A Thank-You Hat

This year I was teaching 9 periods out-of-faculty. Even though this was in TAS, my first area of qualification, I haven't taught it for years, and hadn't taught any of the projects I was asked to teach. Suddenly in the workshop with classes in front of me and lots to learn, I was pretty well lost.

Luckily I had a colleague come to the rescue. Show me what to do. Come to my rescue with questions I couldn't answer or resources I couldn't find. Come into my class and help my students. Encourage, support, and inspire me.

Where would we be without colleagues like that.

So I wanted to make her something for Christmas. Something to show my gratitude and give her something my time and skill created, to pay for all the time and skill she shared with me.

Sorry for the photo. It was late at night when I finished and I had to gift it the next day. She loves it though, which is all that matters.

Attempting to teach soft toy design

I mentioned earlier my choice to teach Soft Toy Design as a unit for Technology (Mandatory) this term. I try to ensure that I enjoy my job by making my job what I want it to be. Want to make puppets? Let's put on a Shapes Puppet Show. Want to design soft toys? Textiles time!

What an adventure. The kids had amazing ideas and were really enthusiastic (and that's always the best way to make sure they learn something). We researched, we discussed ethical design considerations, we sketched, we drew patterns, we learnt how to use the sewing machine.

Once we then started on the actual construction, some kids hit the reality wall of what they were trying to achieve. It doesn't seem to matter how many times you tell them to keep it simple. So some patterns underwent major editing, and some project were completely abandoned in favour of something more manageable. 

But this was good. In fact, this was a great experience.

The course is supposed to be centred around design. But it is hard to do that when students don't have a lot of skills, so most projects really focus on technologies and skills, with minimal design elements. I felt like this was real design. They faced the reality of design constraints, mainly time and skill restrictions. They evaluated and edited as they worked.

And in the end, like all good projects, I got sick, time ran out and we finished in a panic at the last possible moment!

The fellow on the right there is an adipose baby (Doctor Who), with hat and scarf (naturally).

I am extremely proud of what they managed to achieve and the lessons we all learned in the process. I had a fantastic time.

And we put some of our ethical design ideas into practice. This octopus is made from apron projects that previous classes either didn't finish or didn't want to take home. The straps and ties make excellent legs!

And to encourage them to finish all their theory work to a high standard, I gave the Zombie Bear to the best folio! And Violet Puffle and some Sock Snowmen to some runners up.

Spoonflower contest "Sweets"

This week's Spoonflower contest is Sweets (scatter print). Feeling Christmassy, I stuck to a standard theme of Gingerbread men.

But I wanted my men to be more than just your Joe Average gingerbread man. I wanted them to be classy.

So I present to you my entry, entitled "Gingerbread Gentlemen."

You can vote in this week's contest or look at the fabric in more detail here.

More Sock Snowmen

I loved making the first pair of sock snowmen so much that I went to Vinnies and got some more socks. Yay Vinnies! I got 3 pairs of socks AND an Agatha Christie for $3.50.

Actually I still had quite a bit left of the white socks so I used the rest of that up for the bodies, along with the new socks for the jumpers and hats.

I also fixed up the poor floppy fat snowman from before by emptying most of his rice and filling up the rest with stuffing in my patented* rice AND stuffing system.

Now he is skinny!

Filling with stuffing makes it easier to give a snowman-like appearance without tying the ribbon at the top and bottom of the jumper, so I didn't bother with these ones. I just shaped the stuffing into sections as it went in, and the elasticity of the socks does the rest. Or you can just separate the head and body into two sections, which is cute too.

Lots of buttons used up! And some other bits and pieces from my stash.

What a cute little line up!

*Not at all patented.

Hat Makeover - Christmas in July

Over the years I've made a lot of hats, and while some I continue to love just the way they are, others haven't been quite right. I don't like to get rid of them, so clearly, they need a makeover.

To begin, my Victorian Christmas-in-July hat. (Why? Because I had a Victorian Christmas-in-July party)

The event was awesome, but the hat is a bit silly. I was so in love with pheasant feathers that I only wanted them straight.

I contemplated taking the hat apart completely and reusing the bits, but I thought that there might be a simpler solution. So a little bending of wire and curling of feathers later, and the new improved hat is ready.

Gift Tags

This week's Spoonflower contest is Gift Tags. These slightly obnoxious presents are my entry. You can go and vote this week. There's lots of great entries, and you just vote for all the ones you like (which I think is a great system).

Today is also the start of Spoonflower's 12 days of Giveaways. Apparently if you enter by following this link thing from when I entered, I get extra entries. Remember people, it's the season of giving.

Christmas in Australia

Christmas is an interesting holiday for me because I've spent so much time studying it. I wrote my honours thesis on Christmas in Australia: specifically the retention of British traditions, the incorporation of native Australian elements, and commercialisation. In the course of that research, I read through years of December newspapers and magazines, looking at images, stories, advertisements and articles on Christmas celebrations, Christmas presents, Christmas food and Christmas sentiment. It felt a bit like an overdose, to be honest.

One of the threads of public discourse that I constantly encountered was the idea that Christmas in Australia would never really be a 'proper' Christmas. While only a few people would have agreed with outspoken Marcus Clarke who claimed that Christmas in Australia was 'a gigantic mistake' (he even admitted that his belief might be seen as 'rank heresy'), there were many who recognised that bringing a traditional European celebration into an Australian summer necessitated 'maimed rites'.

There was a constant tension between showing that Australians could celebrate Christmas in the traditional way and arguing that they shouldn't have to. Being able to reproduce the trappings of a 'real' Christmas was a sign that Australia was still a civilized place, despite its isolation and frontier status.  Even in the 1950s, which was the point my thesis stopped so my research stopped, every writer in a woman's magazine who gave an alternative to the Christmas pudding was still holding up the traditional, holly-bedecked, brandy-drizzled, ablaze pudding as the norm from which one deviated.

Of course, the "traditional" British Christmas that many writers held up as an ideal was of a relatively short history itself. The Christmas of the 19th century - focused on family gatherings, private & domestic celebrations - was a striking contrast to the more public, rowdy festivities of earlier centuries. But that is an entirely different strand of argument.

Calls to create a particularly Australian Christmas usually involved incorporating native Australian plants and animals into new duties as Christmas icons - wattle for mistletoe, ferns instead of firs. In 1941, arguing that the Americans had taken on poinsettias as their own new symbol of Christmas, one writer suggested that Australians should use Christmas bells and Christmas bush. Christmas bush was popular to decorate with, and indeed in 1881 an article in the Australian Town and Country Journal mentioned that its price was rising with its scarcity and that people who had it growing in their yards were reporting branches being stolen. But it never became one of the public symbols of Christmas, with newspaper illustrations, Christmas cards and advertisements continuing to prefer holly and mistletoe.

I'm fascinated by the duality of the Australian Christmas, and not just as a researcher (if anyone is interested, I have an article on the duality of an Australian Christmas using the Christmas pudding published  here in the journal Eras). As someone who has lived through Christmases here and overseas, I find that I need that tension and duality to be able to enjoy it. I love that I can view dried fruit AND cranberries AND cherries as Christmas fruits, for example. I don't think I'll ever be able to totally view a hot Christmas as normal - but neither is a snowy one.

This Christmas, for a variety of reasons, a lot of my usual traditions won't be happening. So I'm going to take the opportunity to experiment, particularly with food, to see where I can really tease out this dual image of Christmas.