Pine Needle Basket

 Coiled Basketry has been found worldwide in a variety of indigineous cultures including Uganda, England, Australia, and many regions in the United States.  They form a very tight container and can include delightful colors and patterns.  Along the western states, these baskets have been made from the long Ponderosa Pine needles.  Trees will naturally shed a great number of these needles each fall and they can be collected from the ground.  

I collected these needles at our SCA Principality's Fall Coronet in Chiloquin, OR.  The first step is to make sure most of the needles are fully intact and mold-free, and it's best for them to be completely dried before beginning.  Once that is assured, soak the needles in warm water for at least an hour or until they are a little more pliable.  As the basket gets wider, this is less necessary, but it keeps the long needles from snapping.  

The materials you'll need for this are:

~Lots of pine needles (I used a large, double handful for this tiny basket)

~Thread of choice - waxed or sinew is preferred, I used embroidery floss

~Needle

~hollow threader - large feather shaft, tightly rolled piece of paper, portion of drinking straw or pen exterior.  The interior circumference of this will determine your fiber bundle size.

    When the needle bundles fall from the trees, they have a papery covering over the tree-end.  This should be removed from each set of needles before working.  Stuff the tube with needles so they are all going the same direction, lining up the tree-end on one side.  The tube should be snug, but not so tight that the needles can't continue to slide through.  With all the tree-end (connected) needles, start tightly wrapping with your thread, tucking the short end under the wrapping.  Continue this for about an inch before folding the wrapped area over as pictured above.  Thread needle on long end and past through wrapped areas several times to secure.  Continue wrapping and stitching until secure.  

    As you work, add more pine needles going the same direction into the center of the tube bundle any time it loosens up.  When you run out of thread, try to tie a new strand on in a way that the knot will be covered as you continue to work.

  

  After the center of your coil is tightly secure, continue wrap needles around and secure with stitches by going around the new and back under the last coil round.  It will look most consistent if you put each additional row's stitches coming through the stitch of the previous row, splitting it.  Eventually you will need to add extra stitches in between.

    Continue until the base of your basket is the desired size. 

At this point, you will need to pull the needle bundle on top of the previous row as you stitch along in order to begin shaping the sides.  Continue in this direction until the desired height is achieved.  Continue stitching around until all needle ends are tacked down.

  

    Enjoy your coiled basket!  I found this to be very strong and sturdy.  It could hold very tiny things without them falling through, perhaps even liquid if it was made well.

Phew!  This flu season has been the worst!  Since the New Year we have been taking turns being flat-on-our-back sick in this house.  I think I can officially say that we've all made it through the flu and so the worst must be behind us.  It sure makes me grateful for our overall health and the incredible ability of our bodies to heal.  And also good friends who patiently rearrange plans, send essential oils, suggest alleviating concoctions and bring elderberry syrup.  What a blessing to have them in my life!

It sure got me itching to finish some projects, too.  Why is it that I become most motivated when I can't possibly work on a project? =)  As soon as the dizziness left me and I felt safe to drive again, we hit the craft store, thrift store, and recycling center to restock and get to work on some projects.  I don't really have an instructible this week, but I just wanted to let you know that I haven't dropped off the face of the earth.

First, I've managed to keep up on our rabbits and continue to learn about them daily.  I've discovered we have a flighty one in the bunch and have already received many a nip from little Bobbin.  Trying to handle him more so that he becomes more used to us.  I found some wire mesh at the recycling center and have been attempting to secure our little porch for them to stretch their legs in a little.  Now all I need is a gate!

The Oregon Poultry Swap has chosen one of my paintings for their 2017 special edition print for this year!  I'm very honored and am looking forward to my tee shirt with the design on it!  I decided to sign up as a vendor for their Winter Swap here in Eugene and so a lot of my time has been put toward getting ready for that.  I found this awesome, weathered plank at the recycling center.  Gwen and I sawed it down into reasonable pieces and I've been painting barn art on them.  I've already received a great response and several pre-orders!

Then some more painting, crocheting, baking dipping tallow tapers, and practicing face painting for the meet.  It sounds like so much fun!  There's going to be a kids area, seed swap, scavenger hunt, raffle, demonstrations, decoration competitions...   If you happen to be in the area February 11th you should really look it up!

