Macrame

If I were to rank my skills in fiber arts, I think crochet and sewing are my “best things.” However, macramé has long fascinated me, and I’ve created a few things over the years. In working with the cones, mosses, flowers, sticks and boughs of our timberland, macramé has reintroduced itself, a long-neglected cousin in the fiber art world. 

Macramé is the art of knot-tying and is believed to have originated in the 13^thcentury with Arabian weavers who used it to make decorative fringes on rugs and other woven items. Sailors adopted it, and it was quite popular with the Victorians. More recently it has been associated with the bohemian style of décor which has seen something of an upswing since the “hippie” era of the 60’s and 70’s.

There are two basic knots in macramé, the Half Knot and the Half Hitch. Variations on these two lend themselves to a wide variety of designs. Beads, shells, rocks and other items are often woven into the pattern. 

How do we incorporate macramé into crafts made from forest products?

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Plant hangers are a good place to start. They are often made simply with a ring at the top and three or four strands of cord knotted in square knots or another variation of basic knot. Beads are often used to enhance the hanger. The cords are gathered together and fastened at the bottom, and the plant container is nestled above the gathered cords. Simple. 

We have been cutting thin slices of alder logs and branches and would add an alder-round platform to the hanger.  

Wall hangings of macramé can be quite stunning. Looping the cords over a dowel or straight stick, then knotting the cords to create a pattern is a simple way of creating a dramatic wall hanging. A finished store-bought stick is fine but foraging for one in nature adds an element of the wild and creates a more rustic bit of décor. A quick look on Etsy indicates the macramé owls of the 70’s are back (or never left). They often have two sticks, top and bottom, with the owl fashioned of knots between. 

Possibilities are endless! How many ways can knotting be used in conjunction with sticks and twigs, cones, plants, and various other forest foraged objects? 

Let your imagination go wild!!

Margaret

Stressed? Try Crafts

workshop

What a challenging time for us all. I am attempting to follow the guidelines to avoid exposure to the Covid-19 virus, while doing other things to stay healthy and boost my immune system as well: home-cooked meals, extra vitamin C, enough rest. 

Stress, research has shown, impacts the immune system and makes your body more prone to illness. While the social distancing, hand washing and staying home are to limit our exposure to the virus – and rightly so - the whole situation is fraught with extra stress, from financial concerns to worries over the safety of loves ones to the anxiety caused by social isolation. Just going to the grocery store has become a challenge with the long lines, the tape on the floor to enforce social distancing, the need to wipe down carts, and the empty shelves. 

While making the effort to avoid the virus, we also need to counter the detrimental mental and physical effects of the stress caused by those efforts.

How do we do that? 

crochet

There are a lot of stress-busting tips, but here we are going to focus on one: crafts. 

There have been studies done showing the mental and physical health benefits of arts and crafts. Working with your hands is not only fun and relaxing, it releases endorphins in your brain and boosts your immune system. Arts and crafts can lift you out of depression, has shown to improve memory for those with dementia and enhance treatment for those fighting cancer. 

adult coloring book

It really does not seem to matter what type of craft. I dealt with my own cancer treatment by turning to crochet. Knitting, painting, woodcarving and woodworking, ceramics, coloring books…anything. All of it is beneficial, including the sense of accomplishment when a project is finished. 

wood art

Start with something simple like an adult coloring book - or just commandeer a child’s. Get some play dough. Start a sewing project. Dig out the knitting needles or the crochet hook and that old stash of yarn.  

Protect your immune system and do your part to fight the virus by painting a picture. Build something.

As for me, macramé looks interesting….

Margaret 

WildingsWhimsy

Nature Crafts for Kids - Sticks

 

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay 

Sticks. My grandson, who loves sticks and has kept a special collection on the family’s patio, is very imaginative with his twigs as long as it involves swordplay (“schwords”) or knives. And the occasional dinosaur.

For the rest of us, sticks can be non-lethal sources of creativity. 

Once you have gathered your sticks, prepare them for craft use by trimming with clippers (or a saw if they are very large). Bringing outdoor flora inside always includes the risk of bugs or dirt riding along, so prune your sticks to manageable size, then soak in a pan or sink of warm water with a splash of vinegar to take care of the bugs and remove any dirt or debris. 

They can be left on paper towels to air dry. It is safe to dry sticks in a very low oven (200-degrees) for 30 minutes to speed the process. 

Further preparation depends on the project. You may want to strip off bark, or even sand and paint or stain your sticks.

For some ideas on making stick toys, check here.

This twig-boat is cute, too.

