Alina's Adventures

Pretend parlors and parlor games.

I've always been partial to the color combo on this bedspread-currently-being-used-as-a-couch-cover in our parlor. I've also always been partial to ladies who use the word "parlor" in all seriousness because I know that deep down inside, they have a secretly fun soul.

A parlor is defined by Google as a noun denoting:

• A sitting room in a private house
• A room in a public building for receiving guests- the mayor's parlor
• A room in a monastery or convent that is set aside for conversation
• A shop or business providing specified goods or services- an ice-cream parlor- a funeral parlor
• A room or building equipped for milking cows

Though the latter would be thrilling, our tiny house has one large room which extends into the dining room where much talking takes place. In French, the word parler means "to talk" or "to converse". So I call this main room the parlor. Because we talk and converse more than we "dine" or "den". 

A parlor game is a game suitable for playing in a parlor, hence an indoor game. What better way to explore the Victorian era than through the games which entertained and amused them? If your schedule isn't already occupied with football games and barbeque, try a parlor game this weekend in your pretend parlor. Hat tip to Victoria's Past for the games.

The Ball of Wool

The party are seated round a table, from which the cloth must be drawn. A little wool is rolled up into the form of a ball, and placed in the middle of the table. The company then commence to blow upon it, each one trying to drive it away from his own direction, and the object of all being to blow it off; so that the person by whose right side it falls may pay a forfeit. The longer the ball is kept on the table by the opposing puffs of the surrounding party, the more amusing the game becomes, as the distended cheeks and zealous exertions of the players afford mirth to lookers-on as well as to themselves.

The Messenger

The party are seated in line, or round the sides of the room, and some one previously appointed enters with the message, "My master sends me to you, madam," or "sir," as the case may be, directed to any individual he may select at his option. " What for?" is the natural inquiry. "To do as I do;" and with this the messenger commences to perform some antic, which the lady or gentleman must imitate - say he wags his head from side to side, or taps with one foot incessantly on the floor. The person whose duty it is to obey commands his neighbor to the right or to the left to "Do as I do," also and so on until the whole company are in motion, when the messenger leaves the room, re-entering it with fresh injunctions. While the messenger is in the room he must see his master's will obeyed, and no one must stop from the movement without suffering a forfeit. The messenger should be some one ingenious in making the antics ludicrous, and yet kept within moderate bounds, and the game will not fail to produce shouts of laughter.   

Among the other tricks which may be commended are such as rocking the body to and fro, wiping the eyes with a pocket-handkerchief yawning, whistling, stroking the chin or the beard, and making any grimace.

Magic Music

In this game a player is seated at the piano, and one of the others leaves the room, while the company decides what the last-mentioned is to do on his return. When called in, he is given a hint, but only a hint, of what he is expected to do. We will suppose that he is told that he is to "make an offering to a certain lady." He is left to himself as to what the offering may be, but [-128-] he must guess the lady to whom it is to be offered, and offer to each in succession until he discovers the individual selected. The musical part of the performance is this: When he re-enters the room, the person at the piano commences to play some piece, with a moderate degree of vigour. As the guesser approaches the right lady, or the right thing to be done, whatever its nature, the music becomes louder or quicker; but if he appears to be going farther and farther from his appointed task, the music becomes softer and softer, until it is scarcely heard. This gives him a clue as to whether he is on the right scent, or otherwise. If there is no piano in the room, the "magic music" may be of another character, It may consist in the tinkling or clashing together of any articles that wil1 emit either a harmonious or a discordant sound, according to the degree of hilarity or boisterousness to which the age and other circumstances of the company dispose them. But, played with a little tact, the game in any of its forms will be found amusing.    We have had occasion to mention forfeits; and as those form an important element in many in-door games, we shall have something to say about them in our next paper, in which we hope, at the same time, to introduce to the notice of our younger readers several novel amusements, which in the long evenings they may find especially acceptable.

Max's kokoshnik.

"I'm going to wear this to church, Mom, cause it's really cool..."

What is a kokoshnik? And how do I make my own?

Learning about cultures with kids.

"A first grader should understand that his culture isn't a rational invention; that there are thousands of other cultures and they all work pretty well; that all cultures function on faith rather than on truth; that there are lots of alternatives to our own society."

        - Kurt Vonnegut

Oh Alabama, why this novel disgrace? Now, activists, missionaries, and those who work to make life better for Alabama's poorest families must make sure that they never give a ride (or drive a bus) that takes an "illegal immigrant" to the pediatrician for their children's vaccines. What about public transportation? Will bus drivers or metro train drivers be held responsible if an "illegal immigrant" uses public transportation? What warms your social and your faith about xenophobia made law?

One of the reasons we learn at home, rather than school, is because American education tends to glorify and sanctify a particular type of culture as the best, the brightest, and the most successful. Certainly we benefit from an extraordinary amount of material wealth in comparison with other cultures- our materialistic culture reflects this. But there are many ways to eat an Oreo. And the way we think is best usually happens to correspond with the way we eat an Oreo.

Though we prefer to think differently, cultures do not serve as repositories of goodness, kindness, virtue, or moral values. Instead, they serve as foundation for rituals, social conventions, taboos, festivities, and specific social hierarchies with their corresponding roles. Learning about cultures with kids requires us to keep an open mind and try to understand why certain cultures have found certain practices to be useful.

For example, watching everyone stand up and put their hand on their heart while asserting the Pledge of Allegiance to a symbolic flag on a football field strikes some international visitors as spooky. Imagine if you were not accustomed to this social practice, if you had not been socialized and acculturated to percieve it as a valuable component of group life... How would the pledge appear to you? Might you think that these people were engaging in a pagan ritual of honor to a sanctified piece of fabric? When you watched how Boy Scouts carefully caressed and folded this same flag, how this flag hung near doors like a mezuzah, would you not begin to wonder (just a little) what sort of ideology convinced people to treat this particular piece of fabric with more reverence than baptism?

What if, by some crazy fluke, our culture is not as sacred as we pretend in the grand scheme of things? Shouldn't we raise our children in a way that allows them to appreciate the diversity (there, I said it) of other cultures and cultural practices? What if we are supposed to love not just our enemies but also those who speak a different language and don't watch American Idol?

Some good places to start:

• "Teaching Diversity: A Place to Begin" (Scholastic)
• Create a social action project for children.
• The Sneetches, an anti-racism activity (Teaching Tolerance).
• Preschool activities for a multicultural theme (Preschool Rainbow).
• Print the World Lesson Plans Spread (Peace Child International).
• Why Frogs and Snakes Never Play Together (Teaching Tolerance).
• Storytelling Around the World Lesson Plans (Discovery Education).
• Developing A Respect for Diversity lesson plan.
• Everyone Is Different, three lessons using puppets for kindergarten classes (UCanDo).

Love letter #21: Conspiracies for peace.

Conspire magazine from Shane Claiborne and the folks of The Simple Way.

Jean Vanier and the peace conspiracy behind L'Arche.

Peace symbols and other signs drawn in sand.

This Halloween, you can dress up like a famous peace hero.

"The Bible Teaches Peace", a free pdf 8-part Bible study about what love means in the context of war.

Jim Forest believes we should love our enemies as we love ourselves.

Play peace bingo.

Celebrate a Freedom Seder for the Earth from the Shalom Center.

The Metropolitan Jonah explains why pro-war is not pro-life, and we must distinguish between being pro-unborn child and being pro-life.

How to say "peace" in many languages.

A hidden peace conspiracy at the University of Alabama Arboretum. Rock.

Global Art Project for Peace brochure. Enter the 2012 contest because peace is for everyone.

Peace of Art, a Boston-based group dedicated to the art of peace and peacemaking arts. 

Colors of Liberty, a multimedia Peace of Art project.

Blessed are the peacemakers photos and bios.

Gene Sharp's 108 methods of nonviolent action. Inspiring reminder.

This day in peace history. See what happened every day.

Pinwheels for peace, because baby steps are beautiful.

Sasha Constable's Peace Monument in Phnom Penh or his weapons art.

Peace toys for war toys exchanges.

Learning about measurements with Gallon Man craft.

