Neon Fairies with Hair I Wish I Had

In 2007, when Lucia was 4.5 years old, she received her Little One named Snowdrop from the Little One Meadow. The Little Ones were not dolls, the kindergarteners informed their parents.

I enjoyed hearing stories about what the Little Ones did in Lucia's Waldorf kindergarten, as well as their antics in the Little One Meadow. The first time Snowdrop needed a hair and dress refurbishment, I told Lucia's teacher with a straight face that Snowdrop had traveled to the Little One Meadow to meet up with Dahlia, the Little One's resident hair-stylist and makeover artist. Once Snowdrop came back with black hair, not brown, because that was the only wool roving I had Dahlia used walnut-juice as a temporary hair-rinse.

Dahlia never had access to these hair colors:


I recently put these Neon Fairies (or angels, if you like) in the shop, and gave their hair hues names inspired by those found on nail-polishes and hair dyes. From left to right, they are: Over-the-Brink Pink, Luna Moth Lime, Anime Blue, and Manic Mauve.

There's part of me that wanted to dye my hair bright blue or purple, but never wanted to do what it would take to get those vivid colors. Now, I content myself with giving the dolls the hair that I admire.

Crafty Thursday: The Jewel Tones Doll Series

A friend of mine grew up with three other friends who called themselves "The Gemstones" and took on different monikers based upon various precious and semi-precious stones. These friends have stayed in touch and periodically have reunions. They inspired me to create this doll series called the Jewel Tones (not to be confused with the Bay Area or St. Louis performance groups):


The Jewel Tones: Garnet, Carnelian, Lapis Lazuli, Peridot, Amethyst

In other crafty news, I'm doing a link trade with fellow NaturalKids Team member Germandolls, which is why there's a photo of her dolls in my sidebar with a link to the shop. Germandolls blogs here, where she writes about her Waldorf-inspired dolls, shares recipes, and reflects upon life experiences.

Last, I made my best treasury yet: Gnomes vs. Aliens, inspired by Zombies vs. Unicorns (which I have not yet read).

My Life in Felts and Flowers

Greetings! Tomorrow is the last day of Lucia's school, and I am incredulous. There are times when I just want to catch her and hold her. Other times, I've cheerfully scooted her out the door so I could get some work done.

In May, we attended The Magic Flute as a family, and I was inspired to create Papageno and Papagena dolls for the shop:



I decided I wanted a series of dolls at lower price points, too, so I created six flower-box babies. You can see them here, attended by Strawberry Girl:


In case you're wondering, Strawberry Girl is singing The Garden Song to them.

Any requests for what to make next?

Speaking of gardens, I am trying to put my weeds and stones in order. In among the proliferation of dandelions, however, a new plant showed up. I decided to let it be, and today, found that it was a pinkish-purple foxglove.

I'm pleased that the trillium have doubled. Here are two toad trillium:

Change

This is the last week of my daughter's time at her local Waldorf school. We spent much of November scrambling to find a school that would take her mid-year. Officially, her current school "cannot meet her needs." This isn't an appropriate forum in which to go into why the school has decided this after over 6 years of attendance (2 years of parent-toddler class, 1 year of preschool, 3 years of kindergarten), but the House of Glee is grateful that our local parish school has a first grade teacher who is experienced with children on the autistic spectrum and teaches a small class of caring, compassionate 6-7 year old children.

There's a lot more racial and economic diversity at the new school, and it is an easy walk from our house. It's a small, struggling school, but all reports from people I've talked to say that the community is strong, and the older kids look out for the younger ones. What a refreshing change that will be!

Lucia enjoyed her visit to the new school, but is sad to be leaving her old school. I think it will ultimately be a good change, and in years to come, we will look back with relief. But still, we will miss the Waldorf curriculum, the festivals of Michaelmas, Martinmas, Winter Spiral, May Day, and Whitsun (White Dove). Lucia was the oldest girl in her class, and she would probably have been the girl who got to wear the crown of candles on Santa Lucia Day. We will continue to celebrate those festivals in our own way, I hope.

Crafty Thursday: Autumn Themed Dolls

For this week's Crafty Thursday post, I am pleased to present four autumn-themed dolls photographed with autumn trees by The Enchanted Cupboard and wooden flames by Mamakopp:



The four dolls in the photo are a Lantern Walker for Martinmas(shop link will added after the doll is listed), Salamander King fire elemental, Night Queen, and Guitar Player. Here are pictures of the backs of the capes for the Night Queen and Salamander King:


Night Queen's bat


Salamander King's creatures

As I wrote in my shop listing, the legend of the fire-resistant salamander may be inspired by the species that hibernate on logs. When people threw logs on a fire, the salamanders woke up and fled the flames.