Stick Wall Art

We’ve been collecting old picture frames from Goodwill to make low cost stick wall hangings. Remove the backing and glass from the frame, if included. If you wish, spray paint the frame your color of choice.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay 

Cut the sticks the same length as the frame plus a couple inches longer. Leave the sticks natural, or spray paint them to coordinate with the frame. Place the sticks on the “wrong” side of the frame and fasten in place.

Our fastener of choice is glue, and hot glue works well on this project, but children will need adult supervision for this part. Another alternative is to use a staple gun to fasten the sticks to the back of the frame. Kids need supervision with this as well.

Start of hemp twine macrame on stick

Once the sticks are secure the wall hanging is complete – no glass or backing required.

Macramé Wall Hanging

I love macramé, and the basic knots are not hard to learn. With macramé cord, or smooth twine, create a simple wall hanging from an interesting stick. See our work-in-progress at right.

For a tutorial on a basic knot technique with a stick, watch this video.

Best wishes with your creative efforts!

Margaret

Nature Crafts for Kids

Image by betinasuarez from Pixabay 

While the Covid-19 virus and the resulting limitations on work, study and travel is unprecedented, most of us can draw on our previous experience with floods, wildfire, snowstorms, power outages and other random acts of nature. Resist fear and panic; we will get through this…

In the meantime, many of you have children at home unexpectedly. Keeping them learning and occupied in a productive manner is important for the sanity and health of everyone. Crafts, while not the whole answer, can be part of the solution. Finding creative things to make with things already on hand is easier than one might think. For example, while not a “nature” craft as such, here’s my old standby, a homemade play dough recipe:

            1 cup white flour

            ½ cup salt

            2 t cream of tartar

Mix together. Add:

            1 cup water

            2 T oil

            Food coloring of choice

Mix together and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and forms a ball. As soon as it is thick, remove from the stove, take the dough out of the pan and knead it on a sheet of waxed paper until the dough is smooth and the color is uniform. 

Play dough if great, but now is a good time to spend outdoors and in the sun, if possible. Creating things from items found in nature is a good learning opportunity and a chance for children to exercise their creative muscles. Collect leaves to press between the pages of a thick book or preserve them by placing them between sheets of waxed paper and using an iron. Detailed instructions can be found here. 

Collect smooth rocks to bring home and paint. Children can paint the scenes of their choice on flat, smooth stones, but an uplifting project might be to create Kindness Rocks. Write inspiring messages on rocks, then put them back outdoors to be found by others who might need a bit of encouragement. More information.

Pine cones, of course, seem to have an endless number of craft uses. In some locations they are quite easy to find, and if you happen to have some in your backyard you will be able to keep your crafters busy for some time.  

Using felt or paper (or both) to turn pine cones into a variety of animals is one of the cuter ways for children to use cones in crafts. Popular pine cone animals include owls, hedgehogs, turkeys, rabbits, chickens, bats and mice.  

One of my grandsons, who just turned four, has a long history (for one so young) of collecting sticks at every opportunity. His mother, for a time, allowed him to keep a limited collection of special sticks on the patio outside their apartment. The craft-making potential of sticks deserves a post of its own, so stay tuned…

Margaret

Coming soon: Adventures in Basket Weaving

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay 

A basket, because of its soul, must never be put in a dark or out of the way place. It must be free to dance around the world each night and to grow old. -author unknown

We’ve explored our forestland for numerous products that could be used in crafts, including Douglas fir, cedar and pine boughs for fresh holiday wreaths and swags. We’ve experimented with numerous ways to use fir, pine, hemlock, and alder cones in wreaths and wall hangings and even jewelry. Another avenue of interest, yet to be fully developed, is basket making.

I love baskets. My house is full of baskets, all sizes and shapes, but the ones worthy of special note are an antique willow basket my grandmother gave my mother when she first married my dad. The basket was old then, and that’s been over 70 years. I’m guessing it is around 150-170 years old. Mom used it as a clothes basket for many years.

Our antique willow basket

Mom made pine needle baskets as one of the many crafts (sewing, crochet, embroidery, quilting, painting) at which she excelled. The baskets were made of long-leaf pine (Pinus palustris) and raffia and we still keep several in her memory. The long-leaf pine grows in the southeastern United States and has needles as long as 18 inches, the longest in the world.

While the pine needles on our tree farm are not long-leaf, they are traditionally the most important pine needle used in basketry: Ponderosa pine. The fiber used to stitch the needles can be anything from raffia, which is imported, to local cedar bark, nettle, hemp twine or linen thread.

Pine needle baskets by Edith Garner

Bitter cherry, a medium-sized tree, also grows on our property. One grew in the corner of our yard when I was a child, and the Y-shaped trunk was my favorite hiding place. The bark can be split into strips and woven into waterproof baskets. 

We also have willow, which comes in many varieties and has a long tradition of being woven into baskets, such as our antique one.

