I’ve been enjoying our practice-mastery: drawing, reading, visiting, etc.