Homemade Leggings for Nearly All of Us

Because Matt said that he didn't want leggings, the silly boy. Leggings are way more comfortable than basketball shorts and tracksuit bottoms, Dude!

I just want to say right off that you don't sew your own leggings to save money. Sweatshop leggings bought from big-box clothing stores that earn an F on their Fair Trade practices are waaaaay cheaper. Like, WAY cheaper. And when I can find thrift store leggings that don't have holes or grass stains, I snatch those babies up!

So why DO you sew your own leggings?

So that you can make dreams like this come true for your kid:



I mean, it helps if your kid's dream is to own leggings made from holographic blue mermaid scale fabric...

This particular fabric (actually, as is all of the fabric that I'm going to show you) is from Spandex World. Yes, I shopped at an online store named Spandex World. I really liked them for this project, in particular, because they offer the stretch percentages for many of their fabrics. If you're just starting to sew leggings, so you can't yet tell what will work just by feel, that's even more helpful than shopping in person in a place where that info isn't offered, in my opinion.

Also, I feel like half the craft bloggers out there have a free leggings "tutorial," but they generally all consist of "Step #1: Trace around a pair of leggings that you already own. Step #2: Sew those leggings," and I call hijinks. That nonsense works for little kids, when their bodies are just straight little noodles, but it's not happening for tweens, teens, and adults.

My own personal Step #1 was to search for a digital pattern that I liked, and buy it. For Syd's leggings, I bought the Felicity Sewing Patterns Children's Leggings pattern, and I'm perfectly happy with it. I had to fiddle with it a bit--which is another thing that's MUCH better than "trace your clothes," because with a real pattern, it's so much easier to make the waist a size 10 and the length a size 12, with a low-rise waist, like so:

Here are my new favorite things about sewing leggings:

1. You don't have to hem the bottom of full-length leggings. I do hem the bottom of the biker shorts that I've made Syd, but when they're ankle length, I think they look nice unhemmed.
2. There's only one pattern piece. It's super quick to cut out.
3. They sew up so quickly! Yesterday, I was able to whip up a new pair of leggings for myself in the hour between when we got home from the apple orchard and when I had to leave for the Girl Scout volunteers meeting, and that included the time  that it took for Syd to dress her doll in a complete outfit to complement the doll leggings that I also sewed in that time and to do a photo shoot of me and the doll wearing our leggings.

Another favorite thing?

This kid was absolutely THRILLED about her new mermaid leggings, and *I* made that happen!

I wanted to do a photo shoot of Syd's new leggings, because if I'm going to buy the fabric and make them and they're going to turn out awesome then heck, yeah, I'm going to show them off! Excuse how much eye makeup Syd is wearing in these photos, because apparently mermaids just wear a lot of eye makeup.

Do you see how she laid out her play silks to look like a mermaid's fin? This kid.

I don't have an immediate use for four-way stretch fabric scraps, so I've been trying to use up every square inch in this leggings project. There was enough leftover from Syd's full-length leggings to make her a pair of bike shorts--

And you might also have noticed that her American Girl doll has her own pair of mermaid leggings. The American Girl doll leggings pattern is from Artsy-Fartsy Mama, and I've sewn it a billion times now. I don't always put elastic in the waistband, and in consequence, I've cut several inches from the waist of the pattern.

Of course, if I'm going to make special leggings for Syd, then I've got to make leggings for Will, too. Will is probably the worst person to sew leggings for, because she's crazy rough on clothes, and unlike her sister or I, will not take pains to keep something nice. Sigh. Nevertheless, here are her brand-new leggings (along with bike shorts for Syd and leggings for the American Girl doll from the scrap fabric):

Will's pattern is the Patterns for Pirates Peg Legs pattern, which is so good that I absolutely cannot believe that it's free! I would pay good money for such a terrific pattern! There are even free add-ons so that you can do even more cool things to the leggings! The sizes run pretty small, but they go up really high, so it works out. I used an XL for Will, and she claims that it fits well and didn't even want me to put elastic in the waistband.



