Origami Mommy

Creative toy play, part 2: Fabric

With so much fabric in our house, it's only natural our children gravitate towards using it in their play. Here are a couple of ways they especially love to use it:

Play silks. I love play silks. 

These are among my favorite birthday gifts for young children because they are so open-ended and versatile.  A piece of floaty, silky cloth easily becomes a cape, a picnic blanket, a canopy for a little house, a sea on which to float paper boats, or a doll blanket or sling. Our boys lived in playsilk capes nonstop when they were little and I still smile when I remember all their adventures. You can buy these online, but it would also be special to get some plain white silk and dye your own - I remember once dyeing a silk cape with onion skins, which turned it into an ethereal gold. Here's a lovely little tutorial on how to dye your own playsilks.

Aside from silk, my favorite fabric to have lying around the house is felt. Sometimes the kids cut it up and glue it on their own, but since I sew, the kids know they can come to me to help them turn the designs they dream up into a reality. 

These little sleeping bags for instance are so easy to whip up, even if you don't consider yourself a sewer. 

 

This makes a good beginning handsewing project, and your child can glue on embellishments as desired. Just cut out a long rectangle, fold it over lengthwise, and sew, leaving a bit of excess room on one end for the doll's head to rest on.

Felt also makes a sweet crown for your child to wear. Have your child pick out the color of the felt and choose where to place buttons or other decorations. You don't even have to edge it in a blanket stitch if you have felt that's sturdy enough. 

 

Or you can make clothing for a favorite stuffed animal. Again, I think it's nice for your child to feel part of the design process by choosing all the colors. D went through a phase where he adored Corduroy, so I made this for him while he made the sword out of a craft stick, some foil, and some tape.

  

And I just love Zakka Life's tutorial on making capes for Lego figures - this is something D has requested many times. I'd tried to make capes with cotton, but felt would be much sturdier.

Photo: Zakka Life

 Photo: Zakka Life

Fleece is another material that comes in handy because it doesn't fray - it makes a perfect sleeping bag for a stuffed animal or doll. 

Here are a few other ways to use felt, fleece, and cotton cloth.

Plain old little pieces of fabric, simply hemmed (but they don't have to be!), have also inspired many tea parties in our house. 

 

Finally, I love wool. I have a collection of wool scraps from old sweaters, and though I'm saving most of them for crafts of my own, the kids love to dig through them as well. Wool, like felt and fleece, doesn't fray, so it's very child-friendly and is used for all sorts of things - it becomes pretend food, tiny blankets, little animals (when knotted up), and so forth. I think some red wool even became fire on a pretend camping trip once. 

I love seeing what children can do with a simple little piece of cloth. Try collecting some fabric in a basket, give it to your own kids, and see what happens. 

Creative toy play, part 1: building blocks

  

I have such a love-hate relationship with toys. I love watching children deeply engrossed in play  - play is, after all, the work of childhood. But I have a hard time with clutter, anguish over missing pieces, dislike toys that are meant to be played only in one specific way, and most of all, loathe the commercialization that seems to pervade modern childhood. I also think that when there's too much going on - too many toys, too much stuff - children play less well, and less creatively, with what they do have.

To try to avoid this, over the years, we've worked on building a small collection of good toys.  Most of what the kids are drawn to over and over again are simple open-ended classics such as wooden blocks and toys for pretend play - dolls, animals, kitchen items, vehicles, and little Lego or Playmobil figures. 

Kapla blocks are quite pricey, but they have lasted us nearly a decade so far and have been used in so many different ways. B, age 10, made this pretty cool maze with kaplas and a couple of other smaller colored blocks. I like how he wrote "Start" at the entrance of the maze.

Kaplas also become castles, like the one in the photo at the top of this post. The photo doesn't show this but the boys also cut up a bunch of felt to use in the castle as carpets and runners. Flags and banners are easy to make as well with a stick and a bit of glue and cloth.

Children love setting up scenes. In addition to building blocks, recyclables are useful too - this was made from a paper bag, paint, and milk cartons, plus origami for the boat. 

I try to get the children to put their own creative stamp on their play by showing them how to make or design their own props to stretch their play with store-bought toys. A milk carton ship to take Lego figures on adventures far and wide. Clothing designed for a beloved bear. A cape for a little boy made of a simple scarf. An impressive sword made of cardboard and foil. Pretty paper flowers for a flower shop or garden. I think it's nice for children to learn that you can always make what you need rather than buying it! 

Getting your children started on a more creative path to play can be as simple as collecting a small fabric stash just for the children and their projects, collecting buttons, stones, sticks, and shells as well as empty baskets and boxes, having yarn and ribbon, elastic and tape on hand, and keeping a bunch of recyclables for your children to use. By doing this, you will find yourself, and your children, cultivating an ability to spot potential in the most mundane things. Treasures from trash!

In the next two posts of this three-part series I'll be showing you a few things you and your children can do with these raw materials. In the meantime, I'd love to know what your children's favorite playthings are.

Needle book and other tiny projects

My projects are getting tinier and tinier. Here's a needle book I made the other day. I did the tree free-form style. I had a strong craving to embroider an autumn tree somewhere (although the hot weather has just now kicked in here in Japan), and this was the result.

Finally a place to store all my needles! It's only about 2 inches by 2 inches. The only problem is that Mia thought this was a little book I made for her, and keeps trying to grab it. I suppose a small felt book will be my next tiny project.