Cedar is another species that grows on the farm, and the bark was used heavily by Native Americans for baskets, mats, clothing and other items. I read something recently that said blackberry vines could be woven into baskets, not something we would have thought to try.

A recent trip to Maryhill Museum in the Columbia River Gorge revealed the antiquity and creativity of the Native American basket makers. Visit the displays there, if you get a chance. This is such an ancient, time-honored tradition and we are looking forward to learning more.

We have a lot to learn! We will post our adventures as we explore creating baskets from the wild materials on our timberland. 

Margaret

The Use of Red Alder Wood in Crafts

Image by MonikaP from Pixaba

Here grew willows and alders, their trunks twisted like giants’ sinews. Around them bark lichen bloomed blue-white in the darkness. It felt like a good place, where there was old magic. 

-Duncan Harper, “Witch of the Fall”

We were searching for pinecones in the tall grass and brush beneath our twenty-acre stand of Ponderosa pine when we stepped out of the pines into a glade with a small group of elderly red alder, big and tall, in the center. They were covered in lichen and moss, and branches had fallen in a recent windstorm. We took a photo of a strange looking mushroom growing out of a hole in one of the trees. 

The glade we stepped into did seem a bit magical, like the quote from the fantasy book above, although I’m more inclined to C.S. Lewis’s “deep magic” of the Narnia tales, that points back to Christianity rather than paganism. Nature is God’s handiwork, thank you very much. The alder seems like a mystical tree, though, with wood that turns red after being cut. The ancient Celts venerated it, and it was associated with various pagan deities. 

Red alder is common in the Pacific Northwest and our property has alder near every wet spot. Years ago, I recall learning that alder might be marketable for paint brush handles; now it competes with Douglas fir in market price and we sell a bit when we harvest. It is used for the brush handles, still, but also furniture, cabinets, trim, and paneling. 

And get this! Fender has used alder to make their electric guitar bodies since the 1950’s! 

It has other benefits. Traditionally, in the Pacific Northwest, it was used to smoke salmon. The bark, which contains salicon, can be used as a tea to reduce inflammation, or rubbed on the skin to ease the pain of poison oak or insect bites. 

Walking stick by the author

Alder is a member of the birch family and is unusual in a number of ways. Like birch, it is monoecious – that is, it has male and female flowers (calkins) on the same tree. The leaves do not change color in the fall but are shed still green. It adds nitrogen to the ground, and the rotting leaves are a great soil amendment.

Alderwood candleholder

And it is beautiful, both the tree with the distinctive calkins, and the pale, straight-grained wood. We have found a number of craft uses for alder and plan to experiment with more. The young trees or branches make great walking sticks. They dry straight if stored properly and are very strong and light-weight for hiking sticks. The straight grain lends itself well to decorating either by carving, paint or woodburning, and we have done all of that. The bark, in addition to being medicinal, makes a good dye. The alder dye batch we tried, on pure hand-spun wool, was a nice beige color. 

At one point we attempted to make jewelry from the small female alder cones, using electroplating. 

Adler round coasters

Currently we use alder rounds, or “cookies,” in a variety of ways, including crafting candleholders and making coaster sets. We use decoupage on the coasters to either transfer an image, or to just affix one. These are then coated with both decoupage and Verathane for protection. There are plans afoot to use pyrography (woodburning) on the coasters as well. 

And…so much more. The red alder is amazing and versatile and somewhat overlooked in crafts, but I would predict it will gain in popularity in future days. 

In the meantime, it is a nice tree to have in the woods...
Margaret

Biophils Among Us

Just being surrounded by bountiful nature, rejuvenates and inspires us.– E.O. Wilson

Relax, most of us are biophils and always have been. But now we have a word for loving green things and nature: biophilia.

What is biophilia? The dictionary meaning is “love of life.”  Human beings are hard-wired to live in touch with the natural environment, something many of us know intuitively, but in recent times we seem to have lost our way. Being connected with nature and living green things relaxes us, improves our ability to think and be creative, and generally improves health, wellbeing and productivity, but sadly too many of us spend too much time in sterile environments, far removed from the natural world.

Biophilic design, which is an attempt to address this deficit, is having an impact on architecture and is currently the fastest growing trend in interior design. Buildings are being built to meld with the outdoors, to include living plants and natural wood and stone in the interior, to create a more humane environment with the use of building materials, lighting and decoration.

While the innovative work taking place in the business world and public spaces is inspiring and fascinating, how does this apply to, say, your own apartment or house in the suburbs? How can we use nature in our own homes to calm, sooth, inspire and relax us?

terrarium

A few suggestions:

·     Live plants in the house was biophilic before biophilia was a thing. Take it a step further and build a terrarium.