And here are the leggings that I made for ME!

I need to do some troubleshooting on my pattern, grr. I didn't cut the waistband that it wants you to cut, fold in half, and then attach to the leggings for Will, because I thought I'd end up adding elastic but then she didn't want it, so I forgot all about the waistband for me, and now that my leggings keep wanting to slip down, I'm wondering if duh, that fold-over waistband might have helped! So that will be another little project to try before I'm confident that I'm confident with my own leggings pattern.

Syd, however, loves her doll's new galaxy leggings, which came out just perfect:

Like I said, these are NOT money-saving leggings, but they're not too terribly expensive, either, especially considering that I can make two kid leggings plus one doll pair from one cut of fabric, so there will more than likely be at least one more order from Spandex World in our near future.

After all, they do make that holographic mermaid scale print in several colorways...

AND Syd says that she'd also really like a skater dress, also in mermaid scale fabric, so there's another fun sewing project to get to!

P.S. Want to follow along on more of my crafting adventures? Check out my Craft Knife Facebook page for lots of pics and WIPs!

Bridging, Rededication, and Something Silver

It's a new Girl Scout year, and you know what that means:

A party!

Will was the only Girl Scout in our troop to Bridge this year, and yet it was no problem to get every girl in our sweet, generous Girl Scout troop to come together to celebrate:

Our Bridging ceremony includes one of the girl's parents talking about all that girl has accomplished at that level. Being reminded of everyone's triumphs is my favorite part!

This apparently includes the cat, who also made it into half of the portraits that I took afterwards:

Here's my girl who has two more years of being a Cadette and yet is just one Take Action Project away from earning the Summit Award:

And here is my brand-new Girl Scout Senior!

In her three years as a Cadette, Willow earned 32 badges and completed three Journeys, earning the Summit Award. She beat her own record every cookie season, selling over 800 boxes last season. She served as a page in both the Indiana State House and Senate, performed a flag ceremony at our local women's history month luncheon, and earned both her Leader in Action Award and the President's Community Service Award (under President Obama, of COURSE). 

I couldn't be prouder of these two:

That above photo felt weirdly familiar to me when I looked at it, and then it suddenly occurred to me: Christmas 2013, the year that I enrolled them in Girl Scouts and gave them their brand-new uniforms and Girl Guides as one of their presents:

I promise you that Syd is better versed in the Girl Scout signs and salutes these days...

Anyway, here's the guy who makes all of their big achievements possible:

And here's me, because I do that, too!

Just before our Bridging ceremony, Will finally completed all of the requirements and the application for the Girl Scout Silver Award, the second-highest award in Girl Scouting. She'd been working on this project since last October, and for a while it had been coming together like magic. She built a Little Free Library, negotiated with our local Parks and Recreation Department for permission and help to install it, and got it all set up and loaded with books.

And yet, as I mentioned before, her Little Free Library kept getting vandalized. Someone cracked the back so that she had to replace it. Tore off the door multiple times, so that she eventually had to engineer a different type of door entirely. Every time Will wanted to go check in on it and restock it I dreaded the trip, anticipating whatever would have happened to it this time.

Until she went to restock it the day after we got back from our Canada road trip, and it was gone. Someone had stolen it. They'd torn it completely off the post, even, leaving one of the boards that made the floor behind on the post, so they'd even broken it in the process. Honestly, I think that I was more upset than Will was. It SUCKS to see someone hurting your child's heart and harming their faith in humanity.

Will, fortunately, rebounded quickly. She'd always intended to build and install a second Little Free Library in another park, so this meant that although she wouldn't have the two Little Free Libraries she'd wanted, she at least had a plan in place to have A Little Free Library by the end of her Silver Award project.

