Next?

Finished my blanket strip in good time, need to get ready for the Fall semester (see my academic blog for those details) but I have a few more craft projects that need my attention including finishing a small hide bag promised to a student last spring and a umbilical cord amulet for another student who had a baby this summer.

The Natl Park Service invited me to participate in their Heritage Days event held at an old trade post & farm located near a trail used by Pottawatomie people during the early 1800s. I am to demonstrate bead work, but more likely will just set up tables with porky quills, beads etc and answer questions. Since most of my own work is plains style (and usually given away) I don't have many finished objects to display...but I promised to make baby moccasins for a friend so I will make them in Great Lakes style (center seam with wide beaded velvet cuffs) and perhaps a small hide bag with floral applique design. This weekend event occurs in mid-September so there's not much time, especially since the Fall Semester begins next week...but I think I could get a few small objects together! The NPS kindly paid me an honorarium for the last event (a weekend workshop for area school teachers who wanted to add to their Native American curriculum materials) and then mistakenly sent me a 2nd check! So I'll use this extra money to buy materials; the kids who stop by my table can select a glass crow bead and deer hide lace as a small souvenir of their visit to the park. I don't have the sense that people will stay for a long demonstration of beading techniques or to actually work on their own project but I may set out some embroidery hoops and beads if folks want to try their hand at floral applique...a few stitches may give them a little understanding. I've never done this type of demonstration before and am wondering how Fred Harvey employees felt...but its good incentive to work on baby moccs!