Saturday, November 15, 2008

Caps, Caps, and Caps

For days now, I have had this kind of crazy headache that also makes me feel like I am sort of observing everything, but not really connecting with it, like I'm just sort of visiting inside my skin--pending psychotic break? Brain tumor? I dunno, but I can sure tell you that I haven't been the life of the last couple of parties I've been to.

That being said, this weekend, excruciating headache and psychotic break and all, I've still been to a couple of parties, and a soap-making workshop where I met an awesome blog friend and bought some lye, and I've read a hundred picturebooks to little girls and fed them soup and oatmeal and macaroni & cheese, and graded homework, and made caps. And more caps. A lot of caps, really. Is that another symptom of a pending psychotic break?

I started making caps inspired by SouleMama's Mama to Mama site, which is collecting newborn caps for safe birthing kits to give to moms in Haiti, and remembering both a simple little cap pattern I made up when Syd was small, and a stash of jersey tubes given to me by a friend I met at a craft fair, I sewed up these ones for Haiti while Syd napped and Willow wrote up a list of friends to invite to a party (Planning theoretical parties is a hobby of hers), often consulting me on spelling tips ("Does Owyn's name start with a blue letter or a purple one?" Hmmm): They were so easy that I figured I'd use up the rest of my stash of jersey tubes--yay, stash-busting!--so I sewed up some more blank ones for future baby gifts:I can always embroider them in about a minute for a nice, quick gift.

With the scraps I sewed Syd up some doll caps and I experimented by making a cap for myself (Note: This style is NOT attractive on the average adult head). I had much better luck with the black jersey knit: I figured Haitian moms or my mom-friends might not appreciate the stylish chique of a black baby cap as much as I do, so I instead freezer paper-stencilled some dinos on the black ones I made to put up a little later in my etsy shop: Here they are just chilling out on the towel bar in the bathroom while the fabric paint dries, but nonetheless, I'm kind of stoked by their awesomeness.
Of course, though, the whole point of any crafty excursion is to Make. Stuff. For. My. Girls. So yeah, they got caps. Caps to wear inside while rockin' the Goodwill Outlet Store marble maze with Dadda.
Caps with freezer paper stencils of every little girl's favorite things: ponies and dinosaurs.Little girls in pony caps and little girls in dino caps: do they totally slay you, or what?

P.S. Check out my post about the Caps for Cap-Haitien project over at Crafting a Green World.

5 comments:

Kimberly said...

Yay! I'm terribly shy in person, and it takes a lot for me to make conversation...I'm a little socially awkward sometimes!

Seriously, though, watching that soap making workshop really had me in the mood to make some...but I'm SO into instant gratification (which is why I love jewelry making...in 24 hours I have a gift or something new for myself! Score!) that waiting 6 weeks was really depressing. I really loved the idea of the hot process but it wasn't nearly as "pretty" as the cold processing. So, I didn't buy anything, but that doesn't mean I won't actively seek out a goodwill crockpot to give that hot process a "go" eventually. The lye though? Really scares me with 2 very inquisitive dogs and a 10 month old. :-( This might be an outside summer project.

Abby said...

love the caps!!! also love the record bowl. my brother is going to dig it, for sure.

Anonymous said...

Oh man, was that soaping workshop at Barefoot yesterday? I knew I was forgetting something (actually, I'm forgetting a lot, but such is the burden of being middle-aged). Would have loved to meet you in person and have some soaping fun.

The caps are great and what a wonderful cause they're going to!

julie said...

It's probably because I've never seen a real bar of hot-processed soap, but I had trouble really seeing the difference between it and the cold processed--sure, the stuff that got poured in the mold looked different, but not THAT different. I'm going to try hot processing, anyway, so then I suppose I'll see.

I'm absolutely going to do it out on the back porch, though, and I don't care what the weather is. My kiddos are old enough to watch/mildly assist without stuffing lye into their mouths, but I'm not nearly fastidious enough by nature to take the chance of contaminating my kitchen!

I'm glad you guys like the caps! It's a simple design, but jeez, anything looks good on a baby.

cake said...

i really like those caps! and, congrats on scoring the marble maze at goodwill. marble mazes are cosmo's favorite thing, and he spotted a really nice one at a goodwill a few months ago. it had never been used, had all the pieces, and is now, perhaps his most treasured thing in the world.