Micah watercolored the component pieces for Max yesterday, and then Max cut, pasted, drew, and did the rest while I nursed Milla to sleep yesterday. How cool to emerge from the bedroom and see Max's construction.... I love the grass collage he pulled together from my fabric and yarns- love his acting on his vision. 

A slightly different Gallon Man template and craft for you.

Or Mr. Gallon, another version.

The story of a poncho family.

Designing and sewing ponchos for my family causes me to see ponchos everywhere. Suddenly, the poncho has become an object of my not-so-discreet fascination. When Max inquired about the origins of the poncho, I realized I needed to study a little history. And then I realized the history of ponchos is as rich and multi-faceted as the individual members of our family. Sometimes the best way to explore history is by telling a story....

THE STORY OF A PANCHO FAMILY

Nothing went as planned for the Pancho family that evening. The Pancho children kept coming unraveled while their parents kept misplacing the needles needed to stitch everyone back together. When even fresh stitches didn't help, and every difference between the Pancho kids proved a reason for more fighting and fussing, Mom and Dad Poncho realized that the time had come to bridge these differences with a little family history.

Given his penchant for clean dishes and well-organized pre-planning sessions, Dad assembled the kids on the couch in a mostly orderly fashion. Given her taste for embellished velvet and stories fatter than a bullfrog on a wet rock under a summer full moon, Mom started telling the family story. And this is what she said.

Long ago, before Mr. Clean invented the wall eraser to help homes with crayon graffitti, when ponchos rode in horses and buggies and colonialism was cooler than the beer, my family history began. We've traced my ancestors back to the Fruitlands, a utopian commune created in Concord, Massachussetts in 1884 by people who wanted to opt out of the industrial economy and get back to the land. They believed that manual labor was a "purifying discipline"- that it was good for the heart and the head and the soul. A man named Bronson Alcott, the father of Louisa May Alcott, who wrote the book Little Women, brought his family to Fruitlands. Bronson was part of the the Nonresistance Society, "a radical offshoot of the abolitionist movement who believed in the systematic oppression of all human institutions opposed to divine law and the duty to withdraw immediately leaving them to collapse under the burden of their own evil".

The requirements of manual labor made suits, cravats, and city clothing useless at Fruitlands. So Bronson walked about in an unbleached cotton poncho which helped to shield him from the elements and served as a sign of outward modesty. I come from this utopian white unbleached poncho- the uniform of hopeful humans trying to find and extend the good in the world. Bronson didn't stay at Fruitlands for too long- he soon discovered that all the manual labor made leisure and reading and family time impossible. He felt that his spirit suffered under the weight of poverty and endless work. So he took his family from Fruitlands. Today, you can visit Fruitlands as a museum and retreat, but the commune is only a memory. My family, rooted in this utopian spirit, continued and you can meet its extended progeny at various concerts and communes around the country.

Daddy's ancestry is more exotic and colorful. His family comes from 17th century Peru, where the wet climate of the Peruvian mountains created a need for warm outer coverings. Since the Peruvian mountain people cultivated alpacss and were very skilled in the art of textile weaving, they wove dad's ancestors by hand from alpaca wool, which is waterproof, like fleece, when stitched.

The Peruvians decorated the ponchos by dying the wool. The common Peruvian poncho had a bright geometric design on a red background. It was often accompanied by a brightly knitted woolen hat with ear flaps. Over time, the colors and patterns on ponchos were used to indicate family lineage (like Scottish kilts), occupation, and place of origin. Dad's ancestors communicated important social information to the human culture of Peru. 

Today, you can see dad's extended family at various Peruvian festivals and across the Latin American world. You can also understand why he tends towards the colorful and reddish moments of life.

When you bring together the fibers from an unbleached cotton poncho and ornately patterned alpaca wool ponchos, you end up with very diverse, beautiful, and interesting results. Because your family history is rooted in such different textures and fabrics, as little ponchos, you honor those differences in your appearance, tendencies, tastes, and styles. Rather than fight and argue over your individualities, try to remember that your common ancestry has given rise to beautiful distinctions. 

For more about the history of ponchos:

• Print a copy of Bronson Alcott's Fruitlands and share it with the family. Discuss what Bronson learned from his utopian experiment and how he learned it. 
• Get more information about the history of Peruvian alpaca ponchos.
• How Incan kings used ponchos.
• Make a paper bag poncho. 

Watercoloring for the nature journal.

Max's plant of the day is the trumpet-vine or cross-vine, also known as Bignonia capreolata. It is found in the South and Midwest. Max pointed out that it has similar seeding strategies to the dread privet, with which we wage a contuining war on the Coryell Castle lawn.

Watercoloring the trumpet vine this morning.

Cinquains everywhere.

Cinquains provide an excellent and fun refresher and skills-builder in identifying and using nouns, adjectives, verbs, participles, and synonyms. They also reinforce the understanding of syllables. 

A cinquain (pronounced: sing-cane) is a 5 line poem that describes a noun. It comes from the French word "cinque", which means "five", or the Latin word "quinque", which also means "five". The number five lies at the heart of the cinquain's charm.

A cinquain can also be considered a kind of shape poetry. Because of the exact number of words required for each line of this poem, a unique, symmetrical shape is created from interesting, descriptive words. This shape can resemble a Christmas ornament. We used the homemade handout below to explore the structure, history, and form of cinquains.

 

MAKE, DO, AND PLAY

Read "Bubbles", a cinquain supposedly written by Buster from PBS Kids.

Write an instant online cinquain.

Use this printable graphic organizer to practice writing your own cinquain.

Submit a cinquain to Amaze, the cinquain journal.

Browse more cinquains by Adelaide Crapsey, mother of the Crapsey cinquain.

"Teaching a Quintet: The Cinquain Recipe" by Corie Feiner.

 Read some global cinquains by Joy Carter Fisher.

Alina's pleated poncho.

Four hours of sleep last night has its own baggage.

Mother Teresa meets Little Green Riding It's-All-Good-In-The-Hood.

To tie the shawl or let it all hang loose?

Only two more ponchos to go...

Micah's intense little poncho.

As follow-up to my poncho dreaming, I finished sewing Max's poncho, my poncho, and the Little Dragon Micah's poncho. Funny how sewing without a pattern or tutorial lets in the air of each personality to inspire where fabrics, shape, material, colors, style, and stitches are concerned.

Micah's turned out so differently from Max's. It reflects her fiesty, restless, gnome-ishness. The colors- brown and deep red purple- emphasize her intensity. And being a hoarder and collector of all things, Micah needed a pocket. 

Intense.

Serious.

Toughish.

Ready to roll.

Sneakish.

Wispy.

This is a close-up of what it says on that white patch on the lower back of the poncho. Fitting for our gnomiest child.

The crazy caterpillar cardigan.

Anna left a thrifted cardigan and my house a few weeks ago and told me to "just put stuff on it". And she didn't say what stuff. So, as I was stitching a few patches, and changing thread length to keep the stitch uneven and a litle to the Urban Outfitters with marigolds, this crazy caterpillar crawled into my head and left his marks all over Anna's cardigan. It was an accident. I hope her kids can convince her (and John) that everyone needs a crazy caterpillar cardigan at some point in life.

One poncho down, four to go.

The ponchos are perfect for international travel because we don't have to worry about getting arms and zippers and more set up for all three munchkins. Also, ponchos are built in blankets and excellent pillows when rolled up. I'm getting quite excited about the Coryell Poncho Mafia....

Max's fleece poncho was upcycled from an old airplane blanket that ended up in my bag last time we flew overseas, an old sweater, and a Mexican scarf I found at the thrift store for 99 cents. I think it suits him, and he already complains that it "feels too hot" which can only be a good thing as we fly to a cooler climate.

Unlike Micah, Max does not enjoy being photographed, so I didn't get any long shots. The poncho extends to mid-thigh for him. He asked me if he could get any invisible powers from his poncho. Honestly, I told him I didn't know.

Nature findings: Pebbles, bird feeders, and mazes.

Max filled his pockets with rocks and pebbles during our visit to the Arboretum on Sunday afternoon. We hiked to the Children's Garden, half-hoping to stumble upon a geocache. Instead, we found...

