Albert « A Mother’s Journal

Making an Egg Basket from Fabric Scraps

By Lynn, on March 24th, 2010%

I posted last week about the fabric egg baskets I made for our Albert co-op and I said I’d post directions. Well, here they are. It’s not as easy to explain as it would be to show someone, so I hope it makes sense. It was a fun and cheap project!

This first thing I did was cut 4 strips of fabric, somewhere around 16 inches long and 1-1/2 to 2 inches wide. You can adjust the size as you want to. I ended up liking the wider (2 inches) scraps better. There was always length to cut off after tying, but the longer strips are easier to work with.

The next thing I did after laying out the strips in a star-type pattern was to carry them carefully to the sewing machine and sewing a messy circle of stitches in the center. This may be the most tedious part because you have to keep straightening the strips of fabric as you go around. This makes the bottom of the nest and does NOT have to be perfect. I even had different color threads on my spool and bobbin, but it only added to the color!

Now it gets harder to explain. The next step is to cut three more strips, also about 16 inches long and also about 2 inches thick. You are going to weave one strip at a time, over and under and over and under, and then cinch it and tie it at the end to make the circumference of the nest the size you want it. (The size of that messy circle you sewed will in part determine the circumference of the nest.

As you can see, I keep an old suitcase full of scraps, so my fabric choices were many. I chose bright springy-looking fabrics.

The picture above shows the first strip, woven over and under and then being tied the size I wanted to make the nest. At this point, holding one hand in the bottom of the nest, pull the original strips (blue stripes in this case) up to tighten that bottom “layer” and lay the strips out neatly for the next fabric strip to be woven in.

The second strip is woven exactly opposite as the first, and it will come out exactly right each time, i.e. you won’t end up with two “unders” or two “overs.” Tie the second layer.

Above is the picture after the third and final layer/strip has been woven in, exactly opposite as the second layer, so you end up with a weave just like a basket. Again, put one hand in the bottom of the basket to hold it while you pull and straighten out the original strips.

Now. This may be the hardest part to explain yet! You are going to have a lot of long pieces of fabric hanging off, but DON’T cut anything YET. You will have 8 long pieces from the original set of 4 strips, in this case blue and white striped. You will straighten them up and then tie pairs of strips over the top and final layer you’ve just woven around. In the picture above you can see me tying one. It will secure the top layer in place. You don’t want to tie it too tight, but you don’t want it too loose either, because then your egg nest will be flimsy. After tying four sets of ties around the top, you are ready to trim the ends.

Before trimming, I went around and tightened every knot so they would not come loose. I also had to re-tie a couple because once the higher layers were done, the lower ones seemed too big. You’ll know what I mean when you get to this part.

After trimming, you’ll have a finished nest for a pretty egg!

Voila!

I want to tell you all how much I appreciate each and every comment. I have not had time to answer each one over the last couple of days, but I read each and every one, and they mean so much! Life has been very overwhelming here lately. Thomas and I each missed at least a week’s worth of work (more for him) from his hospitalization, there were new medicines to be bought, both times he went in, I feel we got behind in life and in lessons, and of course we worry about those we love when they’re not doing so well, so we were all worried about carpenter-man. I am so thankful that Thomas is healing. He was even able to put in those couple of hours on the greenhouse last weekend, but John was a huge help, and Thomas really has really made sure to take it slow getting back into work, etc.

Just so you know I appreciate all of you!

Albert FIAR Co-op

By admin, on March 18th, 2010%

Today was a delightfully wonderful day! We had a Five In A Row co-op today, and this time our studies centered around the book Albert, by Donna Jo Napoli.

This is absolutely an adorable story, and the illustrations by Jim LaMarche are gorgeous. Albert, the main character, finds his inner strength when he stretches his hand out an upper story window and a pair of cardinals make their nest there. He is forced to stand, holding the nest, and listen to the noises of the city — both the good noises and the bad noises that always frighten him into staying home.

I do not have pictures of some parts of the day, as I was teaching today. Our day started off with a reading of the story and then a talk about “discovering the truth” and “illusion.” We looked at objects that were not what they seemed when you could only see parts of them. We looked at optical illusions on paper and had a lot of good discussion.

Each child received a laminated picture of a bird which was hole punched and hanging on a piece of cord with a couple of beads. Each child’s “mystery” bird was in an envelope. I think all of the children wore their cards and had a lot of fun comparing their new names.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Purple Martin! Who are you?”

Next it was on to some EGG-speriments! We did the ol’ egg getting sucked into a bottle, how much weight can eggshells hold, egg in vinegar losing its carbon (shell), and how can you tell if an egg is cooked or raw. They were quite successful (thank goodness — you know how something works at home but then in front of a crowd…). Again, I was teaching this part, so no picture of me doing the experiements. Thought you might want to see the EGG-speriments table, however.

Next, my co-teacher pulled out a large poster of different types of nests. Each child was given a picture of a bird. One by one, the children came up and paired their birds with the type of nest that bird creates. The children seem to love activities like this.

The children are just a great bunch of kids. They are all really good students and very easy to teach. Could it be any better?

Next, we moved the children into the edge of some woods — a lovely surrounding, to decorate eggs. Some of the eggs were hard boiled and some were just shells that had had the yolks and whites blown out. The children enjoyed this so much and we saw a lot of individuality (as always)!

We had Mod-Podge and tissue paper available.

Markers and colored pencils.

Paints.

And more paints.

After a plenteous time of painting and a few dashes through the woods by some active children pretending to be birds or some type of important egg bomb dropper (think boys here), the children were ready to sit down and listen again.

My co-teacher had a great display on the ear and drew the children into a very well done talk about how we hear.

Once again, each child was given a piece of paper with a picture on it of something that made noise. One by one, these things were placed on a decibel scale to illustrate how much noise they generated and whether or not it was enough noise to damage the ear.

Finally, the children had their snack, which consisted of tomato juice, one of Albert’s favorites and yet a drink which most of the children today decided was definitely NOT their favorite; and, they had little cups of seeds and raisins — things birds like to eat. The moms stood around and drank hot tea and coffee and talked, something we are all really, really good at.

I loved at the end of the co-op how the children carried their learning right into their play. They turned a little creek bed into a “nesting area” and set up nests for their eggs.

At the end of the day, each child was given a tiny nest, woven from scraps of fabric, to display their colored egg in. I’m too tired to post it tonight, but will soon post instructions for how I made the little nests. They turned out really cute I think.

Tomorrow is a work day for me, so I’m off now to relax for a few minutes, drink some Tension Tamer and then sleep. Ahh sleep. I’m tired. Did I forget to mention that I came home after the co-op and raked up leaves, cleared two garden beds, planted some rose shoots and a peony? Oh. Yeah. I did that too today.

I’m T-I-R-E-D! Happy, but tired.