Camp Tales - Staff Quarters

Living at camp whether in a cabin or in staff quarters can be an intersting eperience. I never lived in a cabin as a counselor, instead I lived staff quarters or in a cabin with my dog. The upside of living in staff quarters is a certain freedom that can not exist in the rest of camp. Of course, putting five girls in one room is an experiment in social constructs. Even when living at camp where most live in jeans, shorts, t-shirts, or bathing suits there is a question of closet and drawer space.

Between the girls and the guys room next door we learned to share. We did get sick of each other at times, but we learned to deal with each other. We shared our bedrooms, a living room with a kitchenette on one end, bathrooms, and a washer and driver. Inside the staff quarters we cooked together, watched movies (we only had one or two channels on a good day), played games, and terrorized each other.

Mostly the quarters were pretty decent. Bugs and insects found a way in and there were a couple larger critters that found their way in, including a raccoon and a snake.

Camp Tales - A Rustic Life

Five Girls - One Shower

Camp is a different world and if you have never gone, it's hard to understand. When you live and work there for an entire summer it is a VERY different world. There is a rawness that seeps from and through every aspect. AT one camp my craft hall consisted of a pavilion with a storage space on the end I shared with the naturalists, at another I had a real room, but it was still on the rustic side. Showers, meals, cabins... everything tends to favor the rustic side of life, even the staff. For many kids, it is their first time away from home and their parents. It is not uncommon for counselors to have to strongly remind campers to shower or brush their teeth. Admittedly, the staff often looks a little different than they do in real life as well, adapting to life in the middle of now where. It's not surprise that camp life often a attracts people that tend to favor what many might consider among the hippy variety. While we showered and I know of no staff that let personal hygiene lack, I admit that it was no uncommon that my one roommate and I had a tendency to wait to brush our hair AFTER breakfast. As staff we couldn't get away with pajamas in the dining hall (dress codes), but we highly valued our time sleep time in the morning, choosing to make our tea and pulling hair into pony tails or loose knots over taking the time to actually do something with it. We brushed it, after breakfast when we had more time.

Even when we weren't pulling our hair into a knot for breakfast, camp brings out a different part of a person and their appearance. My long hair was usually pulled back into a variety of pony tails, braids, and pig tails. While the staffs I lived and worked with embraced the more natural and rustic life, we also looked forward to dressing up a bit. One summer on one of our first visits off site our excitement evolved from a heading into town for dinner to being able to wear the things we couldn't on site (tank tops & halter tops not going with our working dress code) to actually going through the process of doing our hair and even applying some make-up. The guys we lived with shook their heads, but later that evening many of the campers we spent our days and meals with didn't recognize us. I would find surprise later with campers and counselors that I ran into after camp was done and we all went back to our regular lives.

Yes, camp life is different. It's special and allows a bit of rawness that the rest of the world doesn't always have a place for. For some people it's just a summer, for others it gets into their blood.

More Rugs

Updates!

I love coming up with new color combinations and new patterns of braided rag rugs from my selection of scraps and rags. Plus, this is one of the ways I keep my hands busy during quiet nights or while watching a movie or TV show at home. (Multi-tasking is a way of existence for some of us.)

I am now running low on scraps (again). I guess that means I need to get back to working on my other sewing projects and shredding some of the discards I have set aside for the rug bin.

When my grandmother first saw the rugs I was making she told me about how her mother-in-law (my great grandmother and a skilled seamstress), used to cut scraps of rags to be made into rugs and how how proud she would be to know that the creative genes have been passed down. My grandmother now has three of my rag rugs and my aunt has two. (Grandma wanted them for in front of the chairs, especially when the boys come in in their boots and sit down.)

I really believe you can find a project for so many of the things we might otherwise throw away. My rag rugs are a perfect example. The only cost I have in these are time.

Remember - Earth Day is coming!(April 22, 2011)

Spilled Nail Polish! (April Fool's)

In honor of April Fool's day I wanted a little something... in the form of a spilled nail polish gag.  I used an old bottle of nail polish and left in in a few places in the house, including the bathroom counter, the top of my brother's laptop, and the table. Enjoy!

Check out the instructions at http://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/spilled_nail_polish_gag. (I sped the drying time up a bit by putting it in the freezer over night.)

Braided Rag Rugs

Sorted Fabric Strips for Rugs

Years ago I remember a trip to the state fair with my family that took us through our usual trip through the historical cabin. What stuck this trip was a woman sitting on the porch, in a period costume, working on a braided rag rug. It was an image that stuck with me. All my life I had been around people who could sew and do all sorts of crafts, but I had never actually seen someone braid a rag rug before and didn't know anyone that could. It was one of those memories that got filed away and years later when looking at my scrap box I got to thinking about it again. I knew I could do it, I just hadn't tried and didn't know anyone who could show me, so I'd have to take it on myself.

Using Pins to keep Place

 Using scraps I had on hand I cut them into strips and started playing with techniques and going through the process of figuring it out. I didn't want just long strips sewn together (like you see a lot of times in mass produced, store bought braided rugs). My first attempt, as I figured out what worked best ended up being a coaster. I started with sewing the ends together then braided the strips into each other as I moved outward in a circle.

Rag Rug

I started a collection of scraps from other sewing projects and discarded clothes and rag cut into strips to be used in rugs, organizing them by color. It's given me a great outlet to use scraps of fabric, lace, & ribbon as well as recycle old and otherwise discarded rags (old, worn, torn clothes, towels, etc).

At the last camp I worked at I had a lot of quiet evenings in the middle of nowhere. It gave me a lot of time to work on my own projects and rug making was a nice one for that.

They have also proven to make some great gifts. It's kind of cool to see the rugs being used and decorating the homes of friends and family that have them. I have a stack right now waiting to find homes.