baby finds a kazoo

Saturday, January 19, 2008

gifts for little girls we love

Sydney

My little friend Sydney turned five years old today. Sydney is bold, beautiful, full of ideas and enthusiasm and she loves to offer my (very shy and unwilling) son ample hugs and kisses.

Sydney LOVES the color red (which illustrates her very good taste). To help her celebrate I made her this little handbag. The fabric for the body and lining came from the beautiful little fabric store in Taos. Someday, I'll use more of it to make napkins. The straps were made from some gorgeous golden yellow fabric that I bought in Paris years ago.

Edie

My big boy is in love with a little girl named Edie. Today he drew a picture of himself with a thought bubble above the drawing of his head and inside the thought bubble was Edie.

"See mommy, I'm thinking about Edie."

For Christmas, he wanted to make her gift himself. We began a friendship bracelet, but it quickly became clear that I would be driven insane by all the mind-numbing knots and hopelessly tangled embroidery floss. I didn't want his memory of the project to be of me losing my mind and destroying the tangled, beloved friendship bracelet in a fit of rage.

Instead we turned to the trusty potholder loom, for which he showed a particular affinity when he was four. He wanted to make potholders for everyone he knew. I remembered seeing a great feature in a Martha Stewart magazine years ago, in which she used her potholder loom with yarn to make sweet little squarish objects. We watched a great tutorial video by Noreen Crone-Findlay, here to learn how to warp our loom and weave. Don't you love the internet?

And the boy was off! It does my heart so much good to see him finding satisfaction in things he can do with his hands. I helped with some of the stitching around the little purse, but it was entirely woven by him and he was very proud. The lovely yarn he chose from my stash, was some of Scout's superwash worsted in the color Orchids.