Winter Play: Wikki Stix

This winter has seemed to last forever. For instance, as I write this, on the morning of March 6, I'm looking out the window at a few inches of snow. To contrast that, check out my post of March 5, 2012. Take special note of Sydney's bare feet, and the green grass behind her. On March 4, 2011, she's wearing capri leggings and sandals. Today, Syd's wearing clothes upon clothes and snow pants and mittens and a coat and a hat, as I boot her out the door to go appreciate what will SURELY be the last snow of this season.

Surely?

Anyway, one benefit of the winter, I suppose, is that the girls, who normally only play with toy ponies, play silks, and each other, have been rediscovering what a bounty of toys they do, in fact, own. In between pestering the cats, Syd has so far spent a solid week obsessed with this giant Wikki Stix set that her Grandma Beck gave her for Christmas in 2011 and that had remained entirely unopened until last Wednesday:

I was only thoughtful enough to photograph this first exploration, but since then, Syd has learned to create three-dimensional figures with the waxed yarn, and has incorporated them into her play dough and clay sculptures, and has made herself (and me!) several pieces of jewelry, and has added them to her toy ponies as bridles, reigns, unicorn horns, etc. We've also had LOTS of conversations about (her lack of) keeping the darned things contained, as they're slightly sticky, which makes them easy to work with, but also makes them stick to the floor, the carpet, and the bottoms of my feet, and they're easy to cut with scissors, which makes them even more versatile, but also makes them the kind of odd shape that gets stickily stuck inside the vacuum cleaner. I've also come across them abandoned just everywhere, from the bathroom counter to the stereo cabinet.

But keep her happy and busy and engaged, they do! And sneakily, now that I know what Wikki Stix do, I plan to incorporate them into our future lesson plans, as well as introduce some other cool ideas:

• practicing cursive letter formation
• tracing geometric figures
• creating window art
• copying coloring pages set under waxed paper or plastic wrap
• writing the signage for our Science Fair display boards

And then, since the rate of Wikki Stix attrition is high (when I find a Wikki Stix in the bathroom, or sticking to the bottom of my sock, I do NOT return it to its owner), I think I'm going to figure out how to make my own.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: Postage Stamp Quilts and Handmade Memory Games

a tutorial for piecing a postage stamp quilt

and a round-up of handmade memory games, including this felt and fabric scrap one that I've been working on:

I do love them (since I have a ton of that ecru felt, I'm looking forward to adding to the game using new scraps whenever I sew), but I have to say that they're highly engineered and really fiddly and time-consuming to create. I really regret deciding to make multiple sets all at once (one for us, one as a big sibling gift for two of the girls' friends, and one extra), as I am WEARY of the ironing, trimming, sewing, trimming, ironing, sewing, and trimming, and I'm going to have to force myself to complete at least that second set before we see our friends later this week.

Now the two baby gifts that I also need to make, neither of which I've decided upon yet? THAT I'm looking forward to creating!

Ending the Season on a High

Ice skating season is over in our little town, alas. I dreaded its passing this year, because the girls and I enjoy it SO much. It was also the first year that the three of us really took advantage of the nearly abandoned weekday afternoon skating hours, sometimes just the three of us, sometimes with a huge passel of friends, and so we'll all have that to miss.

But before the rink closed, we had one more date at the rink with all our friends:

The kids reached the tween-ish milestone of getting chastised over the intercom by the staff, although they were unable to appreciate such a distinction since the intercom only sounds like "Mwa-wa-wa-WA!" on the ice. It meant, however, "Stop darting around in all directions like maniacs before you kill each other!", and so order was somewhat restored. Although for a while there was an IU hockey player skating around before his practice began, and I swear that he was using our children as obstacles to slalom around at the last millisecond while skating a million miles an hour.

At least that was AFTER the children had stopped darting around the ice in all directions like maniacs.

The majority of the week, however, was spent in daily rehearsals for the Spring Ice Show. The kids were champs about all the work involved in being in the show, and were pretty great, if I do say so myself, in their performance, set to a confusing mash-up of the Hawaii Five-Oh theme song and a Hawaiian hula number. The children themselves, although garbed in grass skirts and with flowers pinned to their hair, did their usual Alpha-level skills of crossovers, glides, snowplow stops, and touching their toes while skating, while also skating in lines, circles, and figure eights, and at one point doing, inexplicably, the macarena. In my video of the performance, you can hear me laughing during that part--oops!