Crafty Thursday: Two Little Witches

I recently made two witch dolls inspired by the books I enjoyed as a child. An Amazon recommended book-list helped me remember that one of my favorite books was Little Witch, by Anna Elizabeth Bennett. Other books I really liked were The Resident Witch and The Witch Who Saved Halloween, both by Marian T. Place, The Wednesday Witch, by Ruth Chew, and The Witch Family, by Eleanor Estes. I was also fond of The Witch Next Door, by Norman Bridwell, and am sad that this book is out of print while Bridwell's large rouge canine continues to thrive.



Blue Witch Doll
Purple and Black Witch Doll
Trees and fly agaric mushrooms: The Enchanted Cupboard

Waldorf-inspired Nativity Set

Here is my first Nativity set of 2010:


Listed on Alkelda: Dolls for Storytelling

This is only my second year of sewing dolls for the shop, and I am not used to thinking of the winter holiday season this far in advance. I'm posting the first set here to help it be more easily found in internet searches.

Crafty Thursday: In praise of green

Earlier in the week, I provided a collection of favorite green items from my fellow NaturalKids Team members which was posted on the Natural-Kids blog.

Beneath the Rowan Tree added my Weeping Willow Princess to a collection of green favorites for their Waldorf Friday feature, which you can see here. Today, I listed a Luna Moth Fairy Queen:





I've never seen a luna moth in person. They are supposed to be quite common, but because adults only live for a week and come out in the evening, they can be hard to spot. My introduction to the luna moth came from chapter five of Then There Were Five, by Elizabeth Enright:

Floating out of the dark, knocking against the overhang, came something so beautiful, so fairylike that Oliver hardly dared to breathe. The thing was a moth, but like no other moth that he had seen. Its wings were as wide as his two hands opened out, as frail as a pair of of petals, and colored a pale, pale green: a moonlit silvery green.

"Gee," whispered Oliver. He sat there staring. "A luna! I never thought I'd see a real luna."

Luna moths are significant in the books The Woman in the Wall, by Patrice Kindl, and Luna, by Julie Anne Peters.

Adrienne, Amish Guitar, Handwork, and Odd-Fish

Here are a few items that I have gathered into one blog post. If I were clever all the time, I would have made them four separate blog-posts, but I am only clever on Tuesdays and alternate weekends.

1.
The wonderful Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That came to visit me in Seattle after the Public Library Association conference in Portland, Oregon. She drove up with a friend on my birthday and we got to hang out for a day and a half before she had to fly back to New York. That visit was a wonderful birthday present. This was the first time my husband and daughter got to meet Adrienne, and my daughter was besotted. She would occasionally burst out with, "Adrienne? I loooooove you." I felt the same, but was less demonstrative.

2.
At PLA, Adrienne met up with Amish Guitar who gave her a handy Emergency Guitar Kit to deliver to me. This kit came in a zip-lock bag with a number of smaller zip-lock bags that included:
a. Emergency Guitar Strap with lock-clip (string with a bread-tie)
b. Emergency Capo (toothpick with rubber band)
c. Emergency Chord Charts (need a magnifying glass to read them)
d. An I.O.U. for an Emergency "Bad Gig" candy bar

Not included: Emergency Guitar Tuner


Emergency Guitar Kit

3.
Angela Mobley of The Artist the Mom wrote a guest post on The Magic Onions about handwork in the Waldorf curriculum. Here's the post: Discovering Waldorf- Handwork in a Waldorf School.

4.
A couple of months ago, James Kennedy, the author of The Order of the Odd-Fish, sent me an email to let me know about fan art inspired by his book. I was intrigued, but when I went to my library system's online catalog, the only copy of Odd-Fish was in electronic format. After the rigmarole of downloading the program required to read it, downloading the book, and attempting to open the file, I remembered why I had deleted the program the last time I tried to read an electronic book, and gave up in a short burst of temper. However, James Kennedy had the publishing house send me a copy of Odd-Fish newly released in paperback. Thank you, James Kennedy!

Songs of Winter

Next week's blogging will be rather quiet as the House of Glee prepares for the final days of Advent leading up to Christmas. I'll spend the majority of my blogging time checking in on your blogs and saying hello.

Last week, I managed to record the song "We Are Three Wandering Travelers" for A Storytelling of Crows before I came down with my cold. Sharp ears will hear the beginnings of the cold in my throat, but the recording is sufficent to convey the tune.

