I’ve been working on a project that I learned about through Amanda Soule’s SouleMama blog and her book The Creative Family. It was the perfect project to allow me to practice with all the awesome new tools I got for Christmas.

What is it, you ask?

It’s a bunting for decorating. Some might call it a banner. It’s reusable, unlike crepe paper. I thought it would be nice to use this to decorate for Asher’s upcoming birthday party. I’ve never done anything like this before and I’m pretty stoked about how it turned out!

First, I bought fat quarters and spent entirely too much money. (If I were already a sewer with lots of useful fabric scraps lying about, this wouldn’t have been necessary.) To cut out the triangles I used the Fiskars rotary cutter and self-healing cutting mat my mother gave to me for Christmas. I also used the little Gingher embroidery shears that Lucas and Asher gave me and the Singer “Prélude” sewing machine from Mom and Dad.

That rotary cutter is an amazing and beautiful tool. Cutting took only a fraction of the time I thought it would take.

Isn’t my Singer pretty?

Over several short sessions, I sewed the triangles closed. Today I sewed the bunting all together using wide bias tape. It went very smoothly. I am still debating about whether to pink all the triangle edges.

I think it’s very festive!  The bunting is six yards long and I have enough triangles to make another of probably the same size. I think I will, since I’m not sure what I’d do with all these leftover triangles. I suppose I could try to make a quilt, but I think I’m not really ready for that yet.

Lucas recently painted his first canvas. A local craft and fabric store is having a sale on artists’ canvases. We bought a 12 by 12 in canvas for Lucas for something like $2.87. He used my craft acrylics—nothing very fancy. It was such an exciting treat to paint on a new surface! Alien art is cute.

This was a good reminder that I had lots of plans to paint. Hmmm … must get to that sometime soon.

Painting by Lucas. Feliz Navidad!

Our first batch of plum jam was made on December 4th with Papa. Last night we made another big batch and we’ll have to see later tonight whether it’s gelled properly. The jam is low in sugar, sweet-tart, and full of pulpy goodness. I hope it’s delicious.

The plums we used were frozen from last year’s harvest, when Dad and I picked way more than we could process in three jam-making sessions. It was a difficult time then, full of anxiety (and flat-out fear on my part) about Dad’s upcoming heart surgery, and making jam together was our bonding activity. It was special and sweet, the first time we had ever made jam together, and laced with uncomfortable overtones of, “what if.”

The jamming has been different this year. More of a celebration. More an act of thanksgiving for me. Dad is well, perhaps not fully recovered, but nevertheless doing great despite a lot of stress and caring for his 89-year-old mother and 96-year-old  aunt. He would say he’s all better now. I know he still tires easily.

I would be very pleased if I could be making plum jam with my dad for another 15 years.

Lucas, after the Santa Lucia walk through 11 grades and the school office. The children braved the cold and rain to deliver their message of light and the coming of Christmas, and buns for everyone!

As the youngest boy in the class, he carried a lantern and wore a special outfit, including grandma’s sweater and a hat I made.

When I told Lucas the other day that his name and Lucia both mean light, he smiled really big.

I wish I could say I am the picture of calm. I often am not. Today I had both kids home “sick,” although they don’t look very sick to me. In some ways it was good to spend my time thinking about things other than my textbook deadlines. I tried really hard to be the domestic goddess. I sewed, cooked, cleaned, laundered, and baked—with yeast. I have been successful. I also have lost my cool several times.

And now that it is 4:53 p.m., I would like to walk out the door wearing high heels and not come back until tomorrow morning. I would like, for a while, to be a dancing, on-my-own, free-as-a-bird goddess.

Just saying.

Instead, let’s talk about Santa Lucia and the festival that we’ve been preparing for this week. Lucas’s class will be visiting all the grades in the school, singing songs and delivering Santa Lucia buns to every student and teacher in the school. Lucia was a pious girl who ended up tortured and suffering. She is thought to have brought food and drink to poor people in Sweden and the Swedes love her.  (When Ian lived in Sweden, he participated in a Santa Lucia festival and sang songs to his college profs wearing a pointy Star Boy hat.)

But I digress.

The traditional Lucia festival was held on the 13th of December, which the Internet tells me was the winter solstice during the middle ages. The festival is, at heart, a festival of light designed to honor the darkest moment of the year in the hopes that by doing so we can encourage the light to return. In Sweden, the oldest girl in the family rises early, bakes Lucia buns, wears a crown of lighted candles, and with her siblings, serves her parents buns and sings traditional songs.