In other words, it was marvelous.

And thus the season ended, as all sporting seasons should, with medals--


--and milkshakes.

This is Why I Can't Get Anything Done

I've been doing a LOT of sewing lately...skirts, our fashion show dress, another dress, bloomers, two sets of fabric matching games, and after I finish the matching games I'm going to start on a couple of T-shirt baby bibs.

My sewing would go a lot more efficiently, however, if it wasn't for a certain cat named Spots:

This most gregarious cat will begin the morning by making the rounds of the neighborhood, catching one neighbor before he leaves for work in the morning and actually going into another neighbor's house, she confessed to Matt the other day. Who knows where else she goes and whom else she visits?

When her morning work is done, she climbs onto our porch railing, reaches out and puts her front paws on the living room windowsill, and stands there looking at us until someone goes to let her in. It never takes long, because a cat's stare through a window is quite disconcerting. Then she'll come find me, wherever I'm working--at the computer, with the girls, at the sewing table--and plop down for a nap in exactly the spot that makes carrying on with my work the most inconvenient. If there's no likely spot, she'll climb onto my shoulders, switch from shoulder to shoulder in front of my face, and basically refuse to stop until I hold her in my arms like a baby.

And then she purrs, of course.

Ballet at Six

Charlie Brown Circle Skirt

When I'm out thrifting, I collect kids' bedding in novelty patterns. They're actually not terribly common, especially the vintage patterns that I like (can't you just envision all the yuck that can happen to a kid's bed sheet?), but in the time that I've been sewing, some great sheets have come and gone through my sewing stash--Incredible Hulk, Powerpuff Girls, dinosaurs of all sorts, Batman and Robin, Spider-man, Scooby Doo, and who knows what else that I'm not remembering?

I've had a great Peanuts flat sheet in my stash for years, loving it but not sure what to do with it. Eventually my girls, however, who have by this point read every comic strip the library has for Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes, and Garfield, discovered (with a little sneaky Momma influence) Peanuts. They LOVE Charlie Brown and Snoopy, and Lucy and Peppermint Patty and Linus! So the day after I completely finished up Rose Dress, I cut out and started sewing the girls matching circle skirts from this Peanuts sheet. You'd think that I'd want a break from sewing after all that fuss, but I've already got another sewing project lined up immediately after this one, as well, so I suppose not.

Sydney's skirt still needs the elastic added to the waist, but Will's was finished up in time to write a circle skirt tutorial for Crafting a Green World, so instead of waiting for a mitchy-matchy photo shoot, I went ahead and just photographed her:

In trying to get the most use out of the sheet, I'm afraid that I made Willow's skirt a size too large. I'm embarrassed to tell you that I meant for this skirt to be knee-length!

It's not knee-length, and the elastic waist is a little roomy, as well:

I really, really like this sheet, though, and I actually really like the size of this skirt because it shows off all the little scenes on the sheet so well:

Willow likes the skirt, too, but after a muddy afternoon at the park she did tell me that the skirt "didn't feel like play clothes."

Ah, well. I'll put it back in her wardrobe one more time, but if it still feels a little awkward to her, then I guess that's why I keep a Next Size Up bin!

Rose Dress: Our 2013 Trashion/Refashion Show Entry

I took the bones of Sydney's design, made lots of false starts and took lots of wrong paths, then finally just sat down with an old red silk sheet (complete with Sharpie stains) and spent two solid days at the sewing machine creating Rose Dress:

I've already written about the construction of the dress, so now I just get to show it off, from top--

to bottom:

front--

back--

--and sides:

Thank goodness I had just enough fabric left for those bloomers!

Unlike last year's garment, which wasn't exactly play clothes, I wanted this dress to be something that Sydney could wear whether or not we're accepted into the fashion show, and all spring and summer after the fashion show is over. To that end, I tried to make the dress comfy and soft, light and sturdy, with as few seams and fussy bits as possible:

I'll just put snaps on these shoulder straps when the "fashion" work is over, and the dress will be ready for play!

Fortunately, we already discovered that the dress plays pretty well just as it is: