Family Handwork

We love doing handwork projects as a family!  Our new eBook was written to inspire families to create beautiful handwork projects as a family at home.  Available in our Etsy shop.

Our eBook contains instructions and colorful photos for four projects:
1. Knitted gnome and bed
2. Crochet/Knit Baby Blanket
3. Natural Silk Gift Wrapping
4. Handspun Woven Table Runner

Information about supplies, planning, importance of family handwork and resources included. 18 pages. This listing is for one digital copy that is in pdf format. Upon purchase, you will be able to download it directly through Etsy. eBook is for your own personal family use, only. Schools and co-op groups may email us for information on a custom listing for their organization.

Boosting our Creativity - Reorganizing the Craft Room

This past month, we took all of our craft supplies outside and reorganized our craft/music room! A daunting task, but one that has freed up space and created an energy flow, giving us a "boost".

On a daily basis, we are in this wonderful room, filled with art supplies, fiber arts tools, musical instruments, and a work table that Rick built years ago.

There is even space for a silk fort!

Now, our craft magazines, music, patterns are in files. We can quickly locate yarn by color. Art supplies are organized and easy to reach. 

We can find what we need for fiber arts workshops, lessons and sales. The room has a sink and a door to the backyard...both practical elements for painting and dyeing.

To keep from spending a fortune on this endeavor, we spent $30 at the local thrift store, getting baskets and magazine holders. We pulled out old food jars and wood bowls. We did splurge on chalkboard labels from Bradens Grace on Etsy to label the nooks, baskets and jars, and love that we can reuse them over the years.

We love this hanging fruit basket that we found at the thrift store.  Perfect for little balls of yarn!

Bits of leftover roving get their own space and baskets and can be used for felting or carding batts for spinning up Junkyard Fairy yarn.

And, we finally have a place to put our works "in progress".  It is much easier and neater to grab a basket full of supplies for the doll that we are sewing or the gnome that we are knitting when the supplies are all together.  

Space for the drum set and keyboard, various guitars, as well as our work desk and computer was carved out. There was space for one spinning wheel, but not our floor loom or second wheel.  So...perhaps the ultimate room would need to be an entire house for just crafts, music and art?  

Handwork eBooks

Need some ideas for handwork projects at home?  Our seasonal handwork eBooks are available through Little Acorn Learning.  Each one features a variety of handwork, verses and pictures.

Autumn

Winter

Spring

Summer

Spinning, Dyeing, Weaving!

As homeschoolers, some of our best projects are the ones that we do as a family.  Handwork is no exception!

For the third year, we have made a woven table runner together. We use it on our dinner table, for nature tables and other displays in the home.  Here's how it goes:

1.  Spin fiber into yarn on one of our spinning wheels.

2.  Dye the fiber with plants and natural materials at the annual Griffin Dyeworks Dye & Fiber Retreat in Castaic, CA.

3.  Warp up the Ashford Knitter's Loom with a crochet cotton.

4.  Wind our yarns onto stick weaving shuttles, singing: "Up and down, up and down, we are making figure eights. Up and down, up and down, we are loading shuttles."

5.  Weave the weft (yarns on shuttles) into the warp.  We take turns and do a little bit each day.

6.  Trim the ends, tie knots for fringe, and we are done!

2008 Table Runner

2009 Table Runner

2010 Table Runner

Click here to see books and supplies for weaving, dyeing and other handwork projects!

Early Summer

It's starting to feel like summer around here!

The garden is growing. Wow! Look at the pumpkins leaves.

Time for walks (and dancing!) around the neighborhood.

Hiding out under the new bridge across the creek in the back yard.

Spinning yarn on the porch.

Playing guitar and weaving outside.

Card games in the garden (look at the squash!).

Floating sailboats (available on Etsy) down the creek.

Serenading Mommy on her birthday (poem blogged here).

Watching a dove through the front door window. 
--Happy Summer!

Handwork Workshop

On May 29, we hosted a Handwork in the Dell workshop in Fair Oaks.  What a beautiful day!  The sun was shining as a group of lovely, creative women entered our home.


 We started out with circle time singing "My Hands are Good" to warm up.

Spinning on spindles and carding up batts was great fun! Joey helped with the niddy noddy and demonstrated the spinning wheel.

Tunisian crocheting is quicker than knitting, uses less yarn than crocheting and is easy to learn.  We even made the "knit stitch" which looks just like stockinette.  After lunch, we did some knitting and verses.

Weaving on small cardboard looms with a naalbinding wood needle gave us a good start on making a simple pouch.  We also tried out the Ashford Knitter's loom.

Our next handwork workshop is in August!  Email us if you are interested in attending, or if you want a handwork workshop near you.