A is for Ambitious

I started this blog with grand ambitions of doing a craft every month, maybe every week!  I would make photo tutorials and patterns and design everything myself and make everything from scratch and brew my own lye and learn to sew historically accurate Victorian walking gowns and build a log cabin in my backyard.  Then I took a step back and thought about it and decided that I could scale it back a bit, and just have fun with it.  I posted a few things, made some yarn dolls, and discovered that the Christmas chapter, with its two pairs of mittens and Charlotte, came a lot sooner than I recalled.  Then I got sick, and the boys came down with every malady small children can catch, and my husband had his driver's license suspended, and my dad died.  Somehow that made trying to design a simple children's mitten into the hardest task I could imagine.  I started and ripped back a dozen swatches and samples.  I toyed with the idea of just posting a list of links to suitable mitten patterns.  I toyed with the idea of just posting a picture of some mittens I had knitted for Silas for Christmas in the past.  I even toyed with the idea of plagiarizing someone else's pattern, with enough tweaks to make me feel somewhat better about it.  That would be in keeping with the pioneer spirit, right?

If there was one thing I had really wanted to do in this blog, though, it was to write my own patterns, or to work from actual historical patterns in the public domain, making my own adaptations and updates along the way.  I'm not looking to become the next Nancy Bush, but I wanted at least the knitting in this blog to be authentically mine, if not historically authentic.

So I continued swatching and ripping out until my yarn began to look very haggard indeed, and then I got an email reminding my that the April A-Z challenge was coming up.

"Ha," I thought to myself.  "Like that's going to happen."

I had been reasonably successful last year, on my other blog, managing about four posts a week on schedule and catching up the other two a day late or on Sundays, but I couldn't imagine trying to come up with all new ideas this year.  The thought of trying to do an A-Z list of Little House on the Prairie themes here was intriguing, but the thought of doing that much research and writing, with four family birthdays this month, a bridal shower, and, you know, two toddlers and a full-time job, quickly nixed the idea.  I couldn't even manage a list.

Somehow, though, the idea of doing an A-Z of designing and knitting a pair of mittens in a month crept in, and stuck.  I started drafting entries.  I started making concrete plans.  I started looking for links . . .

So that's my ambition for this year's April A-Z.  To bring you all along on my design process, haphazard as it is, and let you watch a pair of Little House in the Big Woods Christmas Mittens grow.
Welcome along!

A Handy Pouch

The finished bullets he put into his bullet pouch.  This was a little bag which Ma had made beautifully of buckskin, from a buck that Pa had shot.  

Quaint little bags that draw up with strings would absolutely be in my song of favorite things if I were ever a governess in Austria.  They are the best thing to hold little treasures, or your coin collection, or to act as your purse at the Renaissance Faire.  I made one for my brother when we were kids to hold his trading cards.  My 'pattern' was made by tracing the dimensions of a little satin bag that was meant for holding scrunchies.  It consisted of two pieces: a circle (the bottom) and a rectangle (the sides).

For this project, I followed the same basic guidelines.  Not having a model to hand, it unfortunately involved math.  I used a small saucer to trace a circle onto my 'buckskin', then I measured the diameter, multiplied by pi, and used that number as the width for the rectangle, plus 1/2" for the seam allowances (1/4" each).  The height I just eyeballed.

What I used:

-2.5" diameter saucer
-2.2 sq. ft. chamois* cloth (found the in the auto care section of Wal-Mart with the detailing supplies, also available at any auto parts store or hardware store)
-Pencil (for tracing)
-Waxed nylon thread (found at the craft store, also available at some hardware stores)
-Needle, with an large enough to handle the waxed thread, but sharp enough to pierce the chamois
-Scissors
-Awl
-"Leather" lacing
-Wooden beads
-Embroidery thread
-Beeswax (found at the hardware store, also available at some craft/sewing stores)

I sewed the two short sides of the rectangle together with a backstitch, using the waxed nylon thread (I split the plies and used two plies instead of the whole thread), then I backstitched the bottom of the resulting tube to the chamois circle.  Voila, a bag.  Using an awl, I punched 6-12 holes around the top of the bag, and threaded a faux leather lacing through for the drawstring.  I knotted a wooden bead at the each end of the lacing, totally optional.  Then for the finishing touch I blanket-stitched around the top edge.  I used contrasting-colored embroidery thread, first separating the plies so that I had a three-ply strand, which I drew across the beeswax several times to strengthen it and allow it to move more easily through the chamois.

