The Borrowers

How we have never happened upon the book, "The Borrowers," is a mystery to me. We've spent hours in our local libraries and brought home tons of books for the past six years or so. I think we have to add it to our list of must reads.
We were perusing the plays that are showing at the Seattle Children's Theater and chose to see "The Borrowers."

They aren't paying me to say this, or giving me free tickets, (although I'd gladly take them) so this is a totally honest review.
EXCELLENT!
We were transported into the world of Arietty and her parents Pod and Homily under the floor boards, and watched mesmerized as Arietty and her parents borrow from the humans upstairs. The set was awesome, with huge spools of thread for stools, and everything we usually see in a tiny size made larger than life.

As the boy upstairs befriends Arietty when she makes a maiden journey upstairs with her father to learn how to borrow, her parents panic. The boy only wants to help, and the screwdriver he uses to pry up the floor board we could see in his hand as he worked on one side of the stage, but on the main stage it comes down from the ceiling as an enormous flathead poking into their living quarters.

Sean was transfixed. He couldn't figure out how they were doing it, and there were so many wonderful magical moments like that with this play. I thoroughly enjoyed watching him experience the play with that childhood innocence and awe.

The next week he went on a field trip to a local musical theater near his school to see a play "Frog and Toad." That one wasn't as impressive, I guess. He liked the birds, he said, and that was it.
If you're in Seattle it's worth a visit to the theater. We saw Peter Pan there last year and it was great too.

A lesson in Wool

This was our third year attending the local Fiber Arts Festival. Each year we see something new and interesting.

As we made our way from the parking lot we happened upon this scene:

The goat’s name is Nellie, and she is an angora. They were clipping her curly locks and the kind lady was nice enough to show us the next step in turning this soft wool into yarn.

This is called a carder. I had never seen this type, but it looks a bit easier than the ones I’ve seen before. There are tiny metal pins on the large and small wheels that  separate the wool and make it a soft tuft. The tufts are then made into yarn, like this:

This girl is a sophomore in high school and has a yarn business with her grandparents. She learned to spin as a young child. You can see other spinners in the background.

We had a great time, as always. Sean is so drawn to this artform. He insisted we needed more yarn, so I ended up spending a good amount on one skeen of hand-spun, hand-dyed yarn. It is really pretty and he has been finger knitting with it regularly.

There were lots of things at this festival, including quilts and felted items, silk, wood buttons and so much more.

We can’t wait to see what they will have next year.