My daughter came home from school with a song that's a variation of a poem that Rudolph Steiner wrote. Steiner's version is about the four lights of Advent, but in Lucia's school, the four lights of winter convey the same message in an ecumenical way. I'll post a link to the tune when I've learned it properly, but here now are the words as Lucia taught me:

The first light of winter is the light that shines in stones,
The light that shines in crystals and seashells and bones.

The second light of winter is the light of plants
Plants that grow up to the sun and in the breezes dance.

The third light of winter is the light of beasts
The light of life that shines in the greatest and the least.

The fourth light of winter is the light of humankind
The light of love, the light of thought, to give and understand.

(Lucia didn't remember the last line, so the one you read here is what I've culled from online research.)

Blue Fairy and Candle Maiden

Much of my stitching time has been focused upon custom orders, but I did have a chance to post the Blue Fairy in the shop last week:



Yesterday, I posted the Candle Maiden for Hanukkah:



In addition to everything else, I've promised to make three different doll sets for the school auction in March 2010. I'm going to have to pace myself. I used to work well under stress, but now I work best when I can get things done ahead of time. I love the feeling of having thwarted the Procrastination Imp.

Three "Goth Waldorf" Roses and One Bat Gnome

It's Crafty Thursday! I have four dolls to share with you today.

I imagine the "Goth Waldorf Roses" as a group of creatively-inclined high school girls. Black Rose loves to make music, Blue Rose loves to write plays, and Purple Rose loves to paint pictures and tie-dye clothes. (They are nothing like that book series by what's-her-name. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you've made me happy.) Here is a group photo of the dolls taken from above:



The main reason I don't mind seeing Halloween decorations early is because I really like bats. The Bat Gnome I sewed for the shop is a humorous creation based upon a simpler doll I made for a friend as part of the Five Handmade Items meme.





Do you have a doll idea for the wishlist? If so, please share it in the comments.

Crafty Thursday: Three Fairy Tales and a Saint with her Star Boy

It's evening as I write this, and I need to prepare for a storytelling gig tomorrow at the Children's Museum. Saturday I have a gig at Ravenna Third Place Books, and then next weekend, I have two birthday party gigs. I'm glad that the storytelling business is picking up again. Even with the economy the way it is, it's unpredictable. You may wonder how I have time to sew! Hint: it's the only work I successfully do while taking care of my daughter at the same time. She provides lots of opinions, and sometimes even gets the urge to try a little stitching. When that happens, I drop everything and work with her on simply getting used to pulling needle and thread in and out of the cloth.

I've started making more dolls based on folk and fairy tales. Currently in the shop is a Briar Rose/Sleeping Beauty storytelling set that features Briar Rose as both a 15 year old and a baby:




About 10 minutes before I started this post, I listed Vasilissa's Doll:




If you are unfamiliar with the Russian fairytale of Vasilissa the Brave and her encounter with the terrifying Baba Yaga, please visit Sur La Lune to read the story. The little doll that Vasilissa's mother made for her before the mother's death is one of my two main inspirations for dollmaking. (The other is M.B. Goffstein's Goldie the Dollmaker.)

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time making a Snow White doll with a little felt box containing representations of the comb, the laces and the poisoned apple. The colors are based upon the dress Snow White wears when she flees through the forest in the Nancy Eckholm Burkert version. Lucia does not want this doll to go into the shop. She wants the doll for her own. I understand. (7/25 edit: She now has a Snow White doll made to her specifications, though she said, "The hair doesn't have much of a part." The doll is white and yellow with blue roses, pink wheat-ear stitching, and a pinch of dried lavender inside.)

Here is the Snow White doll with the felt box of storytelling props:



The Vasilissa and Snow White stories turn me inside out. It is one thing for the hero of a story to start out with parents who have died, but in both Vasilissa and Snow White, the reader gets to meet the mothers briefly and know of their love for their daughters before they die. Trina Schart Hyman's depiction of Snow White's mother in particular gets to me. In her face is so much expectation and longing for the baby she will never get to hold, and who will have such a hard life as a result of the mother's death. Fairy tales are often meant to be two-dimensional archetypes, but the details in these two stories are so rich with significance that I find the Disney version of the movie a little hard to take and hope that no one ever attempts a mainstream version of Vasilissa without consulting me first. (Ha!)

