This morning I got a little bee in my bonnet. I had this feeling, this intuition, if you will, Fuller might be behind in some skills because we just don’t do them around here. Specifically, I was fretting over the idea that Fuller might not know how to use scissors.

Go ahead and laugh.

While Damon and I are pretty creative people, Fuller has never really shown prolonged interest in any of the following: coloring, drawing, pasting, and painting.

His creative juices flow in the building things sector of his brain. He likes play dough because of the shapes and piling on, which I supposed can be translated into a quasi-building activity.

But with the advent of Thanksgiving season and seeing such cute turkey and feather arrangements made by preschoolers across the blogs, I started to wish we to could commence with the age-old tradition of tracing your hand and gluing feathers to the turkey-esque shape. And if we really got into the spirit of the season, we could write down what we were thankful for on the different feathers.

I didn’t want to be the one doing all the work though. I wanted Fuller to be a part of the creation process. And this meant using scissors.

First, I thought this would be a hurdle because Fuller really hasn’t settled on a dominant hand for his fine motor skills. While he does a lot of writing with his left hand, he still attempts some letter drawing with his right. When he eats, he goes back and forth. And brushing his teeth is done with his right hand.

Kids scissors are ambidextrous (at least the ones from Ikea are), so I put a pair of scissors in front of him and told him to cut some paper. He started with his left hand and got frustrated. He switched hands and did really well with his right hand. He followed a “straight” line I drew on the paper and we soon had a strip of paper floating to the floor. He did a few more and then we had to leave for the morning.

This afternoon we tried again, this time Fuller spent twenty minutes using his left hand and cutting up a piece of paper. He even wrote his name and then cut along the lines he drew (his idea).

Tonight, after dinner, I decided to go ahead and attempt a turkey/ feather type craft. While Fuller was not so graceful in cutting out the hand we traced (he removed two of the fingers), I sent him back to cutting strips of colored paper. And our “craft” had now dissolved into Fuller chopping up five pieces of paper into lots of pieces. We have orange, red, yellow, and green (can’t forget the green!) scraps all over the living room floor. Fuller had a blast. And while we have no turkey or feathers to show for it, Fuller is getting better with the scissors. Though he still has yet to decide which hand should be the one to actually hold the scissors.

Today I participated in the Online Craft Club Show and Tell.

Did you miss it? Oh, well… it is over on my other blog, Always, Alli. Oh, you didn’t know I had another blog?

Well, the blog is all about me, me, me. I was feeling a little cramped here at home, what with two guys to contend with and very little space to have some me time, and I decided to stake my claim on a domain name, buy some hosting, and build a little online room for me.

Which means I am taking my crafting (I sew now!) and crochet over there to show off. If you want the low down on the bag Fuller took to Florida, made by his dear old mom, you can check out my show and tell there.

It was a busy, fun weekend. My sister came up for a short visit. Yes, we just saw her last weekend and we saw her about two weekends before that. Who cares? She only lives three hours away!

We packed a lot of activity into two days, but it was so much fun!

During the afternoon on Saturday we did a tour of Hobby Lobby so she could pick up some crafty things. I was working on my laptop sleeve and dreaming of my next project, so I picked up a few little things and used a 40% off coupon to help reduce the price.

When we got home I was able to show Austina how to do a freezer paper stencil and her response was, “It looks too easy.”

She is busy making some projects from Bend the Rules Sewing, which I would love to have a copy of.

One of the reasons Austina drove up this weekend was so we could go to the Clothesline art show at the Sessions House. She purchased a few fine items (I went halvsies on one piece that will be a gift for someone) and I refrained this time.

I am happy Austina likes to craft and we get to do stuff together like this. And if we can get Sarah-Ginny into it too, we can really be crafty sisters. My sister-in-law makes jewelry, so she can be part of our club! We can get jackets and stuff.

Or we can just all join the online craft club and post our progress once a week. Sounds like a plan to me!

Over Labor Day weekend my sister helped me get over my fear of the sewing machine and I went to town making a few appliqu? things and a new apron for myself (I love aprons).

Today I finally got out Damon’s sewing machine. I was successfully able to load the bobbin, cut out the material, and sew something. But I have reached the point of frustration in the project. One of the steps I have been skipping is the ironing part and it looks like I need to haul out the ironing board and actually press some seams. Otherwise, the material will not fit under the foot.

I won’t tell you what I am making, but I think it is pretty neat. A complete picture tour of my project will be available when I am done. And those of you meeting me in Las Vegas will get to see it in person!

This afternoon Fuller and I stopped into a store to see if I could find a dress for an upcoming wedding. I found two distinct possibilities, but didn’t buy them because there is a certain accessory I want for this dress.

I want to make a lightweight shawl.

Seems a bit silly, but I haven’t had a lot of inspiration for crochet lately (other than baby hats, that I am behind on) and recently I saw this stash of lightweight yarn that I have had for a while. I thought a summer shawl/ wrap/ shrug would be perfect. And then I thought if I wore it to the wedding then I would have a deadline that I would have to meet in order to stay on task.

On my way home from the store I got a bit inspired on a pattern to create for this shawl and I knew I needed some help. See, the pattern is all in my head and requires some math and geometry, two subjects I am not too sure about.

But my friend Heather, she is a math whiz. She loves math and having math in real life to challenge her. After describing to her what I want (think Olympic rings, but many more) she was able to get my vision and turn into the evil math genius that she is.

Turns out the answer to my pattern is the Pythagorean theorem. And to figure out what A is, I need Damon to measure my back.

To be continued…

Where wool comes from (found via Crochet Me).