dream fungi, worm grunting, and CRAFTING!

Eliza dreamt that I had shelf fungus growing at the back of my throat. She also dreamt that I had a mushroom growing out of the back of my neck. That would explain a few things about the way I'm feeling this week...not well!  We called in the expert, who had to fly here from outer space.

 The prognosis was not good. So we called in another...

Ah! Smiles! Apparently I would live. And so I have...and tonight, after my first hot toddy, made for me by a good friend who told me the first day I felt sick to get out there and get me some whiskey!, I am feeling a glimmer of wellness. I can swallow. I am not coughing. There is hope...

So, there has not been a lot of crafting together this week, though the girls have been in a mad way about the recycling bin lately, creating masks out of boxes and bags and sticking all sorts of things together. I have no pictures of those, but I do have photos of a day of crafting with friends, before I fell ill! Such fun. First, we made more of these ornaments that we made a few of last year. 

 They are so simple - made of small wheels of cardboard, using a jar lid for size; an even number of evenly-spaced snippets around the edges, some string...

 They are mesmerizing to make, and each one manages to be different. depending on how many times you go round the circle.

 To begin with, holding your end of string at the back, thread through a slot and continue to find the slot directly opposite. String around the back, choosing one slot to the side of the first, and matching it with its mate directly opposite. On and on, until you've made it all the way around. The second time around, we chose to go one off, meaning, instead of heading to the slot directly opposite, we went to the one next to that slot, and then continued in that way all the way around.

 Obviously, you can keep improvising on this, coming up with endless designs.  We also varied the number of slots we cut to begin with.

They'll make beautiful ornaments, or garlands, or gift tags...

We were crafting with dear friends, and had the day to spend together, so there were a few more projects at the ready. The other that we got to, between talking and rather important playing, was making tin can luminaria.  I'd tried this before, when Eliza was really too little to help much, and I seem to remember my sister and I in very cold weather, out on her porch one night banging away at some icy cans...(which turned out beautifully).  The girls were much more involved this time 'round!

 You start this one by filling a can with water and freezing it. You want the can hard so you can pound a nail into it without denting the can.

Hey! There's me, bangin' a can!

 So,  there we were, banging holes into our cans, when I realized that there were worms out and wriggling next to us. And this was not a warm and wormy sort of day at all. There had been frost on the ground in the morning, it was not happy earthworm weather. Then I remembered something that I've been wanting to try for years, but never have gotten around to, called worm grunting. Mmmhmm, you heard me right. There is a trick for calling worms to the surface of the earth in large numbers, which would come in handy if you were, say, going fishing.  Usually I think this involves one of a variety of methods of creating rhythmic vibrations on the earth (driving in a stake and beating on it; drawing a notched stick across another driven into the ground - this is called "fiddling").  One theory I've read says that they think it's starting to rain and they come to the surface before the ground is too saturated and they drown. I've also read that the sound mimics the sounds moles make as they're scratching their way towards dinner.  In any case, I'm fairly certain that the worms were called by our pounding, which just made my day.

 Back to luminaria!  You can try drawing your design on the can with a sharpie, which worked part of the time, or I suppose you could try taping on a piece of paper with a design. We just wung it and they turned out really lovely.

 So there you have it. We've begun the crafting...slowly slowly we are making our way towards the Solstice - the slower the better for me, as I try to catch up from the mysterious dream fungi that were keeping me out of commission...It's nice to be back.