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Max can read. He taught himself. It's really impressive. I've probably already blogged that info, but it never ceases to amaze me. He sometimes reads the books to us during story time which is quite a fun turn of events. Yesterday, he played pretend bedtime with Vivi and read her some of her favorite books. It was really sweet to listen to him.
Max's first week at Steve & Kate's camp went well. He seemed to really like the food, especially the ice cream and honey sticks (sugar?!) He also spent a lot of time in the clay studio making multiple coil pots with lids and beehives. Our deck table in now covered by his artworks.
Yesterday he made bow tie pasta — just like his daddy eh. He ate half of them raw while on the way home.
It took me a few days to notice that Max placed the little painted wooden Mongolian king and queen I brought back for he and Vivi in the odd little window sill in my closet which looks out into the backyard. It makes me happy to see them there so I left 'em. Charming!
A post dim sum hug! Feel the love love love.
Hey you, look at me, I'm in Paris. Yep that's the Louvre. I know, I know, I'm one lucky little boy. Wish you were here. I can't wait to eat some pomme frites after I check out Mona and her friends. Au Revoir.
My first small piece of felt is the top photo. Clearly felt is difficult to photograph with an iphone. It measures 10 inches square. It's not fully felted since I didn't do a second agitation or drop it in a hot water wash. I actually like it loose and gauzy. My second image is of the larger felt piece I am currently making which is a pink and orange on a white background. It measures 21x14 right now but it will shrink by 30% once it's felted. I am hoping it will cover the small window in my closet which is 18 x 7.5. That strange little window has had an ugly piece of cardboard tapped to it since we moved in nearly ten years ago. It's about time it has a proper window covering. Though I'll likely just hang it with pins, so not sure how proper it will really be. Anyway, the felt is wet and still needs lots of rolling. The felt making process is very mediative, but depending on your mood that can translate to repetitive and tedious. I am enjoying it for now and having lots of stitching ideas.
I am feeling the pull of needle and thread. I keep thinking how lovely it would be to use my handmade felt to make darling little barrettes with crewel embroidered designs. Do I know how to crewel? Uh no. However I think I'll be stopping by a needlework store this afternoon or maybe Britex tomorrow morning to pick up some thread. I want to see if I can find wool thread with a matt finish to match the felt, I don't want to use the shiny embroidery thread I already have which I've used on a few knitted animals. I've just ordered alligator barrettes and some metal headbands, I've been spending far too long clicking through websites for tutorials on embroidery and headwear. Here's my reference list.
Lovely DIY headband tutorials by Altered Cloth (found by way of Sew Mama Sew)
Sewn Headband tutorial wide & narrow versions by Foofanagle
Felted rolled flowers by Craft Gossip lots of inspiration on this site
Felt covered barrettes and tutorial by Wee Folk Art
Fun with a glue gun, ribbon covered barrette tutorial by living with lindsay
Needle and Thread is embroidery heaven, wow this is an awesome resource
The Unbroken Thread embroidery blog
more patterns at Needlecrafter
Lastly, back to my first post on this subject for a few more tutorials, supplies and inspiration.
Here's a darling free knitting pattern for little slugs and snails by mochimochi. I love her tagline "let's make happy."
The lower right tooth popped out and onto the top of his tongue while he was talking to his buddy Jaewon. It's really small, tiny actually. So small that we had trouble keeping track of it. Mr C almost lost it yesterday afternoon and we panicked that it had slipped out of his pocket and fallen between the boards of the deck. Imagine how we were panicking, it's his first tooth and the fairy hadn't had a chance to come yet! Fortunately we found it, in the kitchen.
Max told us weeks ago that he didn't believe in the tooth fairy. He said matter of factly a few different times that he was pretty sure we were the fairy. He told auntie Lulu too, while they were at the theater watching the movie Marmaduke, that he didn't believe in the tooth fairy. So were weren't too worried about having to pull off some fairy caper. In fact we started being down right silly about the whole thing, though for the record, we never fessed up to actually being it. We told Max that since it was a money exchange assignment it was likely that Ben Bernake was coming to take his tooth. Max seemed interested in the chairman of the bank of USA and was pleased that Ben would be setting the going rate for a first tooth. It turns out after all that, Max isn't entirely sure if the fairy is real or not and since so many of his friends are convinced of the fairy's existence he wants to believe too. Max started to work a new explanation where both Ben and the fairy were coming. So we played along with that and encouraged it too.
Last night Max and Mr C wrote a single note to Ben and the tooth fairy requesting that they don't take his first tooth. He really wanted to keep it, but he also wanted the prize money. He left the note under his pillow along with the tooth. In the morning he found two gold dollar coins and his tooth in a different little bag — the note was gone. Max thought it was so weird that they took the note. He laughed and laughed and just kept saying isn't that weird? Why would they want the note anyway? That's weird, right? We said it was a one for one trade. Since the fairy only leaves money if it gets to take a tooth, we figured this time it took the note as payment. He thought that made some sense. Pretty amusing all this made up stuff. But hey now Max can name the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, impressive!
ps. While staring out the window of Tartine this morning Max read a store sign across the street which says "wash and dry" and then he asked me what they wash there. Instead of answering I asked him what he thought they washed and he said coins. I was intrigued and asked why he thought that and he said because he'd seen other similar signs for "coin wash and dry." Now that's a whole new take on money laundering!
Daily Candy emails keep me somewhat informed on what's hip by emailing me bite size bits about what's happening in USA & SF fashion, food and kid funsies. Today I'm inspired by Venn's simple textile work and since I don't have time to cull through their blog reading the interview or checking out the fibershed stuff I just wanted to quickly post it so I can return to it later. Art Barn is my ever on-going wish and to-do list blogrolled up in one location. Actually I have this insanely stuffed folder sitting on my desktop called 'bunny to blog" with a subfolder called 'random stuff' and it's filled with so many links on art, knitting, kids and more. I like way too many things! It's can be a problem.
We all had an amazing time partying with our preschool family friends both at Jaweon's and at Tessa's parents lovely Sonoma homes. They threw a perfect July fourth afternoon pool party. As you can see no one had more fun that our own party girl miss Vivienne Grace! Happy birthday America.
It's no secret I love photography so I was thrilled to find this list of 50 movies about photography and photographers from photojojo. Many of these are awesome. I'm looking forward to adding the ones I haven't seen to my netflix list.