·     Make a statement with wood: an unfinished wood stump as an end table, rough wood picture frames. 

·     Add river rocks, branches, preserved leaves and flowers to your décor.

·     Add moss to a floral centerpiece, terrarium, or as a wall decoration, either live or preserved.

Take something simple and “ordinary” from the outdoors and use it to make a statement: flowers, twigs, rocks.

As a true biophil, you will find even a small amount of natural décor has the power to rejuvenate and restore the human soul.

 What are you doing to restore your soul with nature?

Margaret

How to Collect and Prepare Cones for Crafts

Hemlock cones on tree

We started WildingsWhimsy by offering cones in bulk lots for crafters, so let’s just take a quick look at how we forage and prepare cones for use in crafts.

We collect four species from our property: Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine, hemlock and White pine. The Douglas fir are far and away the most plentiful, with hemlock a distant second. We do not have much Ponderosa pine and had seen few pinecones, so finding some was a new and exciting discovery. Love those pine cones! They are large and fat and well formed, adding a pop to holiday wreaths or other decorations. 

We attempt to locate and collect this year’s cones in late summer and fall. You can tell they are “ripe” when there are new cones on the ground, and the squirrels are busy collecting them. Some of our cone collecting skills were developed many years ago when we collected seed cones to sell for propagating Douglas fir seedlings. The cute, tiny hemlock cones are also collected off the ground, although they are easily gathered from lower branches as well. We don’t climb trees to gather any type of cone (or boughs).

Ponderosa pine cones

Whatever the species, the process is the same after we haul home our big tote bags of usually wet and sometimes muddy cones. We put them in batches in the sink with a tiny amount of dish detergent and a bit of vinegar, letting them soak to get the dirt – and most importantly – the bugs out. Water causes the cones to close up, if they were open before, but this is temporary. You can also use a splash of bleach rather than vinegar if you want. The purpose is to get rid of any “critters” in residence under the cone scales.

We leave them to soak for about 30 minutes while we preheat the oven to 200°. 

Douglas fir and hemlock cones

We then remove the cones from the water, rinse and remove fir needles, grass, leaves and the other bits of debris that inevitably comes along. We cover old baking sheets and broiler pans with tin foil – these can be picked up at Goodwill or yard sales. I tend to prefer to put the cones in a single layer, if possible, but they can be mounded up a bit if necessary.

Dry the cones in the oven for about 30 – 45 minutes. This will dry them a bit, and eradicate any stubborn insects. We have found that cones that have been soaked in water will need longer to dry and open fully, so ours are left in a wide cardboard box or on the sheets for several days to completely “cure.” Be aware that if you layer them very deeply they need to be stirred or turned daily, as they can mold.

When they are fully open we usually remove any seeds that haven’t already fallen out (for another project we are doing) and check further for bugs or debris. A nice set of tweezers is good for this.

After a few days we have lovely, opened cones for crafts and floral arrangements. 

Feel free to comment!

Margaret

Wildings

“Wildings” is a very old word, dating to the mid-1500’s and meaning, simply, a wild plant (or animal), something untamed, uncultivated. Centuries (and Game of Thrones) may have added layers of meaning, but here we use it in the original, uncomplicated sense…mostly.

WildingsWhimsy, the name of our Etsy shop, was so named simply to indicate that our crafty creations are from the wild—rustic chic décor created from things foraged from our own forestland in the mountains of western Oregon. 

While feeling the need to explain the meaning of one’s shop or blog name does not bode well for brand recognition, we are fond of the name and will soldier on for a time until greater experience and wisdom indicate a need for change. 

So why are we doing this, creating rustic décor from things found in the woods? It helps that we have a fairly large bit of timberland at our disposal, a property in the family for over 80 years. We began by seeking to sell natural craft supplies, like dried pine cones and moss, to crafters. But, being crafty ourselves, we were soon dipping into our stock to experiment with fir and pine cone wreaths, moss art and clever candleholders. 

While fun, there is a deeper reason for moving in this direction. We have sensed in society at large a hunger for nature and wild things, a need for connection with the natural elements that many feel estranged from in our modern world. The Japanese movement, “forest bathing,” is one indication of that. And the growing interest in living walls, installations of living mosses, ferns and other plants in both public and private spaces is another. And when the upkeep of living walls seems too daunting, there is interest in smaller moss wall hangings of preserved moss, sticks and stones. 

The question for us at WildingsWhimsy is how to bring a touch of the wild to our urban cousins and it is that question we will explore in future posts. I have elsewhere quoted John Muir, but it bears repeating, “Every natural object bears a touch of divinity…”. That is the connection we hope to facilitate in our increasingly stress filled world.

WildingsWhimsyshop