The finished bag, full of bullets wooden beads

My brother owns a few muzzle loading guns that had belonged to our dad, so I gave the pouch to him for Christmas, which seemed very in keeping with the Little House spirit.


*Chamois is made from the hide of the chamois goat. I chose it as the closest substitute to buckskin I could easily obtain without shooting a deer myself. If you are vegetarian or vegan and would prefer to use something that did not come from an animal source, any sturdy fabric such as denim could be substituted for the chamois, though extra steps may have to be taken to prevent fraying.

Backtracking a bit

Laura had only a corncob wrapped in a hankerchief, but it was a good doll.  It was named Susan.  It wasn't Susan's fault that she was only a corncob.  -Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 1

I wasn't going to do this one, because it's in "My Little House Craft Book," and it's so darn straightforward, but I find that my next few projects are stalled out waiting for yarn/fabric, and I want to post something in the meantime . . .

When I was younger, I found so much pathos in the idea of a little girl who is so poor that she only has a corncob to play with.  As I got older, I found it slightly comical - it has that air of a grandparent telling children, "When I was your age, we didn't have all these fancy toys!  We played with dirt, and we liked it!"

Now that I have a toddler, I can understand why a parent might hold off on giving a small child a toy with potentially small parts like button eyes or bits of yarn hair that can be yanked off and choked upon, and why 'upgrading' might be delayed when you have three small children and a house to take care of with absolutely no modern conveniences.

The retired blog Our Pioneer Homestead had an example of how the hankerchief idea can make quite a perfectly respectable, if limbless, doll.  The picture can still be seen on Pinterest, but the tutorial is gone.  Little House Living has one, just tie the hankerchief higher and fluff the 'skirt' out more to get the Pioneer Homestead look.

You can push the corncob idea even further and build a doll with legs and arms, or you can chuck the cob altogether and make a doll from the husks instead, or indeed, make a doll from just the hankerchief.

According to the tutorial, hankerchief dolls have a long history as an economical, quiet toy for children to play with, often made from the hanky of a loved one who had been lost or was far away.  My hankerchief came from a rummage sale, so the sentimental value is lost, but while it won't keep my exuberant three year old quiet for longer than a few seconds, it certainly has the virtue of falling silently to the floor.

Unlike Ma Ingalls I don't really have a lot of hankerchiefs or corncobs at my disposal - but I do have lots of cheap yarn (lots and lots and lots).  There are a few different ways to make a simple yarn doll, but this is how I learned, probably from the same doll book that I traced my paper dolls from.  Should you find yourself with one or more small children trapped in your house on a rainy or cold day, it's an easy, quick, kid-friendly craft so you can all play dolls like Mary and Laura.

 You'll need:

-Yarn (any weight or fiber will do, I'm using worsted-weight acrylic)
-A book or a piece of cardboard a little taller than you want your doll to be
-Scissors

Working lengthwise, wrap the yarn about 70-100 times around the book, then cut the end (all numbers are approximate; wrap more times for thinner yarn or if you want a plumper doll, fewer for thicker yarn or a thinner doll).

Cut about a 8" length of yarn from the ball.  Tie it very tightly around the wraps to hold them together (it is not necessary to trim the ends of the tie), and then slide the bundle of yarn off of the book

Cut another piece of yarn at least 10" long.  Holding the bundle about two inches below where you tied it, so that the tie is at the top and the knot is inside the bunch, wrap another piece of yarn around the whole bundle.  This will be the neck.  Wrap it around at least twice and knot it tightly. Set aside.

Working widthwise this time, wrap the yarn around the book about 50-75 times and cut the end.  Carefully slide the bundle off of the book.  This will be the arms.

Cut two 6" lengths of yarn.  Tie one around each side of the shorter yarn bundle about an inch in from the ends to make hands.

Place the arms inside the loop of the larger bundle just below the neck.  Tie another 10" length of yarn around the body below the arms to hold them in place and make the waist.

Cut open the bottom of the bundle.

Trim the ends and fluff out for a skirt . . .

. . .Or divide it in half, left and right, and tie with short pieces of yarn to make legs.  You can trim the ends of the hands or leave them as loops.

Sweep up all your little yarn ends, and play!