Free Fish Windsock Printable

The leaves are turning colors! The temperatures are finally headed toward a comfortable range! Could it be that we're returning to autumn!? SO excited!

As promised, I wanted to share with you this free printable for our fish windsocks. The breeze has been just right for these lately! After the little ones saw a few of these in shop windows, they started begging us to get one. But we decided to do one better and make them ourselves! They loved making their fish exactly how they wanted them and even deciding where they wanted all the fins on the sides. All through the day they report on how quickly their fish are “swimming” through the winds!

As for method, simply color in the print out as desired and tape strips of streamer (crepe) paper along the bottom of the uncolored side.  Roll so short ends are just overlapped and tape down.  With a scissors or hole puncher, make two small holes just above each the eyes though which to tie off a length (mine was about 18") of yarn or string.  Then you may choose to tape on extra fins on the sides as my little ones did. 

To open the template to print, click on the photo below:

As I've had so much interest in my other Sunday School printables (see Babel and Daniel), I just couldn't help but think that this could make such a great project for a class, sometime. Although I haven't used it yet, I feel like there are so many stories you could tie in with fish: Jonah, the feeding of the 5,000, fishers of men, creation, the symbol of the early church. We're starting up our regular classes after the summer break, and now I really want to find a way to tie these in! =)

 

 

Free Printable of Daniel for Sunday School

Happy Fourth of July!  This is such a wonderful (but crazy hectic) time of year for us!  A visit to all the grandparents, aunts and uncles has been a joy!  It's always bittersweet going back to your hometown and see all the familiar sights and faces, yet there's so much that has changed and, in fact, you yourself aren't the same person you used to be either...  Moving is strange like that, I suppose.

 

But more to the point of this post, I've been noticing an increased interest in Sunday School printables, so I want to share more with you today.  We've decided to take our Sunday School down a notch or two during the summer.  The barn-turned-community center we're meeting in has a great playground just outside that the kids can't resist this time of year!  The teachers still bring a craft and have a story, but it's much more relaxed!  One of the last lessons we completed before our break was that of Daniel in the Lion's Den and I thought I'd pass along the printable of the craft we made to go with it. 

 

 

 

Before I get too far, though, I thought this was a good re-telling of the story:

Daniel Retelling

 And of course, there's always Veggie Tales!

But the original story is from the book Daniel chapter 6. If you're not super familiar with it, it makes more sense if you read the five chapters previous.

 

To set up, I moved the tables into a big square and threw a bunch of pillows in the center to create a "den" that the kids all climbed into to hear the story that morning.  They had a ball all pretending to be lions! 

 

To complete the craft, after everything is colored in as you want it, cut the paper vertically to separate the den section, then the opening in the ceiling. 

 

Next cut the outline of Daniel out.  Attach yarn/string to the back of Daniel's hand for him to hold on to as he is lowered into (and later raised from) the den. 

 

I like to tape the other end of the string to the back of the rectangle, too so pieces don't get separated.  Then all together it works as a teaching tool as your reading the story or for the little ones to play with later.

 

Click on image below for full sized printable:

 

 

 

 

 



There are so many great Sunday School programs out there, but sometimes you just need one story, and for that purpose, I hope some of you can find this useful!  I hope we can impart to our kids what faith looks like and how awesome and in-control our God is! He knows what we're going through and when we choose to be faithful, just like Daniel.

Color Technique: Muslin + Crayons?

Whew!  I realize this post has been almost a year in coming!  I first hinted at this technique almost a year ago when we made a banner for the lemonade stand!  I love how this turned out and have had so many people compliment it. (P.S. It still looks great after wintering outside!)  This technique is one my mother taught us when we were very young and I still have some of the pieces we made.  It takes the lowly crayon to a whole new level!

So without further ado, the muslin crayon technique:

Materials:
Muslin fabric in desired size
Crayons
Permanent Markers
Scrap fabric

Technique:
I like to sketch out my design in pencil first and then go over it with the permanent marker so I know it will turn out how I want it.  You also may choose to place a design from another source under the fabric and trace it on.  Really the permanent marker is optional, but it really helps with definition. 

