Raise Your Hand If You’re Sick of Circuitboards...

We aren’t! We, being everyone in this household besides myself. We like to carry little palm-sized circuitboards around all day, clenched in the grimy sweat of dirty boy hands; we have a pizza box full of different sized circuitboards in the boy’s room (the brains of a computer mouse, calculator, motherboard, to name a few); we leave them at the center of little robot crime scenes across the living room floor (and it really hurts to step on them, DAMNIT FORD).

All this deconstruction has led to a massive reconstruction project of knee-patching, due to all the time Ford spends on the floor laboring over his electronic hardware. Of all designing I could put into a knee patch, I never would have guessed he’d ask for circuitboards. Never in my life. So here we go:

Git yerself 2 layers to quilt with: fleece makes it squishy, cotton is a nice outer layer. Kids pick the colors if they’re lucky. Cut to size (to cover at least an inch around the perimeter of the holes? Use your judgement). I used the regular straight-stitch foot on my sewing machine to embroider the circuitboard design thingy, then I sewed around the perimeter of the patch. I then overlapped the edges with the cotton, ironed everything flat.
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Next, I cut a piece of Heatbon UltraHold iron-on adhesive to match the shape. Affixed it to the bottom of the patch.
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Then I ironed it onto the pants. I had to REALLY IRON that puppy down, with so many layers. A real pain because I’m pretty impatient. That’s why this isn’t much of a craft blog but I’m learning to find a quiet meditative religion in the whole craft process. Anyhow,
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I decided to blbindstich (is that right?) around the edges, to really secore those edges down.
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And viola
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they turned out pretty cute he thinks, I think so too
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I could shop for new pants. This rubs me the right way, though. Who doesn’t like being rubbed the right way?
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Horsing Around in the Moonlight

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It’s midnight and I can’t sleep. The shelf above my desk retains a wall of towering fabric scraps, folded in assembly and ready to be all cut and sewn up. Into what? Perhaps a glow-in-the-dark circuitboard horse? Why not!

Cutting through thick wool felt is so satisfying, like the slow and steady joy of learning to cut through paper in preschool. And the way it sounds, like horses chomping on warm hay.

The surplus yarn in the office here is Fall-friendly and begging to be touched, wishing it were warm enough to get all knit up into scarves and pants and hats. Otherwise, it makes great manes and tales. But do you notice that Chas is wearing fleece?? After eight months of flip-flops I found myself wearing wool socks under my Air Jesus’ and I felt so…back in northern California. Layering is fun. 60 degrees F feels so nice, so much better than 90 degrees in mid-October.

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Oooh, If the Dust Ever Settles in This House…

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A circuitboard made of white foam and leftover yarn that Ford’s friends made during his birthday party; Chas’ wild volcano painting, originally with volatile sound effects; A featherwreath adorned by Betty and Boo; Ford’s rock collection: “magic rock,” amethyst geode, coral from Galveston, birthday geode from CZ…

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Our Fall nature table. Little Ivy Elizabeth Walker, Ford’s favorite character last year from The Village, sitting on the resting rock in the middle of a little Hill Country glade; Burr oak and Post oak acorns from around town; Edwards limestone; Ball moss from everywhere around town; chickenfeathers and unknown native grass, what I pretend is a White-Tailed deer…

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at Ivy’s feet: “HEXAGONS!” that Chas found on our walk through the neighborhood (courtesy of a sunbleached, long-dead armadillo skeleton)…

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Gretel, another storybook favorite, plays cavalier atop Big Billy Goat Gruff; and no nature table in our house is grounded without a chicken.