Some things I cannot do

Every evening before he began to tell stories, Pa made the bullets for his next day's hunting. -Little House in the Big Woods, Chapter 3

Every night he was busy, working on a large piece of board and two small pieces . . . He made the tiniest shavings, cutting very slowly and carefully, making whatever he thought would be pretty. At last he had the pieces finished and one night he fitted them together.  When this was done, the large piece was a beautifully carved back for a smooth little shelf across its middle.  The large star was at the very top of it.  The curved piece supported the shelf underneath, and it was carved beautifully, too. -Chapter 4


Now we find Pa doing some crafting of his own, and here I hit a roadblock. As I don't have to hunt game to feed my family, I have never felt the need to make bullets, and though whittling intrigues me, I don't currently own an appropriate knife, much less a whetstone and strop to keep a knife sharp enough for such an undertaking.

I suggested to my brother, a fellow fan of the Little House franchise, that he might venture to try these crafts (and send me some pictures), but in the meantime, here are some links:

This website claims you can have free bullets for life if you start making your own.

The Art of Manliness has an article on getting started with whittling that implies it could be the new yoga.

Our Little Corner found a kid-friendly way to do some carving by using Ivory soap. Reading about it gave me a powerful sense-memory of carving soap, just the smell and the texture of the soap as it flaked. It took me a while to connect those memories with what I was actually making and why - they were 'arrowheads,' and we were learning about Native Americans.  I had entirely forgotten about having done that until I read that article.

I was disappointed that I wasn't able to find any examples online of anyone trying to recreate the bracket that was so intricately described in the book. I suppose that whittling isn't an especially popular hobby among the typical Little House fan, but surely someone got creative with the scroll saw? Oddly enough, the magic word was 'whatnot.' Pa may not have heard the term until Mrs. Boast explained it four books later, but he and Uncle Henry had the same concept in mind that would make whatnots "all the rage in Iowa", the Victorian love of bricabrac.

Both of these were described on Pinterest as Victorian whatnot shelves. If the simpler one were topped with stars instead of tulips, it would almost be the bracket we're looking for, though I imagine Pa's as being prettier.

Paper dolls

After the day's work was done, Ma sometimes cut paper dolls for them.  She cut the dolls out of stiff white paper, and drew the faces with a pencil.  Then from bits of colored paper she cut dresses and hats, ribbons and laces, so that Laura and Mary could dress their dolls beautifully.

-Little House in the Big Woods, chapter 2



I got lucky with the very first craft; my work is already done for me.  When I was nine or ten I checked out a book from the school library about making dolls, and on one page there was a template to trace to make paper dolls.  I traced the templates carefully onto printer paper, and ended up with four dolls with comically misshapen limbs and odd proportions, because printer paper is not an ideal tracing medium if you're not using a lightbox.  I cut around the dolls, pasted them to cardstock, and cut them out again.

The original blond daughter met with an unfortunate accident, and was later replaced by the adopted redhead here, and then the family adopted a baby from China

If you're good at drawing people, you can skip most of these steps and draw the dolls right onto cardstock and cut them out, as Ma did.  Using an X-acto knife is neater and won't cause the edges to curl, but scissors work just fine, too, and can be wielded by children, if yours are of age to be handling them.

I made the wardrobes for my dolls out of more printer paper, tracing the basic outline right around the dolls and adding details and tabs with a pen, and then coloring them in with crayons.  For a different look more along the lines of what Ma made, you could cut the clothes out of construction paper or patterned scrapbook paper (just don't forget the tabs).

This is seriously only half of the clothes. I was very productive.

 I used to study catalogs and the ads from the newspaper to find outfits to copy.  The mother's wardrobe in particular is very K-Mart and JC Penny of the 90's, though much more fitted (it's easier to keep the clothes on that way).  My parents were impressed by the pains I took to copy every detail; my goal was to have a set as varied and exact as the expensive storebought paper dolls that I coveted.*

If you really don't trust your drawing or tracing skills, there are many printables available for free online.

Pioneer Dress-up Doll

Nellie, wearing much the same expression as the Little House character of the same name, has a wardrobe suited to style Laura wore in her teens when her family was finally settled in De Smet.

Wee Wonderfuls has a very cute, more modern doll

These don't have interchangeable clothing, but I love Gingermelon's designs.




*I did eventually obtain a few storebought sets; the American Girl Kirsten set and the Little House in the Big Woods, and the Dover collection of Medieval Costumes, all of which are still available online if you really want to cheat - but you'll still have to cut them out yourself!