Max's plethora of pebbles.

Which he painstakingly picked, carried, and rearranged as we strolled.

Ver-dance.

A metal caterpillar frame with a mudbrick house in the background.

An off-kilter but brilliant natural branch bird feeder or water dish.

Handmade wooden gates and metal art which chimed at the breeze's beckon.

Maybe in the morning, I'll get around to sharing what we did with all those rocks and twigs that ended up in pockets and backpacks and then our dining table.

Love letter #20: Ponchos.

Preparing for a lot of travel through airplanes, Eastern European cars, trains, metros, buses, and even the occasional horse-and-buggy has got me thinking about ponchos. Glorious, multi-faceted family ponchos for the Coryells. In my head as I prepare to stitch.... (To download the mp3, just right click and save as.)

Reversible car seat poncho tutorial (Pattern Schmattern)

How to make a fabric poncho or a Mexican poncho (EHow)

Poncho with panache printable tutorial (Bernina)

Homemade super hero poncho cape (Filth Wizardry)

Poncho tutorial (Tilda)

Fleece poncho (Drummond News)

Plus various ponchos for sale found with the help of google to inspire colors, shapes, and texture...

Thrifted doll cradle remake.

Purchased at Saturday estate sale.

Max primed the cradle with white paint while I stitched together some cradle linens and doll pillows from ruined pillowcases "fixed" with cheery applique patches. Granted, the sun isn't coming out to brighten this picture, but our painting job is finished, doll covers and pillows completed, and the babies are lounging in the crib. That's sunny enough for me.

The Romania hit list.

Romania through the lens of Betuel Hreniuc. More here.

The countdown to our Romania trip has officially begun. In less than two weeks, Patrick, the munchkins, myself, and my beautiful mother will be flying to Romania to introduce Pat and the kids to various and sundry family members and the land of my birth. The ongoing hit list project begins....

IN BUCHAREST

1. A puppet show at Clubul Taranului followed by a visit to the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. At the top of my list, this one.
2. The Alternative Bookstore, the place to find revolutionary pamphlets and local anarchisms.
3. The Geology Museum with munchkins. More.
4. The beautiful Cismigiu Gardens.
5. A stroll through Lipscani with a stop in the Glassblower's Courtyard.
6. Take Patrick to Laptaria lui Enache.
7. Vasile Grigore Museum because I grew up with his original paintings on the walls around me.
8. Explore Romanian cinema at the National Center of Cinematography.
9. Rozalb de Mura for inspirations.
10. The National Museum of Art.
11. 115 Digital Art Gallery. 
12. To see something showy at La Scena.
13. Ride on the Bucharest metro and take photos of grafitti.
14. Bum around Herestrau Park with the kids for an afternoon and swing by the Arc de Triomphe while we're in the area.
15. Once upon a time, Caru cu Bere was the place for Romanian intellectuals and students to meet, drink, eat, and debate. I wonder what it has become...
16. Stavropoleos Monastery and Church for the wooden icons, intimate mystery, and beauty of Romanian Orthodoxy.
17. The Museum of Jewish History to learn details about the history of Romania's Jews.
18. The Bucharest History & Art Museum for local history and a tour of the Sutu palace.
19. The George Enescu Museum for a tribute to this incredible violinist who was also just happened to be the teacher of Yehudi Menuhin.
20. The Natural History Museum so Max and Micah can marvel over some Romanian dinosaurs of the natural (as opposed to the unnatural and communist prototype0 world.

ROAMING ROMANIA

1. Casa de Piatra de la Heresti.
2. Bran. Bien sur.
3. Saint Anne's Lake.
4. The Putna Monastery.
5. Orheiul Vechi, the old cave monasteries dug by monks in the 13th century.
6. Sapinta, the "merry cemetery" in Maramures.
7. The Salt Mines of Turda which go back to the 11th century.
8. The awesome Castle of Deva.
9. Hike around or road trip Tara Motilor.
10. Visit Golubac's fortress, where George is said to have killed the dragon.
11. Brincovenesti Castle.
12. Curtea De Arges, home to the legend of Manole.
13. Hike Mount Timpa for a view of Brasov.
14. Hike the Seven Ladders Canyon near Brasov.
15. Try to spot the famous Carpathian stag around Mount Omu or in the vicinity of Bran. If you spot him, take a photo and sell it to the Japanese tourists as they clamber off their buses.
16. While near Omu, visit Zalmoxis' cave at Ialomicioara.
17. Sample Romanian wines and wander around the family vineyards in Focsani.
18. Visit my namesake's grave near Focsani.
19. Retezat Mountain National Park, considered by Greenpeace the last intact forest landscape in Europe. 
20. Learn about the fiercely conservative, religious Csango groups who live in the towns of Ghimes and Frumoasa.
21. Olt Valley.
22. Visit the fishing village of Sfintu Gheorghe and enjoy the floating disco-bar, camping in the wild, or a boat trip to Lacu Rosu.
23. Befriend the Dacian god, Zalmoxis, by leaving offerings at his abode, the Polovragi cave.
24. Bran Castle, of course.
25. The Eye of the Noisy.
26. The ASTRA Museum near Sibiu.
27. Dealul Cetatii in or near Deva for a little Dacian history.
28. Sarmisegetuza Regia for a little more Dacian history.
29. Calnic Castle and cultural center near Sibiu.
30. The Museum of Comparative Art in Sangearz-Bai, created by Romanian artist Maxim Dumitras and home to many, many pieces of Romanian art.
31. The amazing Corvin Castle in Hunedoara. Also known as the Hunyad Castle. 
32. Wander around the monastery at Lupsa. 
33. Cuibul Visurilor, the Nest of Dreams, with over 3,000 objects about rural life in the villages.

SOUVENIRS

1. A Bucharest Monopoly game because it is funny and valid on so many levels.
2. Learn how to make tuica from one of the old men sitting on the benches in Cismigiu.
3. Ask the first 50 Romanians you see a simple question-- "Leonard Cohen? Love him or hate him?". I have my theories.
4. Traditional fabrics.
5. Metro tickets and collage materials.
6. Handspun yarn.
7. Old books.
8. Stones, rocks, and pebbles from various castles and ruins.
9. Vintage Romanian hemp.
10. A prayer rope from a monk.

Milla is appalled by the ants.

The way they crawl up a wooden table post carrying ant eggs.

And then there is that aluminum water bottle with all the crazy yellow patterns. Milla is wondering if daddy saw that pattern. 

Pattern that resembles those ants in some fashion- like organized chaos.

Milla knows daddy keeps pulling her hand away from those interesting ants, but he doesn't seem to mind when she touches that funky yellow happening on the water bottle.

As Grand Bunicu would mumble, sometimes there is just no accounting for taste.

Patrick and Milla talk about rice.

"Dad, check out the rice I put on my head. I'm something else, eh?"

"Oh Milla, you are a mess! Let's get that greasy rice off your head now..."

"The Mule", a poem by Max Coryell.

A photo taken by Patrick yesterday of our Max in the park.

The Mule

The animal has funny ears

but does not burst into tears

because he has no fears

about people's verbal sneers.

Max is a big fan of AAAA rhyme schemes. Or so he says. In those exactish words. On that note, isn't "exactish" a great invented word, just primed and pumped for writing nonsense verse? I get little tingles in my pinky fingers when Max tells me that he wants to write a poem. Isn't that what "schooling" is all about- to create a desire and curiosity and appetite for learning, reading, writing, exploring, and loving our shared world?

An Emerson-inspired journal prompt.

While letterboxing at The Homestead in Ohio, we ran across a lovely stone etching on the wall of a park pavilion. It reminded me of Max and my love for Ralph Waldo Emerson for whom Max Emerson Coryell was named. What a perfect journal prompt for a beautiful Sunday afternoon in which we are raedying for a trip into the woods.

And then there are those who have wine cellars....

My dad in his musty, underground wine cellar. There is another wall on the right and the room extends to include a velvet couch, bookshelves with chess and various trinkets plus a whole other wine wall. The munchkins preferred to play with wine bottles rather than encourage their mother to take badly-lit photos. So I gave up on doing this wine cellar justice.

Eco-dyeing results.