Lucas has a special role to play in the Lucia festival. He is the youngest boy in his class, so he will be dressed as a gnome, in an all-red gnome outfit with a pointy hat. The hat I made from scratch out of wool felt. I sewed a little gold star on it for a decoration. Then I went hunting for red sweatpants. Target, K-Mart, Penny’s, and even Wal-Mart do not have red sweatpants. I went to the thrift store and found some that were rather too big, but, for $1.98, possibly not too, too big. I chopped off the extra length on the legs, hemmed them, and then doubled the waistband an inch or so in the back, and stitched it together. I had hoped I might be able to open the elastic waist, cut it, and cinch it tighter, but it was stitched down all the way around. Still, I think now they won’t fall off him.

I volunteered to bake Santa Lucia buns, so that was today’s major project. I am happy to say they are edible! I’m not a big bread-maker. I don’t know how many years it’s been since I made a yeast bread. The kids helped and when they were done, we sampled a couple. Pretty tasty. But it seemed to me the dough did not rise as much as it should have. I probably should have practiced before baking for reals.

He has amazed me again.

Despite his talk of playground “wars” and “battles,” despite recently being advanced to “third leader” of the “team” and functioning as the team’s “policeman” and “guard,” my 7.5-year-old son is only gradually transforming from soft, sweet little boy to capable tough guy. Parents often speak of the phenomenon of kids moving two steps forward, one step back, and I see this in Lucas. Sometimes he is macho, other times, vulnerable and … “young.” My tough guy channeled his considerable developing skills into a softer direction for a project that he conceived himself.

Lucas started thinking ahead to Christmas the other day and decided that he wanted to make a lovey doll for Asher. He took out his sewing kit (a Christmas gift from Ian and me two years ago), his felt, and scissors and went to work. He politely asked for wool roving to stuff his doll’s body, a short tube of felt. Then he made an arm, stuffed it, and sewed it on to the body. Then another. By then I was feeling pretty impressed because he was sticking with the project and doing it without help.

A busy day went by, and Lucas asked me if I would help him make the doll’s head: He didn’t have the right material in his fabric stash. Last night, I dug out more wool and some pinkish jersey knit fabric and together we made the head. (This is the only part I helped with.) That’s all we had time for before bed, though.

As I was putting Lucas to bed, he said, “I really want to take my doll to show and tell tomorrow.” I expressed concern that we probably wouldn’t have time to finish it before school in the morning, but he could certainly work on it over vacation and then take it to the next show-and-tell day. I gushed over how great he was doing, and how I’m sure his teacher and classmates would be pleased to see what he made.

When I first laid sleepy eyes on Lucas this morning, he proudly showed me how he had already sewed the doll’s head onto the body, and given it blue eyes with his embroidery thread. I think it was five minutes after 7 then. Within another 15 minutes, he had stitched on a smiley red mouth and some blond wool roving for hair. At breakfast, he announced, “My doll’s name is Willow Bean.”

I think Lucas is so proud of his doll that he is probably going to keep Willow Bean for himself and not give the doll to Asher for Christmas. I really don’t blame him a bit.

How my son spent his Sunday morning.

Paper, cardboard, string, and cello tape sculpture of a horse and wagon by 7-year-old Lucas.

My 7-year-old really wanted to decorate for the holiday. So, although I’ve never been one for fake spiderwebs and seasonal flags and Mylar balloons, I made some concessions this year.

First, we put those fake spiderwebs all over our home’s entry.

Then we got to crafting. I bought about 15 small pieces of felt (25¢ each) at the craft store yesterday, white and black puffy fabric paint, some tacky glue, and a bag of googly eyes.  The boys and I sat at the kitchen table today for about an hour and a half cutting shapes out of felt and gluing them together. It was really fun! Asher had a hard time working the scissors, but liked the part with the glue!

Lucas made a ghost, skull, vampire bat, orange goblin, and Dracula. I made a bat, three jack-o’-lanterns, haunted house and a witch. Ian came home from work  in time to join us, and he made the light orange ghoulie in the middle. I wish I had a good picture of the piece of yellow felt that Asher completely covered with googly eyes! But such things are fleeting with a 2-year-old around. All the googly eyes ended up on the kitchen floor.

When they are dry, I’ll thread them and hang them.

Much better than any preprinted cardboard decorations from the dollar store, I think!

I bought Lucas an orange, hooded sweatshirt about a week or so ago, after a friend turned me on to Campmor. I spent an hour last night and less than 50¢ worth of felt and embroidery thread turning it into a fun Halloween outfit. He wore it to school today. I think he loves it. I like the way it has missing teeth just like Lucas does.