Let us end with light. While Santa Lucia Day is not until December 13, I plan to list this Santa Lucia doll with her accompanying Star Boy sometime in the next few days. (Edit: here is the listing.) May the person who goes looking for it actually find it. While the Swedish Santa Lucia is depicted as a blonde, the girls who dress as Santa Lucia for the procession have all kinds of hair colors. That's why my first Santa Lucia has brown hair:



If you are interested in looking at the listings of Snow White and Santa Lucia dolls when they become available, you are welcome to subscribe to the shop feed here.

P.S. Sometime in the past 24 hours, someone became the 100,000th visitor. Yay! I wish I'd had a screen-capture for that.

Crafty Thursday: Math Gnomes

I know, it's Friday. Between having my daughter with me all day long until French camp begins next week and preparing songs for French camp, I've had a full schedule. I've also started getting up early in the morning to exercise. That means going to bed early. Here and there, I've had some time to sew, and thus I finally created a set of royal "math gnomes" inspired by the Waldorf tradition of math education. While many math gnomes sets have the four processes of Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division as subjects of King Equals, my mom told me about the story setup of the royal math gnomes: King Addition loves to collect things, Queen Subtraction likes to give away her wealth, Prince Multiplication likes to do things fast, and Princess Division is a staunch social advocate who wants the resources to be divided fairly. Lucia came up with the idea of Equals as a Jester. Here is Lucia's drawing of the Royal Math Gnomes:



Here is the set I've made for the family:





If you do a search for "Math Gnomes" on Flickr, you'll come up with some other lovely representations like this one and this one. Two nice sets I've admired on Etsy are by julieblanchette and mamaforearth.

If I post a set of math gnomes in my shop, it would definitely be a big-ticket item. (August 21, 2009 Update: here they are.) I don't really know what the market is for math gnomes. Of course people admire the sets, but chances are that the people who need math gnomes the most are probably working with small budgets. I've joked about branching out into having different singular math gnomes be available to provide encouragement for teens working on Algebra, Geometry and Calculus homework:

Auction wrap-up

Saturday's auction seemed to go pretty well! Here is a photo that the class auction project leader took of the circus on display:



You can find photos of the circus in its earlier stages here.

The bidding was definitely more subdued than in previous years, but I'm hoping that there was good turnout in bidding anyway. The "Fund a Need" item this year was tuition assistance. My nature table dolls were a hit, and one set even went for the guaranteed bid price. Those who didn't win talked to me about future commissions and trades.

I'm going to devote my blog-time this week to catching up on your blogs. I've been so absorbed by auction work that I've been out of touch with people's struggles and joys.

Many blessings,
Farida

Three-Ring Circus for the Living Room

I'm here! Bede and I have both been working on the school auction, which has claimed a lot of our attention. Our daughter having a low fever this morning was a mixed-blessing, because it meant we all got a little more rest after Bede and I wrapped up around midnight. In the meantime, parents from Lucia's class got together to assemble the three-ring circus we collaborated upon. Each class puts together a project, and parents the early childhood classes have to put together projects as well. The circus is not yet done, but I can show you the photos that the auction project leader took last night. While there are a few props that were purchased, as well as the three bendy families in attendance, just about everything else was made by hand.


Photo 1: I don't know if the 3 drums are done, but each drum is a circus ring that stores the animals, people and constructions. The circus top that's hanging will have cloth attached to represent the tent.


Photo 2: The tightrope! (Okay, it's a plank.)


Photo 3: The strong-man makes me laugh out loud. I know a lot of attention and thought went into his creation. Your eyes do not deceive you: that is a baby camel playing with a ball.


I love those seals. I'm glad someone made cotton-candy for the stand, because I was feeling twinges of guilt for not having gotten to that part of the plan.


The circus-master and the fortune-teller were both commissioned by another parent (the one who got me addicted to Etsy.com) and created by Dannielle of Princess Nimble-Thimble.

There's more to come, and the three elephants are fantastic, but 5 photos are enough!

Moomintroll, Snufkin, and Mamakopp

This past Saturday, my mom and aunt flew into town. The next day, we headed off to Orcas Island for a day and two nights, and then came back into Seattle on Tuesday. Since then, I've been focusing on school auction work and the upcoming filming of the promotional storytelling video. I know! I sound like a skipping CD* with nothing new to report. I have been enjoying the family visit, though. My mom is leaving Seattle tomorrow afternoon and my aunt on early Saturday morning, and I will miss them both. As I type this, my mom is working on a moss maiden, having been inspired by my doll-making of late.