"Mom, we have to go see our eco-dyeing!"

First I taught Sunday school without my better half, who stayed home to savor the girls while Max and I churched ourselves. The kids are such a lovely reminder that I am not "teaching" Sunday school but rather studying our journey towards love and life together.

How the fabrics looked when removed from their overnight pot. The gauze fabric is the larger one while the linen fabric is the small one that looks quite purple.

Max picks little plants off the wet linen fabric.

The linen fabric details where you can see the rusted nail prints and the deep purples from the crepe myrtle.

The long view of the linen fabric. You can see the goldenrod stalks and the little bits of green clover.

Then we unfurled our long gauze strip which had been filled with goldenrod stalks and no crepe myrtle. We realized that we forgot to include rusted metal nails in this one, and wondered what effect this might have had on the lighter print. 

Beautiful, delicately printed gauze.

What an awesome experiment! I can't wait to try it with the local plants in the Carpathian mountains of Romania next month. Eco-dyeing is one of those natural arts that you can use to explore the botany and plant life in your travels. Love love love.

Our eco-dyeing experiment.

We did this backwards, picking plants before preparing our fabric, so we didn't mordant the fabrics we used. Enter our first experiments- will the prints work without mordanting the fabric beforehand? (I did soak the fabrics in water with sea salt for an hour or so before placing our plants on them....)

Goldenrod galore.

Then we took an afternoon excursion to a nearby park to collect flowers and plants. Milla fell asleep while Micah moaned about having worn her rain boots on a hot, sunny day.

Max kept the team together and carried the plant-collecting bowl for us. 

Our plant harvest.

Once we got home and unloaded sleeping Milla, Max and I began sorting the harvest. We decided to tear (or cut) the goldenrod flowers from the goldenrod stems for one bowl.

Then we set aside the crepe myrtles on a different plate. We also decided to use some of the goldenrods with stems to see how the leaves would print. Max suggested using a bowl for combined clover leaves and various loose plants that we could mix and match in patterns.

Then we prepared the two chosen fabrics (I use this "prepared" term preposterously). The natural white linen and natural white gauze were each boiled for about 20 minutes in a pot of water mixed with sea salt.

Then we took the fabrics out of the box and wrung the extra water from them before laying them out flat on the sidewalk. The munchkins asked the flower fairies to forgive us our pickings before placing arranging the harvest on the the linen and gauze. Max added two rusty nails for good luck.

We only arranged the plant matter halfway across each fabric. Then we folded the unused half of the fabric over the half with plants. 

I pressed down hard on the folded fabric before beginning to fold it over in an almost-rolling motion. The fabric then looked like the long, wet strip you see below. Max pressed down on the strip and then I folded across the strip into little squares until I ended up with a fat little square. 

Max held the square tightly together as I wrapped and knotted it with twine. Two stout little parcels of printing possibility....

Then things ended on the ugly side- with a boiling pot on the stove and not much color. We simmered our parcels for about an hour in salt water and then moved the pot onto the front steps for the night.

Tommorow brings the excitement of teaching Sunday school with Patrick AND NOW seeing what took place overnight with our fabric. Will the fairies bless our experiment? Maybe replace mordanting with a little magic? It remains to be seen...

A picnic with Bunica.

Feta cheese and butter sandwiches with ripe red tomatoes from Gary's garden.

An estate sale.

The entrance to a fascinating dungeon filled with polyester dresses.

A painted plate.

The baby doll cradle with a bell that rings as you rock. Our painting project for today.

A house for a mouse.

A glorious gourd.

Total price: $11.50. Negotiated by Max.

A Visit to William Blake's Inn by Nancy Willard.

A Visit to William Blake’s Inn, Poems for Innocent and Experienced Travellers is Nancy Willard's poetic tribute to the poet, William Blake. What if William Blake owned and ran an inn for travelers? How would such an inn look? What kinds of voyagers would it attract? 

Blake's inn is no ordinary landmark. Its inhabitants include two mighty baking dragons, two patient laundering angels, William Blake himself, and the cornucopia of visitors which season the pages. "Blake's Celestial Limousine" takes travelers to and fro, while a rabbit shows the little boy who is visiting to his room. Other memorable characters include the excitable King of Cats, the dreamy Wise Cow, the chatty sunflowers, the story-craving Tiger, and my personal favorite, the Man in the Marmalade Hat.

Alice and Martin Provensen's award-winning illustrations bring out the whimsy in Willard's imaginary voyage. In a gentle way, the illustrations also pay tribute to Blake's penchant for illustrating some of his poems in a fantastic manner.  

THE WISE COW ENJOYS A CLOUD

"Where did you sleep last night, Wise Cow?

Where did you lay your head?"

"I caught my horns on a rolling cloud

and made myself a bed,

and in the morning ate it raw

on freshly buttered bread."

The book ends on a note worth sharing with every child. We used it as a journal prompt for Max's journaling today. His head was abuzz with all sorts of fantasies after we polished off this tasty book; itching to journal, ready to write, the words come to him like pigeons in the park nowadays.... 

Chasing butterflies:

• Listen to the delightful pieces composed by Dale Lyles for each poem in this book. We listened to each as we read the various poems and tried to describe what the music revealed about the poems.
• A Blake-illustrated version of "The Tyger", one of the poems penned by Blake which inspired this book (Finish the Book).
• Images and a few poem pages (The Marlowe Bookshelf).
• More images from the book (Masha du Toit).
• Blake's illustrated version of his poem, "Jerusalem" (Counterlight's Peculiars).
• Companion poems with original illustrations from Songs of Innocence and Experience. 
• Nancy Willard bio (Poetry Foundation).
• Life of William Blake, an interesting endeavor by Anne Gilchrist.

Love letter #19: Projects writ large.

I love projects, the projects you read about on one page and then decide you must somehow knead through. The projects that inspire you to start your own community-building project. The projects that make the world a better and more beautiful place.

(A glimpse at the Magic Feather Project.)

The Inhabit Project.

The Fibershed Project.

The Sketchbook Project.

The Magic Feather Project.

The corresponding Whispering Feathers activities and crafts.

The Storytellers Project.

Trash for Teaching. 

Timeslips, a creative storytelling project.

Blarter, an online bartering project.

The Druid City Garden Project.

Thousand Kites, a national dialogue project on the criminal justice system.

A pointillism study and activity.

Our recent roamschooling adventure at Topiary Park really inspired us to learn more about Georges Seurat and his pointillist painting technique. We started with color theory and looked at a simple color wheel, focusing on the primary colors of red, blue, and yellow, before getting into the nuts and bolts on this awesome printable. 

To really be able to see all the hues of the colors, we took watercolors, paintbrushes, water, and our printable outdoors to explore color theory. The sunlight revealed the warm and cool tones in our paint colors.

We played around with secondary colors, warm and cool colors, and then learned how to discern complimentary colors and analogous colors using the color wheel. 

Then we turned to the art of Georges Seurat. Our memory was refreshed by this printable Seurat bio, which Max read aloud as Micah screamed at the top of her lungs. We also re-read this glossary to brush up on the terminology we would be using in our discussions.

It was the year 1886, and the impressionists, including Monet, were the high kings of art. Seurat was only 26 years old when he debuted La Grande Jatte, scandalising the establishment with his new techniques and style that broke from impressionism and led to the coinage of a new term, "Neo-impressionism", to describe Seurat's work.

Early in his career, Seurat's paintings were shaped by the law of contrast as explained in the writings of Mr. Chevreul. He observed that just as dark and light oppositions enhance each other, any color is likewise heightened when placed beside its “complimentary color” —located on the opposite side of the color wheel. When the complements red and green are put side by side, for instance, the red will seem redder and the green, greener.

Seurat was also aware of how the optical mixture of colors in the eye was different from their mixture on the palette. Juxtaposing related shades of a color on a canvas (yellows and greens for example) will create a more vivid and luminous effect than if the colors had been blended on the palette. This "divided color" effect underlies the pointillist technique. 

