June 2014

June was a productive month for me.   I am happy with the amount of things we did and the things I accomplished since it was our first month of summer vacation.   Things are getting easier for me with four children, because I remember past years in June I spent the month adjusting to summer vacation and me feeling very frazzled.

I did a lot of dyeing this month, check out my post about those projects here.

A friend asked me to make her daughter a rainbow skirt for her birthday.  Her favorite color is pink so I reversed the rainbow and put the pink on the bottom so it is more visible and because I can never make the  same thing twice.  I always have to mix things up!

Spiderman was in the house when I needed a model and

he was pretty good at twirling around.

I had helpers planting my hanging baskets and flower pots.  I am usually picky about what color flowers go together and how many get planted in certain pots.  Not this time.  Lately, I have challenged myself to “let go” of the middle steps and be happy with the finish product – planted flowers.

I got my garden planted this month.  And my garlic is looking awesome!

Since I am so late at getting this post done I am able to include a comparison picture of the garden a little over a month later.

Jack had some company while he changed the oil in his car.

 

Henry had his 4K graduation.  I also wrote a blog about these awesome socks Henry is wearing.  (Click here to read that)

 

 First day of school, September 2013.  

Last day of school, June 2014.

 

Our strawberry patch was going strong this year.  I didn’t have much time to pick them all when they were ripe.  So I often sent kids outside to “eat as many strawberries as you can!”

Nola Mae playing in her kitchen.  The hole for the sink (was a plastic bowl) is a common place for her body.  She usually goes from standing on the stove, to standing on the narrow shelf, back to the stove and then into the sink area.

Aunt Susie came over and switched up our dinner table seating arrangements.  Henry worked it out so he and Nola Mae could share the piano bench.  And they were pretty cute together!

My sister, Becca, is training for the Madison Ironman this year.  She is amazing!  My Mom, our sister Danna and I went to cheer Becca on at the High Cliff Half Ironman race that she participated in this month.  All I can say is “WOW!”

Our cousins came to visit with us for a couple of days.   I had a wonderful time with a house full of children, seven kids – 10 years old to two years old.  Although I had to share my time with Jessie and seven kids, it seemed much easier to visit with her than it is when we are at a family gathering of 50 people.

Our youngest babies together.  These two littlest cousins got along amazingly well for being two-year olds.

Our oldest babies together.  Some how our middle children got missed, isn’t that what always happens?

We spent a few days at Granny’s while our cousins (Andrew & Libby)  and Aunt Karen from the West were visiting.  Our visit happened to overlap on my Mom’s birthday.  When I announced my plans to the kids that I was going into the sewing room to make Granny’s birthday present Henry followed me down to the sewing room with his own idea.  He asked me what Granny’s favorite color was and I said blue.  He gathered scraps of fabric, cut pieces out and told me his design – to make Granny’s house.  I serged edges and he sewed the roof, windows and the door on.  This was the first time he has sewn something on my machine.

This is what I made for my Mom from one of my dyed projects.

 You never know what you will find on the farm.  Henry happened to wander into the corn field and found hundreds of little frogs hopping around.

      

He took a handful back to the house to show Granny.

I had a blast this weekend.  Visiting with family, watching and playing soccer.  We have our own CrossFit coach in the family, so we did a WOD (I don’t have a photo of that).

The littlest goalies.

We ended our time with cousins at Diamond Lake.

Four days after leaving Granny’s I took the two big boys to Grandma Helen’s to spend four days with the Vater cousins in North Dakota.

I didn’t realize this month was full of extended family stuff until I put this post together.  What a great month!

Knee-High Socks – Charlie’s Fashion

I bought colorful socks with the intentions of making baby leggings with them. That never happened!

Charlie snatched them up and has worn them. I didn’t always notice when he was wearing the knee-high socks this past winter, because he had pants on. But when springtime arrived and he started wearing shorts to school he kept wearing his colorful knee-high socks. I thought that if kids teased him he would stop. Charlie is a pretty cool kid and well liked at school. So when he continued to wear the knee-high socks with his shorts I just thought that none of his friends or classmates teased him.  I should have asked him.

The day of Henry’s graduation we were walking out of school with Charlie’s teacher from last year.  Mrs. Honken complemented Henry on his colorful socks.

I told Mrs. Honken that Charlie started this knee-high sock fashion in our family.  Those rainbow socks were actually Charlie’s.    Henry laid them out the night before so he could wear them for his graduation.   Charlie put them on when he got dressed.  Henry was very sad to see Charlie wearing the socks that morning!  I didn’t have to say a single word to Charlie, he  instantly took them off and gave them to Henry for his special day.