She negotiated with Parks and Rec for a second space, and this time, although she still wanted to install her Little Free Library in an economically disadvantaged area, she took care to make sure that it was in a family-friendly location, where there would be a lot of benign foot traffic and watchful parental eyes.

In fact, she installed it right on a playground!

The above photos were Installation Attempt #1, during which time Will discovered that the post was too wide and the Little Free Library wouldn't sit flat on it. So home we went and I brought Will back the next day, this time with a saw!

She'd also brought the dog, but she annoyed me by bringing not the dog's leash, but her tie-out. Will's reasoning was that she'd set Luna up under a nearby tree while she worked, but there was a small child playing pretty much unsupervised on the playground when we got there, which means that if I'd let her put Luna on the tie-out, I'd have had to watch/assist Will AND keep an eye on the dog, who is known to slip her harness occasionally, AND keep an eye on someone else's kid to make sure they didn't pester Luna. Luna is the gentlest dog that I have ever known, but still. You don't leave small kid unattended with dogs.

So I annoyed Will by insisting on holding onto Luna's tie-out while I helped Will, and because she was annoyed, she later admitted to me, she didn't tell me that the way that I was holding the tie-out, which is nothing more than plastic-coated wire, was dangerous. I had it wrapped several times around my hand, and Will knows from her horseback riding lessons that you shouldn't do this.

You know I'm leading up to something, and here it is: the perfect storm. Will was trying to balance her Little Free Library on top of the post so that she could attach it. The small child had taken an interest in us and had come over and asked me if I had ever read Green Eggs and Ham. And someone else at the park was letting their dog run around off-leash. I had my eyes on Will, was distracted by the kid, and the unleashed dog ran right in front of Luna, who lunged after it. She pulled me off my feet--seriously--I'm pretty sure I was entirely airborne for a second--then dragged me by my hand across the grass for a couple of feet until Will could get the Little Free Library put down and come to my assistance.

I have... I guess you'd call it a rope burn combined with a couple of crush injuries? Regardless, it hurt so badly that I had to call Matt and work to come and take over with Will, and I had to retreat to the car and cry. It HURT, and really, I'm just pretty excited that I didn't sprain anything, although it's shaping up to be a quite visible and QUITE ugly scar across the back of my hand.

Whatever. The back of my other hand has a big, ugly scar from a hot glue incident, so this one is at least a little bit more baller.

And look at what Will was able to complete with her father while I sat in the car, elevated my hand, and cried tears of pain:

Beautiful, yes? And a few weeks in, it hasn't been vandalized once, knock on wood! Will goes by to check on it and restock it, but it's clear that the community is also using it. It's just what she wanted.

And just this week Will was notified that with it, she's earned her Silver Award.

I'd say that those were Cadette years well-spent.

Homeschool Science Meteorology Unit: Condensation Demonstrations

Temperature and water are the keys to weather, and modeling how they work on the small scale allows you to more easily use your imagination to see them happening up large in the sky.

Here's where we modeled air flow.
Here's where we modeled how temperature affects the flow of both air and water.

And here's where we model how temperature causes water to change states!

If you've got younger kids, I'd spend quite a while on the water cycle with them first (I really, really, REALLY like this water cycle dice game!), but with my older kiddos, we just briefly reviewed it as a reminder of the big picture, then focused on our models and how they scale up.

First up is a demonstration of condensation that models the dew point. The dew point is simply the temperature at which water vapor condenses into liquid water, and it's simple to model just by forcing a liquid to drop to a temperature cold enough to cause condensation. You need a metal can, crushed ice, salt (optional) to lower the water's freezing point, and a thermometer to measure the liquid's temperature.

This textbook is Air Environment, Module 3 of the Civil Air Patrol's Aerospace Dimensions curriculum. With supplementation, it made the perfect spine for a six-week meteorology study.

Fill the can halfway with very cold water, then add crushed ice by the spoonful, stirring, observing, and measuring continually. I did not want the children to use their thermometers as stirring sticks, but it turned out to be impossible to stop them, grr:

When the outside of the can is cold enough, water vapor from the room will begin to condense. You want to notice the exact moment that condensation begins to appear on the outside of the can, then measure the water temperature.