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of Grande Jatte- 1884

In La Grande Jatte, Seurat welcomed controversy. He knew that Monet had painted several canvases there in 1878, including Springtime on La Grande Jatte, which Seurat undoubtedly saw when they were shown in the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879. In setting up for his painting, Seurat prepared the scene as if it were a theatre. He used 3 dogs, 8 boats, and 48 people who congregate on a Sunday to enjoy and parade around in “nature.” What looked like a nonchalant scene was a actually a carefully staged one.

Seurat's "dot" technique was used flexibly. He used different-sized dots to create different effects and color depth. His brushstrokes also varied to emphasize differnt forms. For example, close, parallel strokes define the contour of the woman’s bustle while the sunlit grass reveals short, even strokes laid over one another. 

Pointillism refers to the technique of using dots of pure color in such a way that, seen at the appropriate distance, they achieve maximum luminosity. How does pointillism really work? Do the little dots blend to create different colors from a distance? Max was full of questions. We decided to try our hands at pointillism to see for ourselves...

• Does the divided color effect work? If it does, then we should be able to get brighter hues of color by a series of dots (or blobs) of varying primary colors optically intermingled in the spectator’s eye to create these varying hues of secondary colors like green and orange.
• How do different dots shapes and brushstrokes produce different effects?

For Max to learn Seurat's technique and experiment with its results, we used this printable outline coloring page of A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grand Jatte. 

Max uses a pencil eraser and watercolor paints to fill in the trees with various shades of green and yellows. He then used the tip of a paintbrush for some parts of water and to fill in the smaller pieces of the painting.

A work in progress.

Given piano lessons and other Friday follies, we didn't have time to finish. Hopefully, we'll get back to those shadows tonight. But we did learn some very important lessons from our pointillist painting.

1. A pointillist needs a big canvas. Seurat used a canvas which measured 6 ft 10 in x 10 ft 1 in for La Grande Jatte. You need lots of space to make tiny dots. Lots of space and lots of time.
2. The colors blend beautifully from a distance. The closer you get to a pointillist painting, the less romantic and beautiful it appears.
3. Color and light, color and light. Like the refrain in Stephen Sondheim's musical, Sunday in the Park with George, pointillism is all about color and light and the way they combine. Our color wheel was the most important tool for this exercise.

A dance party with kids on a rainy day.

The weather limits our choices again today. Or maybe it just brings dancing and music into sharp relief. Why not dance? If you'd like to join us, just right-click on the image with song titles to download the song and host your own dance party.

skip to my lou is a traditional American folk dance in which partners usually swing around and trade off for other partners. First we practiced skipping across the room using the cues "step-hop, step-hop." Then, without the music, we skipped in a straight line towards our partner, reciting “step-hop, step-hop" until we reached our partner. When we faced each other, we froze in place. Then we linked arms and skipped, turing clockwise in a circle. 

Then we added music to the mix. On the words “Skip to My Lou”, we skipped across the room towards our partners. When we reached our partners, the verses began and we linked arms and skipped in circles.

Afterwards, we engaged in the customary folk dancing practice of acknowledging our partner by bowing (for boys) or performing a curtsey (for girls). 

imagining we are lining tracks For this song, we talked about how men used to sing as they lined railroad tracks, which involved lifting heavy pieces of wood and coordinating when you would drop them together. Track lining songs are an important part of our shared history here in the South. 

As we listened to the song, everybody "lined tracks". For further exploration, you can learn more about railroad ties and track-lining here.

hobbit dancing is a pretty wide-open dancing activity. We talked about hobbits and their small size and how this might inform their dancing style. We also got a little inspiration from this wild hobbit dance video. Then we just listened to the music and let our inner hobbits call the shots.

Snowden's Jig is described in the music liner as a "Genuine Negro Jig". For this dance, we tried to learn how to dance an Irish jig with some help from our friend the internet. A traditional Irish jig is a series of hops and steps that repeat themselves over and over again. The steps are simple, either stepping forward or taking steps backwards, but the hops can require some practice in getting the timing and coordination right. The best way to practice getting it right is to make sure that you are listening well to the music.

The beat is fast, so you'll want to make small steps and hops at first in order to maximize your chances of getting in all the steps on the beat of the music. Here is a step-by-step:

1. Point your left foot in front of you. Step onto your left foot and bring your right foot into a closed position behind it, transferring your weight onto your right foot.

2. Bring your left toe up to your right knee as you hopSwing your left leg so that your left knee is pointing in front of you and your foot is by your right knee---this is also done while hopping.

3. Place your left foot on the ground behind you: the first of four steps backwards, left, right, left, right. Your weight should now be on your right foot, so that you can point your left foot in front of you---you're back to the beginning!

Unfortunately, I was too busy dancing to take any photos, but I'm walking on sunshine.

Milla strolls with a crazy dude.

Milla loves going on walks around the neighborhood. The other day, she strolled with a crazy guy she likes to call "Dadadadadada".

She loves to run and throw back her head laughing- not the best combination for balance but certainly a good choice is exuberance is what you're seeking.

Thinking about Ethan.

The Ethan that didn't stay long enough to be fitted for homemade cloth diapers... The Ethan that was God's beautiful combination of two pairs of bright blue eyes and two hearts that only know how to love dearly.

We are supposed to be grateful for the lives we are given. But I struggle with speechless and dumb and words like "brevity", words that steal moments of kisses and coddles and life, an Ethan of flesh and blood and dirty diapers. And yet Sarah and Matt should be happy to have held a living Ethan for those few moments? To be grateful for the fact that he stayed long enough for the impropriety that is farewell? To rejoice in Ethan's brief time- a time just long enough to tear his parents' nights into varying shreds of heartache and sadness?

Max just stopped and asked me, "Mommy, why are you so sad? You look really sad..." I told him that sometimes I can't stop thinking about Ethan and his parents. 

"I understand," he replied. "I don't think I can write a funny poem to cheer them up. I would be very mad at God if he had taken Milla or Micah when they were just born...."

Do I share too much with Max? I share tombstones alongside fairies, fact astride fiction, and keep my arms open in case he needs a place to hide while he reorganizes his world. How I would not be able to stand on two feet if this changed. How Matt and Sarah fight to celebrate Ethan so that his life could be more than a mourn-ument. How nothing is fair and love always hurts and the cliches are sharper than swords when the armor gets rusty because you've cried so many rivers that metals don't matter...

Marriage musings with Wendell Berry.

A quote from an Avett Brothers song turned into a tattoo left me ruminating on marriage, my marriage, our marriage, our strange, sacred union which grows and tangles like a weed rather than the rosebush.

The dance from a father's arms to a husband's arms and the way the weather changes enough to make note of a different climate. 

And that climate gives rise to a whole new country, a new type of citizenship, a form of freedom without flags that is strikingly described in

"THE COUNTRY OF MARRIAGE"

A POEM BY WENDELL BERRY.

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams

of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs 

of birds opening around you as you walk.

You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said

that bound me to you, some mere promise

or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?

A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood

still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,

like the earth's empowering brew rising

in root and branch, the words of a dream of you

I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer

who feels the solace of his native land

under his feet again and moving in his blood.

I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped

my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss

that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.

Sometimes our life reminds me

of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing

and in that opening a house,an orchard and garden,

comfortable shades, and flowers

red and yellow in the sun, a pattern

made in the light for the light to return to.

The forest is mostly dark, its ways

to be made anew day after day, the dark

richer than the light and more blessed,

provided we stay brave

enough to keep on going in.

IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my head

with joy, if ever a man was,

for to approach you I have given up the light

and all directions. I come to you

lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes

into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend

slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace

in you, when I arrive at last.

V.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange

of my love and work for yours, so much for so much

of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--

that puts us in the dark. We are more together

than we know, how else could we keep on discovering

we are more together than we thought?

You are the known way leading always to the unknown,

and you are the known place to which the unknown is always

leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,

I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing

not belittled by my saying that I possess it.

Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing

a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only

accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light

enough to live, and then accepts the dark,

passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I

have fallen tine and again from the great strength

of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death

to set you free of me, and me from myself

into the dark and the new light. Like the water

of a deep stream, love is always too much. We

did not make it. Though we drink till we burst

we cannot have it all, or want it all.

In its abundance it survives our thirst.