After my auction work is done, I can focus on getting my Etsy shop ready in time for May Day. Speaking of Etsy, one of the big contributors to our nature table is an artisan who works in wood. Her name is Mamakopp, and she is a Waldorf-inspired homeschooling parent of two boys. Not too long ago, I asked if she knew about the Moomin books by Tove Jansson. She hadn't, but checked out the books and was inspired to create Snufkin and Moomintroll:



I tried to resist. I really did. I went through all the usual reasons as to why it was prudent that I let someone else discover them. But then, I knew I'd be sad if I let them go by. And so, Snufkin and Moomintroll will grace our spring nature table.

The Moomintroll books are quirky. They are odd. I don't quite get them. And yet, I appreciate them. My favorite Moomin story stars Snufkin in "The Spring Tune" from Tales from Moominvalley:

"It's the right evening for a tune," Snufkin thought. A new tune, one part expectation, two parts spring sadness, and for the rest just the great delight of walking alone and liking it.

*The cliche used to be "a broken record." I am a child of the 1970's...

Spinneret: a Nature Table Gallery

I've created a Shutterfly gallery to showcase some of my nature table dolls. The site is called Spinneret. Come visit! I've placed a link on the sidebar of Saints and Spinners, and I'll add to the gallery as I create more figures.

Sunbeams and lanterns in late winter

Photo from the BBC South Yorkshire Winter Photos site

The golden crocus reaches up
To catch a sunbeam in her cup. -Walter Crane

Last May, when I had just received my new camera with the video feature, I recorded my daughter singing the Crocus song she learned at school. Despite the rough quality and the click at the end (I hadn't yet figured out how to edit, so everything was a one-take feature), you at least hear the tune for the song:

Crocus, crocus, waking up
Catch a sunbeam in your cup
Hold it tight, let it go,
Li-la, Li-la, li-lay-lo.


In the stories my family tells, crocuses and snowdrops are best friends because they're usually the first bulb flowers to poke their noses out of the ground. Recently, I composed a verse for the snowdrop:

Snowdrop, snowdrop, hanging down
Lantern shining in the town
Cold winds blow, you still grow,
Li-la, Li-la, li-lay-lo.



Photo from Irish Gardeners

You may wonder just where that snowdrop lantern shining in the town may be. Check a copy of Voices in the Park, by Anthony Browne. You'll find it. Speaking of Voices in the Park, I've had that book for years, and for awhile, each time I read it aloud to my daughter, I discovered something in the pictures I hadn't noticed before.

Nature Table Figures: The Spring Collection

Ever since 1987, I've wanted to write for the J. Peterman Company. Whenever I write a description for an auction catalog item, J. Peterman's influence is present. I keep meaning to dig out the letter J. Peterman wrote to me in response to an impassioned plea to bring back the "Jane Austen dress," a simple but elegant gown I wanted to wear for my theoretical wedding.

Here my Spring Shade Garden Collection nature table dolls for the school auction:


Johnny Jump-Up, Wake-Robin Trillium, and Bleeding Heart

1. Johnny Jump-Up is a 5 ½ nature table figure inspired by the part-shade perennial also known as heartsease and referred to as “Love-in-idleness” by Oberon, King of the Fairies, in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.* This garden jester is dressed in yellow, purple and green with a removable lined vest. He is created out of wool and cotton plus metal pipe-cleaners for the arms, legs and flower staff. He can stand without support as long as his legs are bowed. Johnny-Jump Up will bring color and joy to your early summer nature table for years provided he is kept out of reach from animals and children who still put toys in their mouths.

2.Wake-Robin Trillium is a 5 ¼ inch nature table figure inspired by the three-petal woodland perennial. Most trillium flowers are white, but Wake-Robin wears a skirt of three deep red petals complemented by three dark green leaves. A simple garland of green merino wool adorns her auburn French twist. She is created out of wool and cotton plus metal pipe-cleaners for the arms and flower staff as well as metallic embroidery threads that border the sleeves and underskirt. While you should never pick trillium from the wild without a permit, Lady Wake-Robin will gladly come indoors to grace your spring nature table. However, she should be kept out of reach from animals and children who still put toys in their mouths.

3.Bleeding Heart is a 5 ¼ inch nature table figure inspired by the heart-shaped garden perennial and created for the person who can’t get enough of the color pink. Her ball-gown is decorated with tête de boeuf, wheat-ear, chain, petal and point russe embroidery stitches. Gold metallic thread winds through her hair of many braids. She is created out of wool and cotton plus metal pipe-cleaners for the arms and flower staff. While her natural counterpart is a shade-plant, Lady Bleeding Heart does not shrink from the spotlight. However, in order to assure that she blooms for months and returns the following year, she should be kept out of reach from animals and children who still put toys in their mouths.

*That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
--A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act II, Scene 1