I also made her some small bags out of linen. She prefers the brighter one while I prefer the (as yet unfinished) subdued one. A great way to use up yo-yos.

Finally, the ultimate of small projects - a tiny hairpin.

I made a lot of mistakes with this, but it was just a first try, to see how it works, and oh, it's so much fun. Here's the wonderful tutorial by Mairuru.  I'm going to make more of these this weekend - we're going on another car trip outside Tokyo. I'll be giving a talk on diaper-free babies in Japanese at a workshop. More when I return - and please do stick around, because I am planning a giveaway in the next few weeks!

Sewing on Mt. Fuji

We escaped Tokyo over the weekend for a little weekend trip with friends to Mt. Fuji and a lake called Yamanaka-ko. While the rest of the group went into a hot spring and went swimming, I dug into a bag of felt and fabric scraps I'd brought along for some handsewing projects because it was so wrenching to be torn away from my sewing machine just when I'd started falling in love with it so.

Before I left, I made a new skirt and a dress for Mia. The dress was made of Japanese double-gauze fabric (which I adore - two more double-gauze fabric dresses are in the works right now), and was loosely based on the pillowcase dresses that you see tutorials for everywhere. I sewed elastic in the front and back and then made bias tape out of the material that I used in the armholes and for shoulder straps because I had no ribbon. I realize I am much happier winging it when making a dress rather than sticking to a precise pattern. I made a matching scarf out of the same double-gauze fabric with a pale pink striped cotton backing on the other side.

I also made a skirt out of a small piece of Heather Ross's Far Far Away fabric by Kokka, combined with a tiny ruffle made of Rowan fabric.

This, too, I made without a pattern. I just made each tier a bit bigger than the one on top and then used my newly-learned ruffling techniques (making a loose running stitch along the top and then pulling gently on the bobbin threads to gather) to experiment. I learn something new with each sewing project. This time I learned that I have to pay close attention while cutting fabric so I don't ruin the design - there are no whole unicorns on this skirt anywhere, which was a great disappointment!

I also made some bags - a tiny treasure pouch for Mia to carry small toys in and a larger tote bag for me out of canvas. I especially like the button detail on the bottom.

We went to a few really nice places on this trip. It was balm to my soul to be away from people and buildings. I was raised in the countryside so living in cities all these years and raising my children in urban areas has been hard for me. 

Mountains and water were everywhere and the weather was cool, although foggy. The fogginess made it challenging to take good photos, and in the end we never did get any good photos of Mount Fuji, although we drove up partway by car and then hiked a little bit up the mountain.....just a bit.

We also went to a children's nature park where they could play around in the water....

make things out of wood....that woodpile, heaven for my little boys! and saws and chisels and hammers and nails everywhere....

My brave friend allowed her foot to be used as leverage while the kids were wielding their saws...!

While the others were busy with their activities, I hand-sewed a bunch of little felt things and also got started on some embroidery at last. I don't think I was too successful with my first batch of felt mascots at all, but my children loved them and loved being able be involved in choosing colors and that's all that matters. 

As evening approached we got settled into an inn...

and then ate a lovely dinner

Sparklers afterwards....so much fun on a summer evening!

The sweetest shoes

I love Heather Bailey. Here's the result of yet another one of her free online tutorials: Bitty Booties

I've downloaded a couple of free baby bootie/baby shoe patterns, but I thought I would try this one first because felt is so easy to work with. It took no time at all to make - truly a quick and easy pattern - and my kids love them! It makes us all feel pretty excited to meet the baby whose feet will be wearing these this winter.

Felt sweets and twirly skirts

Such fun to make! Felt sweets were very popular here over the last few years. I actually don't see that many kits for them anymore but they do have them online and there are also lots and lots of cute books. I don't have this one but it looks very....intricate. The attention to detail! Here's another featuring felt bread and another featuring felt produce.

I picked this particular cake kit a few years ago and dug it out recently because I so wanted to do something small and needleworkish and quick. The children were smitten. I will be making a few more to immortalize our Japanese bakery experiences. Now that I have a kit under my belt I will feel more confident about cutting my own felt. 

The urge to create has been so strong in me lately (nesting, perhaps?) and it is so hard not to have enough time and enough materials. I discovered an Etsy store which ships beautiful fabric overseas. I also discovered a kit for an Amy Butler quilt which I have been wanting to try for so long. Those pinks and greens and browns! I'm not a quilter at all (how I regret not paying more attention when my mother was doing all her quilting), and am not sure if this is something that will be fun or frustrating for me to be doing, all by my lonesome, with a toddler girl to watch during the day. The cutting is the hardest part - I don't have a rotary cutter at the moment, and my botched cutting jobs usually result in imprecise sewing results. So I've been searching for a kit that has pre-cut pieces in it so I can just do the assembly and quilting.

I've gotten a few skirts done at least. This one, here, I actually did awhile ago, when I did the Japanese girly dress. It's from the same book, Koharu no fuku (Clothes for Koharu). It's so incredibly simple, just a tube of fabric 110 centimeters wide. Which seems very, very wide, but works if you use a nice gauzy material like this one.

Then I found a super tutorial online for a skirt which was right up my alley - just the right level of challenge for me, doesn't use too much material from my preciously tiny stash, and lets me combine two different fabrics. Plus, no pinning/cutting of complicated Japanese patterns. I really loved this skirt. But I have no pictures of Mia wearing it, alas. It is incredibly hard to photograph an active little girl! Just take my word for it - this is a great, clear tutorial. Hopefully I'll get a photo of her in it someday.