In the evening we come down to the shore

to drink our fill, and sleep, while it

flows through the regions of the dark.

It does not hold us, except we keep returning

to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,

willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,

containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.

I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:

a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,

the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life

that we have planted in the ground, as I

have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all

beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself

again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,

no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

Saying the vows, I don't remember what I said. I only remember Patrick's eyes and mine connected by the same thread that joined us during the drug-free births of Micah and Milla. True joy is not afraid of pain.

This photo hangs above our piano. For a girl who swore by the moon that she would never marry and a man intent on wandering, "We do" was worth a high five.

P is for Pooka letterbox.

Our Nisse Gnome created his first letterbox and invited his friend Micah to find it, since she was a large part of the inspiration. The letterbox includes a stamp, but you need to bring your own ink and pen. There is also a small collector's item- there will be a collector's item for each box in Nisse Gnome's "Alphabet of Hidden Folks" series. 

How to find the P is for Pooka letterbox:

1. Hudson Strode was a Renaissance scholar who taught at the University of Alabama and made a name for himself teaching creative writing courses that led many southern writers to publication of their first novels. When Prof. Strode passed away, he left his home and his papers to the University. Please be respectful when you hunt because visiting scholars sometimes reside on the grounds.
2. You will begin at the front gate of the Strode home driveway in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Park on the street. Then stand in front of the historical sign marker and face the sign as if you were reading it.
3. Turn a complete half circle to the right so that you are facing a large meadow. Begin walking in the direction of this meadow in a straight line from the half-circle turn.
4. Keep walking straight and you will pass two small trees on the right. Keep going and you will pass another tree on the right which was struck by lightning. You should be a little more than halfway across the meadow now.
5. Continue in the same direction and you will see another tree to your right as you near the edge of the field. Walk up to this tree but keep it on your right side. 
6. With this tree on your right, turn a full half-circle to the left and take 19-25 steps towards a large overhanging bush.
7. Look underneath the bush close to the trunk. Please cover with leaves and a bit of straw after you have stamped the logbook.

 

Exploring nonsense verse and funny poetry.

Our study of limericks and Edward Lear led us to naturally to a place where Max wanted to learn more about "funny poems" and inventing your own words in poetry. 

The best way to study poetry is to engage it completely by reading it again and again. We read the following:

1. My Pet Germs by Kenn Nesbitt
2. The Mule by Ogden Nash
3. The Mule by Douglas Florian
4. Today is Very Boring by Jack Prelutsky
5. I Lost My Invisible Puppy by Jack Prelutsky
6. The Jumblies by Edward Lear
7. Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat by Lewis Carroll
8. The Crocodile by Lewis Carroll

And then we strolled through each poem again, scoping out the scenes and sets like naturalists in a new ecosystem. Each poem has its own background, its own creatures, its own verities unique to its world.

"My Pet Germs" combines a simple rhyme scheme with a fun idea- the thought of germs as pets- to create a poem you can enjoy. Nesbitt uses words like "epidermis" to lighten the mood; using scientific jargon is a clever way to add humor to a poem, especially when it seems silly.

• Make a list of ten scientific terms that sound funny to you and save them for later when we write funny poems. They can be a great resource. 

"The Mule" poems describe interesting aspects of an animal, the mule, using few words and great rhymes. A rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyme, one that is consistent throughout the poem. Poems that rhyme without any regular pattern can be called rhyming poems, but only those poems with an unvarying pattern to their rhymes can be said to have a rhyme scheme. For example, a very simple rhyme scheme is used in Nash's mule poem- he uses AA. Both lines rhyme.

Generally, Ogden Nash liked to use the AABB rhyme scheme. Douglas Florian uses an AAAA rhyme scheme for his mule poem. You can explore rhyme schemes further or, if you understand how they are noted with letters, you can try your hand at the activity.

• Write your own short and sweet mule poem using an AABB rhyme scheme or an AAAA rhyme scheme.

"Today Is Very Boring" pokes fun at the idea of being "bored". Prelutsky is pointing out that it isn't the day that is boring but rather the child who sees it as boring. I like to tell my kids- There are no boring moments, only bored people. Prelutsky starts with a statement and then uses his entire poem to show how it isn't true. 

• Can you trace Prelutsky's rhyme scheme in this poem?

"I Lost My Invisible Puppy" makes use of the rhyme scheme ABCB and words that mean of the opposite of what the narrator in the poem is trying to say. By the end of the poem, we realize that you can't lose a puppy you could never really see in the first place. 

• Make a list of the adjectives and words Prelutsky uses to suggest how invisible this puppy must truly be. 
• Jack Prelutsky, king of funny poetry, explains how to write a funny poem in this handout. Write your own funny poem using his recipe.

"The Jumblies" describes a fantastic adventure of Lear's invented characters, the Jumblies, in a drain sieve. Lear invents his own words to fit his invented characters. He also makes a lovely illustration to help us imagine the Jumblies.

• Make a list of Lear's invented words and try to define them.
• Create an encyclopedia entry for "Jumblies". Look in an encyclopedia for examples.
• Write your own poem that invents characters which live in the gutters of you home or apartment and only come out when it rains and they are "washed" out. Invent your own words and verbs to describe their actions.

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Bat" is Lewis Carroll's take on a classic poem by Jane Taylor. Carroll pens a funny poem by merely substituting a few of his own words for words like "star" and "are". He maintains the AABB rhyme scheme.

• Sing Carroll's version of the classic poem to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".
• Write you own twinkle poem that begins "Twinkle, twinkle little....." and keep to the AABB rhyme scheme.

"The Crocodile" uses the last line of the poem as a punchline. We are surprised to learn what he does with the fish. The ABAB rhyme scheme gives the poem a fun reading rythm, while Carroll's personification of the crocodile makes him come alive as an image.

• Print and color this page with Carroll's crocodile.
• Try to write your own rhyming poem that personfies an animal and ends with a funny or surprising punch line.

Logo contest for Friends of Hurricane Creek.

The Friends of Hurricane Creek need a new logo- a logo worth posting on fliers, handouts, websites, and tshirts. Please try your hand at designing one for the $100 prize and the satisfaction of adding your design genius to an oning effort to preserve local ecology.

Contest rules. Deadline is extended until we receive the perfect logo.

Our creekkeeper, John Wathen, would like for the alligator snapping turtle with cadysfly larva to be incorporated somehow. They represent the top and bottom of the food chain in Hurricane Creek. Here is a photo of the snapper and the larva:

If you haven't "liked" the Facebook page yet, your "like" means a lot to us. It also gives you information about upcoming events, contestsm clean-ups, and creek-related activities. 

104 printable freebies better than....

 A free mp3 to play while you browse, dawdle, and print.

HOMEMADE WINE - The Ozark Mountain Daredevils (mp3)

I love how the web allows me to print so many things I could never find in our local bookstores or boutiques. Too bad we always seem to be out of printer ink. Next time I get that ink cartridge refilled, these pages will be inching out of Sally, our discombobulated first-wave feminist printer. But only if Sally agrees. Sometimes I do so wish Sally would get with the times.... Why does my printer have to be waves behind?

On a different note, you know I love you if I link to you. Please excuse the rush which kept me from typing out individual website names for all the amazing creators and creatives that make this world a prettier place. 

1. Winter birds perfect for garland.
2. Math benchmark activites. 
3. Robot coins.
4. 2011 calendar to print and doodle with special days you remember, fun trips, and memories from the year going by.
5. Traveling seeds lesson plan. 
6. Fall poems.
7. How to write a funny poem by Jack Prelutsky.
8. Whimsical watercoloring pages. Or that's how I would use them.
9. DIY origami heart love note.
10. Thanksgiving printable rings.
11. Hidden picture color by numbers.
12. I love fall.
13. ASL flashcards.
14. Make your own board game.
15. Alphabet adventure book. 
16. How to make friends with old socks activity sheet.
17. Coloring page background for sock monster show.
18. Color theory handout in the ABCs of Art Theory.
19. I am poem activity.
20. Summer fruit labels and gift tags.
21. Canning party printables.
22. Mini notebook cover.
23. Lemonade attaches.
24. Teacup notecard.
25. Muppet puppets plus tutorial for muppet theater.
26. Paper airplane cards.
27. Beautiful bookplates.
28. Emily Dickinson quote and illustration by Sarah Parrott.
29. Feed your soul art downloads so pretty I couldn't pick.
30. Backpack activity.
31. Happy tickets to work with Dr. Sears' rewards.
32. Peanut butter loves jelly mini notebook and card.
33. Beirut zoetrope for Elephant Gun.
34. Stitch it up baby stationary set.
    