Will also wanted to measure her body temperature. Goodness knows where these thermometers have been, much less the fact that they're currently actively involved in a science experiment. And yet, my little mad scientists are difficult to subdue:

I made a point later in the day to show them the "Can You Lick the Science?" memes...

We tried a couple of other condensation demonstrations that are meant to model rainfall. For the first one, fill a clear jar maybe a third full of very hot water--

--then rubber band a paper towel to the top and pile ice cubes on top of the paper towel:

You remember from our convection current lessons that hot air containing water vapor will rise. It will meet the cold air at the top of the jar, at which point the water will condense on the inside of the jar.

That demonstration ran okay, but as the kids were running it, I realized that a solar still would make an ever better  demonstration, and so we built one! Sort of...

This is the same as the previous demonstration, except that I had the kids put a layer of plastic over the top of the jar:

Now, when they added hot water and cold ice, none of the hot water vapor could escape, and it condensed on the plastic, resulting in genuine raindrops!

You wouldn't have ice, obviously, on a solar still, but would rely on the sun to warm the water enough to cause it to rise and condense. Make sure that the middle of the plastic is the lowest point so that all the raindrops fall from there, and put another container below that spot to collect the water, and drop by drop, you'll have dirt-free water to drink.

Handmade Halloween: We Studied El Dia De Los Muertos and Made Sugar Skulls

I used to have a kick-ass sugar skull recipe. And now it's gone, because the internet.

Seriously, it was awesome. It was vegan, because traditional sugar skull recipes are picky about their meringue powder, and big box store-bought meringue powder isn't usually sticky enough. But this recipe used cornstarch, which is easy to come by, and it made sugar skulls that were rock hard, perfect for even a six- and eight-year-old to decorate.

I mean, come on. Look at how kick-ass that is:

Unfortunately, cornstarch instead of meringue powder is all that I remember of that recipe, which is no longer at its previous link. The new recipe that I found is... well, I'll tell you all about how lousy it is momentarily.

But first: El Dia De Los Muertos! It's been several years since I studied this holiday with the kids, so it was high time to cycle back around to take another look at one of my favorite holidays while I was living in Texas.

The kids and I reviewed this Google Arts and Culture slideshow all about the offrenda, while I narrated and pointed cool things out to the kids. Here's another great introduction and survey to the entire holiday, although you have to know enough Spanish to be able to translate the captions:



Side Note/Personal Brag: My speaking knowledge of languages (including English) is terrrrrrrible, but my reading knowledge is pretty good, and if it's a Romance language, I can generally pick it up pretty quickly. Translating the Spanish in this video reminded me that when we drive through a non-English-speaking country, I CANNOT stop myself from attempting to read and translate every single sign that we pass. It's compulsive. I annoy everyone. I remind myself unpleasantly of a small child on the brink of learning to read, having to announce everything that they're sounding out right out loud, and I still can't make myself quit it. Anyway, when we were driving through Quebec, I was busily, compulsively reading and trying to translate every sign we passed, including some giant movie billboards with some blurbs for the movie Smallfoot. I don't know if Syd knew that I was correct because she knew the French, of if she'd seen the poster before in English, or if she just admired my effort, but she was all, "Wow, Mom! You're really good!"

And just like that, I was! I wasn't embarrassed anymore about my inability to not try to read out loud every sign, because trying to learn something and figure something out isn't embarrassing. Not at all, and especially not if your child is watching you do it and learning from you how to be herself, even if herself is weird and out loud, too.

So there.

We've seen Coco before (and the plan is to watch it again for a Family Movie Night one weekend soon, with lots of homemade El Dia De Los Muertos treats), but this short film is very similar in tone and intent, and only a few minutes long:



It's a good way to get the feel of the holiday, even if I did cry a bunch at the end.

