Potty Training

I am finally going to do it. After the agony of potty training my 4 year old boy (with only weeks until the beginning of pre-school), I am ready to work on Livy, my 3 year old. She was ready when Liam was but I couldn't bear to go through one more day of a toddler peeing in my trash can. So she waited.

Now she's 3 and most of her 2 year old friends are successfully trained. I feel lazy and almost like I've missed a sure fire chance to get it done fast - when she was interested because Liam was doing it. Oh well, what's in the past ...

Liam was very stubborn and in the end the only thing that worked to completely potty train him was the star chart.

For every pee in the potty - 1 star

For every poo in the potty - 2 stars

Every blatant accident removed a star

10 stars = a Transformer

We bought 4 Transformers and we were done by the 3rd. I couldn't believe it was that easy.

With Livy, I'm heading straight for the chart. This time I got a little creative with it - oddly creative in fact. She doesn't care what it looks like - nobody does in fact - except me because I wanted a fast project while the kids colored. If I had thought about it, I would have laminated it and used it for other things, like encouraging Liam to sleep in his bed all night instead of the couch. That has been an epic battle.

I whipped this up using bits of old maps for the days, thick white paper for the white banding, 2 thick craft colored papers taped together for the base sheet, a sharpie, and several stamps I carved but never used for anything. Everything was purposely done by hand, eyeballed, and without a straight edge - I just didn't feel like making this a masterpiece. After all, its to record pee and poo, but hopefully exciting enough to get her running to the pot.

Ball of yarn #3

I've taught myself how to spin yarn.  I thought about how satisfying it would be to actually make the yarn I'm knitting with - especially for a gift.  Now that's a gift that says "I love you".  Next I'll probably buy the sheep and start from the absolute beginning.  I would if I had the space.

Anyway, the spindle and fleece came in the mail on Saturday .  I've spent a good deal of time practicing already and its not easy to get the right tension and to join pieces.  I am an absolute klutz with the spindle.  

This is the third ball of yarn I've made.  They've all come out a little different.  The soft alpaca fibers were so luxurious to spin.  It came out super thick, extra soft, but a little loose.   I really like the feel of it.  I'm still working at it and sort of addicted to it.

(Saturday was a very good mail day as a package from Melisa of Tiny Happy also came.  I will show off the contents of that package in a separate post)

Beauty and Inspiration in a Parking Lot

During my employment as a landscape architect and planner, I designed my fair share of parking lots. Small, large, paved, gravel. I'm here to tell you, as if you didn't already know, that there is nothing glamourous about designing a parking lot - or being in one for that matter.  

The grey and black asphalt grows so hot during the summer that you can actually see the heat rising. The bays, sectioned by fading white lines, are stained by oil slicks and residual AC fluid. Traffic jams. Competition for spaces. Paying for a space.

I write this blog to remind me that even when the whole of something is mundane or ugly, elements of it can be beautiful and inspiring. A parking lot is hardly inspiring, but smaller vingettes within a parking lot, really set my mind in motion - the way the lines make patterns on the ground, the arc of the trees grown to provide shade, the subtle changes in shades of grey. 

This is true in reverse when we create.  Sometimes we find ordinary items -  ribbons, buttons, paper.  We examine, rearrange, and choose a composition for the pieces and, whatever it is, it really satisfies our need to make something beautiful to us.  The pieces ordinary pieces inspire us to create a more beautiful whole.

My point is - whether you deconstruct something unappealing or make something new from ordinary parts, there is can be beauty and inspiration.  It all depends on how you decide to look at it.   

A Gift for No Reason

I haven't knitted in quite some time.  For some reason, lately I've felt driven to pick up the sticks and some nice yarn and complete something.  (It must have been sparked by my recent work with wool roving for needle felting). 

I found some variegated Kettle-Dyed Malabrigo 100% merino wool in a shade of red and pink that was like butter to handle.  It is my new favorite yarn - not that I've knitted with a wide variety or anything.  Buying yarn without a purpose is my usual M.O. and it often ends up tucked away in a box along with my guilt for not finding a project for it.

This time I found a very do-able pattern in Last Minute Knitted Gifts, a pattern which I will not divulge until the recipient has been gifted.  A hint about my methods:  I used double strands through out with a large diameter needle which made it a quick knit and so, so soft.  This is now my favorite way to knit.

This project was one of the most satisfying to knit as it was not intended as a birthday or Christmas gift - a gift for no other reason but to say I love you.

Pre-packaged Crafts for Kids

The kids love glitter and were not disappointed by Martha Stewart's pre-packaged, pre-stickies (no glue) mobiles.

I am usually a purist and like to search the dregs of the junk drawer, the recycle bin, and my art bin from school so the kids can really use their imaginations. I love to see what escapes from their heads, chocked full of ideas.

There is something to be said, however, about a pre-planned project where one can follow the directions or make them up. If the direction option chosen, valuable lessons can be learned by selecting the correct pieces and carefully placing them in the designated spots.

Either way, at the end is something worked on together and the satisfaction, for both parties, of having finished something you started out to do.

Snow Women

I've noticed recently that during particularly difficult rough patches, I am ferociously creative. Doodles and drawings pile up next to patterns and books on my desk. If I can get to the computer, I run through the blogs, listed at right, just to see what they've made. It's as though I MUST make something.

The kids are allowed to use almost anything inside the art drawer (except playdough) in the hopes that I can steal a little more time with the pen and paper and, more importantly, that I can teach them to love creating too.

Part of the "great make" this time includes The "snow women". I've been drawing them, sewing by hand and machine from handmade and dyed wool felt. Making the felt is almost as satisfying as creating something from it.

Each is different from the last - evolving into something more my style each time. The first and third prototypes were bundled and bound in layers of overcoats and sweaters.

The second, the "English Nanny", got away with overcoat only as Livy stole her from my desk before I could finish the hat and scarf. She did return it briefly only so I could add the missing face, but she is still being snuggled as I type.

For now, I'm hoping the need to create will subside. I love making and get great satisfaction from it. But, I don't like feeling of being bound by a need that I can never satiate - like a thin coat on a cold day that doesn't quite keep you warm.

Pants

My three-and-a-half year old decided to dress himself today.  He's never shown any interest in self-dressing before, so I haven't made him do it.  He had no problem with the shirt, but the pants...  

This afternoon, in his room by himself, he took every pair of pants he had out of the closet, made a pile in the living room and tried on each on very methodically.  Most were backwards at first, then the waist band scrunched up around his belly.  And then all at once, he got it.  He has hit a milestone:  learning to put on one's own pants.

I've been wanting to come up with a few designs for the store that I can reproduce in several sizes.  So far I've had no luck finding a template for pants.  By template I mean that I like to find a pattern I can use just for sizing, but alter it until its sufficiently different.  

So far, I've failed miserably.  The monologue in my head is decidedly negative.  Etsy sales are miserably slow and I don't have any "signature" items I offer consistently in the shop.  Everything is a unique item that I don't feel like making again.  I see other shops selling the cutest kids clothes - at least a few items a day - everyday and it really gets me that I haven't been able to do it myself.

But today, like my son, I hit a milestone.  Finally, a pair of pants I like that I don't mind reproducing.  I am finally confident that I can reliably and consistently reproduce a design that actually appeals to me.   Although I used a pattern for a template, it was altered to make a new size and slightly new style.  

Even better, I have corrected my sizing problem.  The first time I make something, I always shoot for a 2T because I can try it out on Liv.  Lately though everything I make has been turning out too big.   OK, I don't really measure my seam allowances and err on the side of too big so she can grow into things.  This time I "eye-balled" it and then decreased it to what I thought was too small *POOF*  it fits.

Also on the pants front, Liv learned to take off her own pants.  Something I really don't want her to do, but a milestone for her none the less.

Inspiration in from "Ranger Rick"

The copy of "Ranger Rick" was devoured by my son and daughter; the November issue I think.  As I was cleaning up the mass of magazines I notice this article and wondered why it took me until January to find it.  In case you don't know "Ranger Rick" is a kids magazine on wildlife published by the National Wildlife Foundation.  Its been around since I was little, but now I wondered "when did it become so cool?"

Each bug is made from a metal part of something:  trumpet mouthpieces, change purse skeletons, old silverware, car parts, ashtrays, and just about anything else metal.  Look at these photos carefully and you'll see what I mean.  This artist is fabulous.  If I could only find the "Ranger Rick"  I found him in, I'd tell you his name...  I'll work on that.

Now thats inspiration for makers, hackers, and craftsters alike - and found in a kids magazine!  I've got to keep my eyes much more open from now on.

"Dwell" on it

I am a magazine-aphile with an appetite for design and craft magazines.  I devour them.  It is a mandatory stop in almost any store so you might see columns like this every once in a while on Plainly Jane Handmade.  I like to share what inspires me, makes me think, or is just plain innovative.

Today...  Dwell (dec./jan.).

For my inner-crafter...    

For woodsmen whose facial hair isn't quite up to snuff.  This woolen knit cap is by Icelandic design collective Vik Prjonsdottir.

The landscape architect in me finds this two-for-one quite interesting.  Is it a fence or is it climber?  I suppose it depends on the user.  Bends and bulges make fine places for children to play or for adults to, literally, park it.  Produced by Tejo Remy and Rene Veenhuizen .

A shadow of what used to be.  In Montreal, its painfully obvious what existed before this parking lot and its tiny shack.  I love the evolution of old cities and how unintentionally their character is sometimes developed.  Photo by Matthew Monteith.

I love the grocery store, but I'd move in if it looked like this one.  This MPreis is situated in Wenns in the Alps and was designed by Astrid Tschapeller and Rainer Koberl.  Dwell: "By virtue of progressive architecture, excellent siting, and stunning environs, MPreis elevates an often mundane fact of daily life."  Way to take advantage of the natural landscape.

 

After grocery shopping, I'd serve dinner on these plates.  City Plates collection by notNeutral turns cartography into stunning dinnerware.  Not only interesting to the landscape architect or urban planner, but mighty crafty as well.