35. September calendar shadowbox.
    
36. Quiltalogue, a mini glossary of quilt terms.
    
37. M is for mouse preschool printables.
38. Pros and cons planner.
39. Fox bookmark.
40. L is for leaf preschool printables.
41. Lowercase alphabet color by number alphabet.
42. Bookworm booklet.
43. Clone trooper stencil.
44. Lovebirds CD cover.
45. Monsieur and madame gift tags.
46. Personal library kit.
47. Daily reading logs. 
48. Guide to drawing the body. 
49. 1 inch printable math circles. Or coasters.
50. Tu bishvat activity book. 
51. Milk carton stationary set.
52. Places to go journaling page.
53. Je t'aime coffee cup wrappers because there should be more than one valentine a year.
54. Castle peeps book plates.
55. DIY citrus stripe boxes.
56. Greek alphabet blocks just because.
57. Sewn with love gift tags.
58. Jingerup recycling labels to stick on things.
59. Clean-cut paper dolls that you can design.
60. ABC cards, a clever sweet gift.
61. Nabiki party envelopes and invitations.
62. Party and hooray gift tags.
63. Illustrated recipe cards.
64. Pie addict badges.
65. Felt shapes and robots template.
66. Mountains into molehills worksheet for people of all shapes and sizes.
67. Don't eat Pete game.
68. Small plant markers. 
69. Party guest book.
70. Bird love letters, adult version.
71. Bird love letters, munchkin version.
72. Finger print cards.
73. Vintage youngster yardstick to measure lil' ladies.
74. Sheet music for "Proud Like A Mountain".
75. Animal sewing cards.
76. Iron-on robot and owl. 
77. Weather coloring zine.
78. Bottle cap labels or little circles with numbers 1-50 to use with kids.
79. Moustaches and other dandy photo booth props.
80. Olliegraphic thank you cards.
81. Stumpy November mini calendar.
82. 60 ways to build community.
83. How to really love motherhood.
84. A week in the life sheets.
85. Sweet sketchy gift tags.
86. Magnetic lunch chart. 
87. Vintage concentration game.
88. Dress-up paper doll for all ages.
89. Camilla Engman holiday tags.
90. Kids luggage tags which I should get around to making.
91. Made with love jam topper for all your canning needs.
92. Humpback whale handout.
93. What's in that habitat activity.
94. How to draw Halloween characters.
95. Everything you need for a rollerskating monster party. Or just a monster party.
96. Free People September calendar because every single remaining day should be marked with beauty.
97. How to make a teepee activity sheet.
98. Bug hunt activity sheet.
99. Daily reading logs.
100. Little paper houses to hang from trees.
101. This belongs to tag.
102. Gnome favor tags.
103. Rustic woodsy numbers set. 
104. Love and thanks card. Love and thanks to all who share their gifts with us.

Playing in Pontulia with leaf-boats.

The rains brought forth the magical kingdom of Pontulia again yesterday. So we took a breath between showers to go outside and celebrate. 

Pontulia only appears in a little dip in our driveway after thunderstorms and rain dumps, and Pontulia only lasts for a few hours. These are the hours we can't afford to miss. 

Yesterday in Pontulia, there was a boat-race. The boats included leaves of various sizes, shapes, and colors plucked from the magnolia tree.

As Max arranged the boats to prepare for their race, Micah stomped around and added the challenge of waves for the boats.

The weather in Pontulia was so choppy that rescue flotilla boats had to come out and try to rescue some of the boats capsized by the tremendous waves of Monsoon Micah. This morning, Pontulia is gone and the it seems impossible that the magnolia leaves strewn across the driveway were yesterday involved in sailing races on storm-laden seas....

"The Swing", a limerick by Max Coryell.

Hanging out in our massive magnolia tree between rain showers.

THE SWING 

There was a young boy named Max,

Who had a swing made of wax;

    But when he jumped off,

    He flipped and he coughed,

And landed straight on some tacks.

    - Max Coryell (a.k.a. Nisse Gnome)

You can download and print your own I LOVE LIMERICKS LESSON PLAN created with love by yours truly. Max had a great time with it this afternoon and did plenty of limerick writing. My unsung love affair with Edward Lear is written all over it. Anyone whose name rhymes with "queer" is bound to be a dear, 'tis clear.

Not to mention if you've never seen his illustrations and botanical discoveries, including the famous Manypeeplia Upsidownia....

Chinese hanging lantern craft.

SUPPLIES

• A 12x18 sheet of construction paper, cardstock, or watercolor paper 
• 3 pieces of string, twine, or yarn about 1 ft long
• White masking tape or clear packing tape
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Hole-puncher
• Pencils
• Watercolors
• Strip of fabric scrap (optional)

MAKE A CHINESE HANGING LANTERN

Begin by drawing or sketching Chinese ornamentation on a sheet of paper. This is an opporunity to explore the intricate designs and ornamentation of Chinese art and illustration. You can use books for inspiration. Explain to your children how the paper will be rolled into a lantern so a drawing of a ship won't show up as a ship. Flowers, vines, rocks, skinny little trees with flowering branches, birds, and Chinese lettering are great motifs for your Chinese lantern. 

Max used a book of Chinese fairy tales to find inspiration. He sketched blackbirds and rocks.

Once you have decided on a motif, you can use watercolor paints to add color to your drawing. Then hang your painting up to dry and wait a few hours before continuing.

Once the paper has competely dried, fold the paper in half lengthwise with the painting on the inside. 

Use a ruler and a pencil to lightly draw a straight line 1 1/2 inch from the open edges of the paper. This will be the stopping line when you are cutting the openings for the lantern. 

Starting at the folded edge, use scissors to cut a straight line up to the stopping mark. Keep making similar cuts that are spaced about an inch apart.

Now you are ready to put your lantern together. Unfold the paper and fold it lengthwise again, only this time make sure the painting is on the outside. This folding will allow your lantern to billow outwards. Now use a piece of tape at each end to connect the uncut edges to form the top and bottom of the lantern. 

Use your hole-puncher to make 3 evenly-spaced holes around the top edge of the lantern. Then tie a piece of string through each hole in the lantern connect all the strings at the top with a strip of scrap fabric. And hang it somewhere special.

How to use a pick-up truck.

Thanks to Mike for the demo.

One of the reasons I love living in Alabama.

It has nothing to do with football and everything to do with storytelling, kinship networks, folk art, and happenstance. Mr. Kenneth "Skip" Henry, the oldest son in a family of 12 children, dropped by to see if our home could use some exterior paint. What began as a brief chat stretched into an hour-long discussion about life, family, faith, entrepreneurship, and Skip's brief foray into folk art. 

You see, Skip had a friend named Jimmy Lee Sudduth. Jimmy just so happened to become a well-known folk-artist who made more money than he ever wanted or imagined. (Skip said Jimmy didn't care about the money for money's sake- he liked the money for all the people it kept around him.) All the striving hipsters in Tuscaloosa crave a Sudduth for their dining rooms, but it is in a hipster's nature to crave and all this craving is neither here nor there. Speaking of there, let's get back to it.

Sometimes Skip would go and get mud for Jimmy. Legend has it that Jimmy could squeeze 36 colors from the dirt, mud, and rocks he gathered from his yard and fields in the surrounding area. To create additional colors, he mixed these pigments with house paint and occasionally with juices from leaves, grass, and berries, as well as soot from his chimney and leftover pieces of chalk. By applying these mixes with his forefinger and thumb, Sudduth made his "mud pictures." Sometimes he did other things, like burning parts of the wooden backgrounds for his paintings or carving into the wood with a knife or even scratching details into the surface of the mud.

A painting by Jimmy Lee Sudduth.