Color in as desired with the crayons.  After you are completely finished coloring, place a piece of fabric (I use an OLD, thin towel) over the colored side of the art and iron through.  The color may dull or bleed ever so slightly and will likely stain the scrap piece.  And you're done!

Just in the last year we've used this technique for banners (lemonade and craft fair), wall hangings to be framed, and a pillow case!  The possibilities are endless!  I've not yet tried this technique on clothing that would be washed frequently, but if you do would you let me know how it goes?  These have made some fun gifts and the kids love getting involved with it, too!

Recovery (Fair Review and New Game: Pong Hau K'i!)

Alright folks, climbing back in the saddle after a wild rodeo of a weekend!  But it sure was fun!  As I mentioned before, I've been a bit absent of late prepping for GWMC's first craft fair!  It was very small, but I made a handful of sales and met some really wonderful people!  Thanks to all of you who stopped by or had a hand in the behind-the-scenes work!  I can't imagine having done it without you (certainly not without a few more silver hairs to add to my crown ;)

All in all, I felt pretty prepared (thanks to some Pintrest hints).  Maybe a little too prepared.  I may have diversified excessively, but I think it worked out in the end.  I sold everything from skirts and bibs to notecards to fudge!  One item that caught all the children's eyes were these little game boards with flat marbles as game pieces.  I'll be honest, Josh and I broke them out during some of the slow times, too!  But so easy to make and I wanted to share the idea with you!

You can get these tree rounds at a craft store, but they can get a little spendy.  Josh just took a branch that had been trimmed from one of our trees and went at it with the chain saw!  I was really quite impressed with how narrow he was able to get them!  I'll have to remember that for future projects! =)  After a light sanding, I did some quick straight lines with a wood burner, but I'm sure you could accomplish the same effect with a permanent marker.  Then seal with a layer of matte clear coat!

I'm fairly certain everyone knows how to play tic tac toe, so I'm not including instructions.  Though my four year old and his buddy had a pretty interesting version of it that I'm sure they'd love to teach you if given the chance =)  But I found this other small board game from China called Pong Hau K'i that I thought was really fun!  The idea is that to players each have two pebbles.  They take turns placing them one of the intersections or corners.  They then continue to take turns moving to the open space with whichever pebble can go there by following a line until one player is unable to move.  So you try to trap your opponent onto one side.  Video instructions from "What Do We Do All Day."  I really enjoyed learning something new and simple to play and I hope you will, too! 

DAISY Chain Craft Fair!

Happy (belated) Easter friends!  I'm terribly sorry I've been a bit absent lately, but I've been thinking about catching up every day!  There has been a lot of behind-the-scenes type work going on around our house lately, and I'm so excited to share it with you!  As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm going to be setting up my first craft fair booth at DAISY Chain's 2nd Annual craft fair in just a couple weeks.  Today I want to give you an idea of what I've been working on for my little table! 

 

 

Art Print Cards!  From several of my larger pieces, miniaturized, folded, inscribable, and givable.

 

 

Baby and Toddler Skirts!  My daughter wants to wear a comfortable "dancing skirt" all the time and these are such a joy to make.  My fabrics and trimmings are often from my multigenerational stash (thanks Mom!) and vintage, upcycled sources, but always thoroughly cleaned beforehand, of course.  

Bandana Bibs!  Little ones can produce an illogical amount of drool, especially while teething, but they can sure look cute at the same time!  I love the look of these little bandana style drool bibs and tried to incorporate more absorbent fabrics into these.  I have both regular and slouchy (shown) styles.

 



I also have a variety of winter and summer bonnets, candles and magnets. There are also many more styles and designs of each, this is just to give you an idea  And who knows what else I might get a hankering to whip out before the big weekend! ;)

It was so hard to decide what to focus on, but this is the direction I've decided to take for my first show.  I'm a little giddy through all this prep, and I truly hope if you're able to make the trip that I'll see you there!  April 9-10 from 12:00 - 4:00 pm at 1244 Lawrence St. in Eugene.  Look for my sign (it will hopefully be slightly more embellished by then):