Mrs. Honken thought they were cool socks and said that maybe by next year other kids will be copying Charlie.  And then she asked, “Are your friends wearing socks like that?”  Charlie told her that all his friends tell him he is weird.  Mrs. Honken was awesome because she made a few more comments about how cool she thought Charlie was and how much she loved the knee-high socks.  I was heart-broken to hear this news, but also proud of our boy for doing what he wants and not caring what others say or think!

There is another story about these colorful rainbow socks I need to document and remember FOREVER!  It is so funny, the story made my Aunt Karen cry and if she is your friend she will tell you this story:

Henry wore these rainbow socks to school one day.  Mrs. Fredy, his 4K teacher, asked him where he got those colorful socks from (thinking that they were a gift from someone or for his birthday).  Henry told her, “I got this one from the dirty clothes.  And this one from under the couch.”

Henry adores Charlie and has gladly taken up this fashion of wearing knee-high socks.

I don’t have many photos of Charlie wearing knee-high socks.  I found this one from the last day of school he wore these black socks with purple and white stripes.

And this one from last week when he went golfing with Jack.

When I searched for examples of Charlie’s socks I found this adorable photo from July 10, 2011 when Charlie was almost 6 years old.

 Charlie thinks his socks are cool and that is all that matters!

Dye Projects – June 2014

  June was the month to work on some dye projects that have been brewing in my head.  I will be doing a demonstration on fabric dyeing at my local quilt guild’s meeting in early August.  I am far from being a pro at this, but with every project I do I learn more and more.  I am looking forward to sharing my projects, ideas and my knowledge with them.

I was motivated to try a new (new to me) technique called Low Water Immersion (LWI) when a friend asked me for a three color ring sling.

The finished ring sling:

During most dye projects I am able to add a few extra things to my dye projects.  I have a stash of white items that I pick from.  Most often I have a slightly stained onesie or child’s shirt that is still in good condition, so I add those kinds of things to my dye projects.  In the above LWI ring sling I dyed these items:

and this cotton drawstring laundry bag,

and this old sheet that was going to be a ghost for our dress up box, but the face never got cut out.

Whenever I dye something I get the bug to do more…

I had this brown skirt that I loved and could only wear it around home because it had some stains on it.

I did a LWI dye technique and Dylon dye Terracotta Brown.  The lining of the skirt is prettier and turned out more how I was expecting it to look.  The red splotches are from the dye not being fully dissolved.

I ice dyed this dress of Nola Mae’s that had some color bleeding from the colorful trim when I used a stain remover on the dress.  It was the exact same shade as Dylon dye’s Bahama Blue.

Underneath the dress I added a scrap piece of a bed sheet that my step-mom gave me.

I was disappointed with the results on both the dress and the scrap sheet.  The Bahama Blue doesn’t give that “ice dye” look.  I would have been better off practicing tub dyeing with those two pieces.

One night on facebook I saw someone in a dyeing group I follow list dyes for sale.  People rave about this brand of dye (Dharma Dye).  I wasn’t really interested in purchasing it mainly because it is only available on-line, Dylon Dyes I can buy from JoAnn Fabric easily.  This deal was a good one and this was my chance to try that brand.  I bought about $150 worth of dye and didn’t have to pay shipping for a lot less.

I have wanted to try a glue resist dye project and since the scrap sheet was a flop and blotchy it would work for this technique.

We traced hands and Charlie and Henry took turns adding designs to the fabric with the glue.

I scrunched up the fabric on my ice dyeing tray, piled ice on top and sprinkled a tiny amount of my new Dharma dyes on the ice and this is what we got:

Dyes: Daffodil, Cerulean Blue, Better Blue Green, and Fuchsia Red.

I made this little bag for my Mom for her birthday.  Each side of the bag has one of my children’s hand print.

 

I had part of the rainbow colors done for this set of napkins.  With my new dyes I wanted to try a tub dye with them so I finished my rainbow by dyeing the yellow with Daffodil, and the pink on the right was dyed with Fuchsia Red.  I had two purple napkins and threw one of them in the Fuchsia Red dye.  I think that is the napkin next to the orange one. 

I did an ice dye with my new dye and got this piece that will be made into a ring sling for a friend who will have her baby this fall.

Dyes:  Cerulean Blue and Better Blue Green.

These are the bonus items I dyed (top two shirts were under the ring sling and ice and the bottom two were in the “drip water”).

 

My biggest failed dye project is this (I am sorry Michelle, if you read this):

Ice dyed with Intense Violet Dylon Dye.

Overdyed with ice and Navy Dylon Dye.

I am falling in love with the LWI technique.

These two pieces I made after someone saw the first LWI ring sling I did.  This ring sling was done with my new dyes.

Dyes:  Granny Apple, Peacock Blue & Power Berry.

I had a little bit of Peacock Blue and Power Berry left so I scrunched up this piece of scrap sheet into a coffee can, squirted the blue in the middle and the purple on the outside edges, this is the result: