Sunday, February 17, 2019

George and Roscoe Puppets

(Topic: Sewing, crafts, puppets, shakespeare)

Hi Friends!

Some years ago now, in 2015, I saw hubby play with a puppet sea turtle, and realized that I absolutely needed to make him some puppets of his own! I'd never made puppets before, but I figured I could give it a shot. In the meantime, a friend decided that there would be a "Shakespeare Puppetry" contest at a medieval event. In fact, I'm pretty sure she came up with the idea because she also saw hubby playing with that puppet...

I went ahead with just building as my heart led me, without a particular style or play in mind. I just had fun building. I also worked at an industrial supply company at the time, and had access to materials to help me get from idea to reality.

This is George. He is made out of red fleece and fiberfill for the soft parts; his skull is half of a polypropylene ball, the interior of his mouth is a felt disc. Some parts are glued, most are hand stitched. (Note that you can see a cat puppet I already owned beside him. She has a lock washer crown on her head.)
Here you can see how his eyes fit in their sockets. In fact, this was before I put the upper lids on! The eyes are small plastic balls like the skull. The shading on his tongue and the pupils and irises of his eyes are just drawn on with sharpie, but the whites of his eyes actually glow in the dark! As I was constructing him, initially planning to have his eyes fastened on firmly, they kept slipping out of my fingers! This reminded hubby of a scene in King Lear where someone's eye gets put out. Hm....
Once we decided on King Lear, I sewed up some decently Shakespearean clothing for him. We cut down the scene and eliminated a few characters to make it doable for 2 people (3 puppets total). George played The Duke of Glouchester - whose eye gets put out by sword, I believe (though it was a bit more haphazard than that in our version!). The cat (named Mies) played one of King Lear's daughters. We added the conceit that she meowed like Henrietta Pussycat from Mr. Rogers.
This crotchety old fellow is named Roscoe. He played Albany, who did the dirty deed. Thus, Roscoe's eyes needed to stay in place! Between bigger lids and a lot of glue, his eyes stay firmly in his head. They are made the same way as George's but don't glow. His hair is actual wool, and he's bald on top! He also has a dowel from his head downwards, which is used as a grip by reaching in through his back.

Full cast photo :)
P.S. I did make legs for Roscoe. However, I ran out of time to attach them before the puppetry contest, so his legs still lie in the box with them, separately!

 We ended up putting on the funniest tragedy! Our comedy of errors - since George's eye fell out early! - had our audience rolling. Best of all, I had a blast putting this crew together!




Yours,

Sarah

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Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Sophia's Wings walk/fundraiser

(Topic: Memorial walks for infant loss)

Hi Friends,

This is about something that happened last fall, that for some reason I hadn't gotten around to writing about.

In October, which is PAIL awareness month (Pregnancy And Infant Loss), many organizations hold memorial services or memorial walks, and occasionally fundraisers (and sometimes the walks have minor registration fees that help continue the work of that organization).

One of the organizations that held a memorial we were able to attend was Sophia's Wings. This wonderful organization, "Offering free grief counseling to families suffering the loss of a baby through miscarriage, stillbirth, ectopic pregnancy, or neonatal death." They only have limited availability at this point, because their service is so wonderful! And, sadly, because many people are in the circumstances of experiencing pregnancy or infant loss, and getting therapy can be a big help in learning to live with grief. Here's the Sophia's Wings Facebook Page (Hubby and Pookie and I are currently featured on their cover photo as I write this!).

The walk they held began in a fieldhouse along the track, and also had activities, such as making an ornament for the Sophia's Wings office, and an area where children could build things with their parents after the event. The whole thing started off with a moving ceremony, with a keynote speaker movingly sharing their loss story, and music. Then everyone walked around the track, and those who wished could walk around the neighborhood on a course.

The ornament I made for Charlie.
Here's a picture of Charlie's ornament hanging in their office: Memorial Tree.



Pookie sitting next to the memorial luminary with Charlie's name.

Leah Vonne was photographing the event, and this photo by her is one of only a handful of our family, and means so much to us. Because of that, we used it as our Christmas card for 2018.


Here's the photo album of the whole event: Album by Leah Vonne Photography

Hubby and I make a point to participate in this kind of memorial when we can, for several reasons. One is that they offer important services, and we find it important to help support them. Another is that memorial services are a wonderful, touching, and wrenching way to remember Charlie completely openly and publicly. I find that no matter how I honor and remember him in daily life, this way of acknowledging him, hearing his name read out, and walking in his honor is helpful to us in knowing he will always be loved and remembered.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them!

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Saturday, February 9, 2019

Blue and Purple: The last baby blanket

(Topic: Knitting, NICU)

Hi Friends!

As you might recall, I've been working on baby blankets to be donated to the local NICU. In fact, you've seen the in-progress version of this very blanket before! Here are the last few steps, showing how I completed it.
Also, I found out that the local infant loss support group (that I actually go to!) was getting blankets from the same knitting group, for deceased infants. Obviously with my particular background, infant loss blankets speak to me a lot more than NICU blankets, since I never actually had a child in the NICU. There are many lovely people who will continue to make NICU blankets, but I, personally, have chosen to switch to infant loss blankets only, whenever I am in the mood to do baby blankets.

I tried a lime green, but really didn't like how it looked. When I started that color, I couldn't find another color, but later when I sorted my yarn, I found the (slightly) darker purple skein you see above! I liked it much better than the lime, so I frogged the green and did a darker lavender instead.

Beginning the dark lavender.
As plasticky as this chenille is, it actually makes quite a cozy blanket!

And, done! Two shades of lavender, and a slightly different chenille used for the blue edging (thus the skewed edges - there are the same number of stitches but the light blue yarn is thinner so it doesn't make as thick or wide a fabric).

Thank you to the Loose Knit Group for donating the baby blankets that I have made to this point.


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Copyright anxiety

(Topic: Anxiety, copyright, right-of-usage)


Hi Friends,

I'm not sure if you've noticed that I try to post twice a week. Generally on Wednesdays I try to post something specific to life after loss, and on Saturdays I often keep it lighter with pictures of something I've made.

Recently, though, on January 26th, I missed a day without letting you know. And after that post, any pictures in my blog have had a copyright notice on them, either as a watermark or as text across the picture. Why?

Well, a blogger friend of mine has been having issues with her images and sometimes text being used without linking back to her blog (attribution), and without permission.

If someone wants to share one of our blog posts, it's easy: copy the link in your browser, and paste the link wherever! If you paste in Facebook, then your post in Facebook will have a preview of the post with a link and a picture. If you paste the link in Pintrest, it will let you choose which picture to show.

What you should not ever do, is save a picture and use it as though it were yours, without saying where it comes from. ALWAYS give credit to the person that the picture is from!

In the United States, by writing something, I own what I wrote ("copyright"). So anything that I write in my blog in my own words is mine. Out there for people to read, but it's mine! So to remind people, I put a copyright notice at the bottom of my blog.

~~~

Well, I had a conversation with my friend on how to prevent unauthorized usage that doesn't give her credit, such as adding a copyright notice at the bottom of her blog, adding watermarks or text to her images, and such, and talking with her on how to report Facebook or Pintrest posts that use her work without linking to her blog or giving her credit, and also advising her how to contact site administrators for other websites if people there are using her material.

I hope this conversation helped her.

Unfortunately, it had the side effect of making me worry that the same sorts of things were happening to my pictures and my posts. It's not as likely (her topic is much more sharable than mine) but it worried me so much that I couldn't post that day. Or the next day. Or the one after that.

The downside of life after infant loss is that you often end up with side-symptoms, like depression symptoms or anxiety symptoms or ptsd symptoms (though often not enough for a full diagnosis of that thing, interestingly). In my case, I have grief with a side of anxiety. This means that small things loom really large, and the idea of adding watermarks going forward was already difficult, but add to it the thought that someone might be stealing Charlie, and that I should add watermarks going back through all the old posts too!!! You might imagine that this ended up becoming a pretty hefty roadblock, mentally.

Once I worked myself back up to it, I started adding watermarks and text to my images just on the posts I was writing new, though I am also slowly working on older posts too. I'll be keeping my eye out for people using my material without permission - but if you see it first, please let me know!

In the meantime, if I post something useful, that you want to share, PLEASE DO!!!
JUST BE SURE TO DO IT BY COPYING THE LINK, NOT THE PICTURE!!!

Thank you all so much!!!💗💕


Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss

Saturday, February 2, 2019

Keeping Pookie Warm

(Topic: Knitting, Weighted bear clothing)

Hi Friends!

A few weeks ago we had a cold snap and a lot of snow. On the spur of the moment, I decided Pookie needed some cold weather accessories! He didn't have a scarf yet, and though he did have mittens and hats already, I figured a matching set would be fun!

I started by rummaging in my yarn stash to see if I had something that grabbed my eye. You may recognize this yarn: I used it before on a color-pooled crocheted scarf! For this project, though, I'm just using it as a variegated yarn without worrying about trying to pool the colors into a pattern.

I started by casting on to what looked like a good width, and created a 2x2 rib for about an inch and a half as a border. I then just knitted every row (which creates a garter stitch), until the scarf looked like it was the right length!


The result! I'm quite happy with this. It wraps well but is just long enough that if I want to put a knot in, I can.

Well! One piece down, mittens and hat to go! I decided to work the mittens next, fitting them as I went. Because Pookie's paws are pretty small, even using magic loop didn't feel like a great idea, so I worked the mittens flat. I then drew the top together, and seamed the side.

Cuff is on the left. See on the right, where the top of the mitten is, that I have a light blue bit of yarn drawn through the last row of stitches? That's what I pulled to cinch the top of the mitten.

Cinched and seamed! This is the inside of the mitten.

It looks like a muffin!!! If I ever need to knit toy muffins, I'll do it like this! Well, maybe not, since it wouldn't have a bottom.

I added a string, because I really don't want to loose them by accident (I've lost Pookie's rain hat already, which I consider to be a tragedy of the highest magnitude. I'm not going to loose a hand-knit mitten because I didn't take the time to tie it on!). The string is 6 strands of yarn, braided.

Snug in his snowsuit, and modeling the new scarf and mittens!!

Still chilly. Pookie borrowed my couch snuggle blanket.
 Well, if Pookie is still cold, I'd better throw together a hat! I decided to do this in the round, using the magic loop technique so I would have flexibility to try it on him easily, and also so I wouldn't have to change techniques as I decrease toward the top.

I started with a 2x2 rib again, so that it would match the edging on the other pieces. Since I was shaping as I went, rather than following a prewritten pattern, I decreased when I got high enough for it to get over his ears. With the rib pulling it tight below, and since I didn't change needle size to a larger one or decrease the stitch count, the brim pulls inward and then it bulges out - and the goes pretty flat on top to match his head shape. This means that it looks a bit funny when it's not on him, but looks great on his head!

I also decided to add a pompom, just for fun! The annoying thing about doing a garter in the round is the same as doing stockinette flat: you have to alternate purl rows with knit rows, so you have to be sure to know where your round starts and ends.

"Yes? Oh - yep, I love the hat!"

Modelling the hat. If you look closely, you can see the braided tie, tied under his chin, to help prevent accidental hat loss!

We found out that, due to the interesting shaping, that it works as a tam too!

I'm really glad I added the mitten string, because he has no wrists to help keep the mittens on! They have a tendency to slide off, but they stay on pretty well if the cuff of the sweater or snowsuit is over the mitten.

Yours,

Sarah

To subscribe, find the "subscribe by email" note in the left column and enter your email there. Links to posts will be emailed directly to you whenever I post them! Nothing else gets emailed.

Resource list: Visit my spreadsheet at www.tinyurl.com/infantloss