After our sit-down lesson on the holiday, it was time to make some sugar skulls! Our first project, a makeover of Crystal Head skull shaped vodka bottles, came out super awesome and I'm going to keep them on the coffee table forever:

Heirloom White spray paint makes ALL the difference, my Friends!

The real sugar skulls, though?

Well, I did not find a great replacement recipe, apparently.

They mixed up okay--



--and looked fine when they came out of the mold--



--but they did NOT dry well. They began to crack almost immediately, and any steps that we took to repair them just led to them disintegrating faster, and in ways that looked more and more disturbing. The kids did try to embellish them, but the glue and paint just melted them more.

They're terrifying:

Oh, well. Process not product!

Now all that our mini study of El Dia De Los Muertos needs is a family celebration with decorations, delicious food, and a movie that I am guaranteed to sob through the ending of.

Because to me, it's not Halloween if you're not crying while eating a Reese's pumpkin.

To celebrate a different holiday, just substitute the appropriate novelty Reese's...

How to Make Waxed Thread

I freelance over at Crafting a Green World, an eco-friendly crafting blog. Every now and then, on a non-regular basis, I'll share one of my favorite tutorials with you..

...such as this one! I originally published this waxed thread tutorial over here at Crafting a Green World.

Whether you're a bookbinder or a leather worker, want to sew outdoor-friendly projects, or are interested in macrame or jewelry making, you have a use for waxed thread. Why spend more on a store-bought waxed thread from a big-box craft store when it's so easy to make? If you do any other kinds of crafting with natural materials, you likely have the beeswax on hand already, meaning that your DIY waxed thread will be absolutely free, with no surplus packaging. Another bonus to making your own waxed thread is that you're not bound by whatever is commercially available; you can wax a rainbow of embroidery flosses (as I'm doing in this tute), your favorite linen thread, or strands of yarn that you've spun yourself. 

In case you're still not sold, I should mention that it takes seconds--seriously, seconds!--to make waxed thread. It takes longer than that to find what you want on Amazon and click on it, or to drive across town to the store and back.

Here's how to make it!

You will need:

Solid beeswax. If you have crumbles of beeswax or one large block, here's how I remold beeswax into smaller, known quantities that are far easier to handle--and they're cute!

Thread or floss of your choice. I'm using your bog standard embroidery floss from my stash for this project. Other great choices are linen threads, hemp twines, or heavyweight sewing thread. Just remember that waxed thread is for hand-sewing only--do NOT put this in your sewing machine!

1. Cut off a length of your selected thread. Since I use my waxed thread for bookbinding, I cut it to the appropriate lengths for the books that my kids and I want to make. If you're hand-sewing, arms-length works, and for jewelry making, let your project guide you.

  

2. Draw the thread across the solid beeswax. Draw the thread completely across the block of beeswax six or seven times, then pick up the other end of the thread and do the same in reverse. You will be able to feel the thread taking up the wax as you go. Several times in each direction should be plenty, but you can make the thread as heavy with wax as you'd like.

See? Waxed thread is too easy NOT to DIY!

Need some inspiration for what to actually DO with your waxed thread? Never fear! Check out the following ideas:

1. Bookbinding. Lightly-waxed embroidery floss is absolutely perfect for the five-hole, stab-bound book that my kids and I love to make. For an even more eco-friendly project, upcycle an old greeting card as the book's cover.

2. Button bracelet. You can use regular embroidery floss for this project, but waxed floss will hold the buttons in place better.

3. Cranberry or popcorn garland. You don't have to use dental floss, but using a waxed thread will keep the cranberries, especially, from soaking through and rotting the thread.

4. Dreamcatcher. These are easy to make in any size, with any embellishments that you like.

5. Seed bead and waxed linen thread bracelet. This is a great tutorial, and the close-up views of the waxed linen thread let you see exactly what YOUR waxed thread should look like.