Jimmy always encouraged Skip to try his hand at painting, and Skip always found a good reason to put it off. One day, when he stopped by Jimmy's house, Skip found a piece of wood with what looked like the beginnings of a female form on it. So Skip decided to take it inside and give the painting a try. As he painted a woman, none other than Oprah Winfrey began to peer out at him from his painting. So he added a microphone to keep the Oprah spirit in the painting happy. And then he left it in the studio.

The next time he dropped by, Jimmy was smiling big. He told Skip that someone had come in and taken a painting (stolen, taken, nabbed, something...) and it just so happened to be Skip's painting. They chuckled and expressed surprise over this event, and Skip didn't think much of it for the next fifteen years.

Then, one day many years later, after Jimmy had passed away and Skip had spoken at his funeral (or maybe it was a home-going), Skip was in downtown Tuscaloosa. He stopped by Chuck's Fish and he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the spirit of Oprah staring back at him from the restaurant wall. It was his painting! How on earth do you start that conversation with the restaurant managers? How do you tell them that you painted that "Sudduth" on their wall and then the rest of the amazing story that has everything except a technicolor dreamcoat?

I loved talking to Skip- loved the way in which he acknowledges children as little people (rather than the common expression of polite annoyance). Skip Henry is more than just an accidental folk artist. He is also the owner of Sticky City Painting on Greensboro Avenue and the inventor of the Sticky Grip golf glove. Because Skip is the kind of man that doesn't do just one thing- and he's the kind of neat person you just happen to meet on a mosquito-frenzied afternoon in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And he's the kind of person you should hire to paint your house if you like painters with a little folk-artist-inventor inside. I sure do.

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.

Or something equally profane in meteorological terms. We took a few minutes to watch the cars and clouds and dogs strut by. Max did some journaling about an incredible letterboxing cache he is planning. He looks so much like 7-year-old-Alina in this photo because that Alina always bit her tongue between her teeth when writing in her journal.

My Grand Bunicu used to tell me that I'd get "a nest of flies on the tongue" if I didn't put it back in my mouth. Little did he know the amazing images my young mind conjured when the words "a nest of flies on the tongue" were uttered in the magical Romanian language. Compared to English (or American), the language of Sunday school and multiple-choice tests and reasonable expectations, Romanian was the secret, magical tongue- the language in which there were words and places and feelings that could not pass over the border into my America, the language of romance and history and smoky rooms. I wonder if the children will pick up a smattering of Romanian when we visit next month. I wonder what they think- what Romanian evokes- when it slips over their auditory nerves.

Max works on his letterboxing acrostic.

Micah and Milla and their latest debate.

Today's favorite toy.

A visit with Emma Goldman.

Okay, so maybe it was not Emma Goldman, but it was an enchanting little creature whose parents named her after Emma Goldman and whose younger brother, Noam, was named after Noam Chomsky. Why does it comfort me to know that there are anarcho-syndicalists in Alabama? Knowing I am not alone in my deepest hopes and aspirations for our world...

Emma and Micah.

Where the wind goes, Micah doesn't want to know. She prefers to steer.

Then someone spotted a yellow butterfly....

Emma runs to catch "Daffodil", the yellow butterfly.

The Tuscaloosa Poems for Peace Prize.

Circles of Peace is sponsoring a Poems for Peace Prize which awards $200 to two creative young people who write interesting, moving, and poignant poems on the topic of peace and peacemaking. Share near and far within 50 miles of Tuscaloosa County line. Hey, that's far enough for some folks down here...

The art of natural dyeing.

Cobbled Together lit a spark under my kettle last night. As the fall nip sets in, eco-dyeing with the children suits our "study style". Brenna used a recent trip to the rocky coasts of Normany to dye Eco-Colour style with locally sourced fabric, water, rust and plant matter.

Brenna lays out hydrangeas.

The wind fall collection is laid out.

Rolled, twisted, tied with twine, and boiled.

Resurrection Fern's mushrooms ready for spore printing.

The world of eco-dyeing is as large and unbound as the upcycling century. There is so much to learn and play, and so many mavens willing to share and teach. 

• Brenna eco-prints linen with copper coins.
• Lisa's expertise with mushroom dyeing warms the spirit here and here and here
• Tinctory uses ice flowers to lovely effect here and here.
• Judy's goldenrod dye experiments summon the gold.
• Resurrection Fern's dye journals are to die for. As are the entries for her dye journal contest.
• The Natural Dyes Notebook explains rust dyeing and indigo dyeing.
• Lisa shows us how to dye with acorns.
• Tinctory reveals how she uses an indoor fermentation vat to create rich colors.
• Judy brightens old lace with lemon juice and light.
• The Natural Dyeing Network on ning is filled with resources and inspirations- well worth the join.

Linear thinking is a dull spear.

Love letter #18: Anna Botezatu.

I love beauty in its most raw, unadulterated forms. I love the way it enthralls and confuses me- makes the world taste a little different at second glance. As we pack our dreams to include two weeks in Romania next month, the texture of tuica and lace curtains distracts like long eyelashes on an old man. What new art will I find? What will Alice and Remus reveal in the Bucuresti underground? Are Carpati still cheaper than water?

I love Anna Botezatu- her art, her vision, her Romanian mix-and-matchiness, the way the streets smell like peaches and diesel from her windows. I love how she captures the crossholds of tenderness, the way in which even love forces our hands. I love how she takes Romanian folk traditions and rethreads them with pastels too sentimental for the punch required by propaganda. I imagine she makes beautiful flower crowns.

All the pictures and daydreams in this post hatched in her head. You'll have to fish through her blog to find meanings, places, purpose, and lighter fluid. 

Color washed watercolor poetry craft.

Inspiration: The Quill Sisters' beautiful rendition of "The Lion".

Reading poetry brings out vivid images and colors, especially for children who are often more visually-inclined. This craft emerged from Max's tendency to remark upon the images in Shel Silverstein poems. 

COLORS, a poem by Shel Silverstein

My skin is kind of sort of brownish

Pinkish yellowish white.

My eyes are grayish blueish green,

But I'm told they look orange in the night.

My hair is reddish blondish brown,

But it's silver when it's wet.

And all the colors I am inside

Have not been invented yet.

SUPPLIES

• A piece of watercolor paper or card stock
• Watercolor paints, preferably in tubes
• A flexible foam brush
• A tissue paper or napkin
• Black ink pen or skinny black sharpie
• A copy of "Colors" or another brief Silverstein poem with vivid images
• A cup of water
• A cup of coffee for painting and drinking
• Oil pastel crayons

STEPS

First read your poem aloud, listening for its cadence and rhythm. Then write your poem on a piece of watercolor paper or card stock with thick black ink. Use handwriting that reflects the poem's sound to you.

Next choose a background color for your poem from the watercolors. Then dip your foam brush in water and paint and smooth it over the entire page. Notice the lovely variations in color as you wash the color across the page. Using foam brushes with watercolors allows you to make a quick color wash on paper.

Finally use your oil pastel crayons to draw or sketch an image that is communicated to you by the poem. You can draw anything that comes to mind when you read the poem. The pastels can be used on a wet paper- it will actually help them dry more permanently.

When you are finished, hang your poem to dry.

Read them fairytales.

A little Yeats goes a long way, especially since this book clears up the legends surrounding that strange creature called the "banshee".

Strong roots.

The human spirit is blessed with a deep nostalgia. The young setting forth on high adventure feel the need for a point of return-- the need to be rooted somewhere; and the old returning after a long absence are gladdened by a sense of well-being, sweeter because mellowed by the long subconscious craving for home. What subtle blend of sensuous pleasure, inherited attitudes, instinct, and sentiment creates this nostalgia? If it were subject to a scientific analysis or statistical research, we might be amazed to find how potent is its influence in all the affairs of life. Certainly it has profound significance in the arts. It sings in the poetry of Whittier, Lanier, Sandburg, and glows from the canvases of Winslow Homer, Grant Wood, Millard Sheets. It is the source of cowboy ballads, Negro spirituals, Navajo weaving, the designs on Pennsylvania Dutch furniture-- all the folk arts and their products so eagerly collected today.

Marjorie Medary in an essay entitled "Roots"