6. Sewing leather. Here's a handy stitch to use when sewing leather, and some good advice on choosing thread length when hand-sewing leather.

P.S. Did you know that you can also wax yarn? The result is not something that you would sew with, but instead, a bendy, sticky, keeps-its-shape toy that kids LOOOOOOOVE!

Homeschool Science Meteorology Unit: Convection Currents

Weather is all about wind and water. Warmth goes up, coldness goes down, water vapor comes along for the ride, and studying the intricacies of these interactions is where the magic is.

Fortunately, there are several easy ways to visualize this interplay. These demonstrations are fun to do and fascinating to watch, and they help you understand convection currents.

First, fun times with convection currents in water!

You get yourself two bottles with narrow openings (these are vintage whiskey bottles from the old dump in the back of our woods, because I'm just that hipster and also that's what I had on hand, but plastic soda bottles would work just as well). In the bottom of each bottle, you put some liquid watercolor or food coloring. Choose colors that will blend well.

Start your kettle and make up a separate bowl of ice water.

When the water in the kettle is hot and the water in the bowl is cold, pour hot water in one bottle and cold in the other, filling both up right to the brim:

If possible, do this outside because you're going to spill.

Use a sheet of plastic or a playing card to cover the top of the cold water bottle, then upend it and carefully balance it upside-down on top of the hot water bottle.  Slide away the playing card, and watch the magic happen!



The cold water really wants to sink, and the hot water really wants to rise. Making them both do it through that one narrow opening gives you a chance to see it well:

We tried our best to leave the bottles like this for an hour or so, and over that time, as both temperatures of water even out, so will the color:

The next demonstration is hot water on top and cold water on the bottom:

There's nothing between them in that above photo--they just don't want to mix!

Give them some time, though. Look carefully in the below photo, and you'll see that the cold liquid is beginning to rise up, as the hot water cools down:

The level of water keeps dropping because the kids keep bumping the table and knocking the top bottle off...

My demonstration of convection currents in air got off to a very difficult start, as I hadn't anticipated that my eco-friendly LED light bulb wouldn't give off enough heat to spin the paper spiral that Syd hung above it:



Oops! The kids had the idea that maybe we could open the freezer drawer, put the light above that, and perhaps get enough of a heat difference that way, but that, too, was a bust. Fortunately, I also baked some muffins that day, and when I opened the oven door I had a revelation, called for both kids, and we dangled the spiral over the open oven door. There was so much wind that we could feel it on our faces, as well as see it in the mad spinning of the spiral. Success!

The convection currents that we made in a fish tank, though, were by far the best, and this demonstration has turned into something that is living on our kitchen counter for a while, because it's so fun to play with and experiment with and explore.

All you need are a fish tank or clear plastic bin with any amount of room temperature water inside, ice cubes made from colored water, and a different color of food coloring or liquid watercolor.

On one side of tank, drop just a few drops of liquid color. On the other side of the tank, gently place a few of the dyed ice cubes:

Observe:

You will see the cold, colored water sink and drift below the room temperature colored water:



You can experiment further by adding more ice cubes in different locations, gently pouring in dyed very hot water, and any number of other interesting possibilities, each time spending some time observing carefully to see what happens to the currents:

In the below photo, Syd had poured in a bunch of clear ice cubes, and Will had poured in a couple of cups of nearly boiling water, dyed black. And look--they made a thunderstorm!

The kids did all the other demonstrations with me happily enough, but they LOVED this last one. LOVED it. Will is applying for a Space Camp scholarship again this year, and she's already thinking about how she can transform this concept into an original experiment. The kids have more colored water in the freezer, and they're planning some more exploration later tonight.

It's the best kind of homeschool project: hands-on, sensory, cross-curricular, open-ended. It's fun enough that the kids might even forgive me for the book reports that I'm also making them write!

P.S. Want to know more about wind currents? Here's where we played with Bernoulli's Principle and built giant geometric shapes!