Making a Mobile - December 17, 2019 @goldenoakfarm

Tuesday we woke to snow. It was gray outside and raw. I was going to get the planned bird mobile made for my surrogate granddaughter. I needed a sitting job to do and this fit nicely. I’d never made one before.

My helper friend was here on Tuesday and he was making meals for us: pressure cooker meatballs and sauce, meatloaf, and he made me an oatmeal breakfast. He’s such a good cook!

I had found several types of birds at Michael’s, a local craft store. The biggest was almost 6” long, so I had to plan for that in my design. I was using carpet thread to hold it all together.

I went out in the snow and cut some forsythia branches to use as the balance bars and for roosts for the birds missing one.

A goldfinch and a cardinal

A Christmas dove and a goldfinch

A blue jay and a cardinal

I used a big needle to put the thread through the birds’ bodies and I tied it to their roosts underneath. I just eyeballed the balance and only one, a goldfinch, was a little off.

I figured because the biggest bird was 6”, to allow clearance when swinging, the top balance bar should be 30”, the 2 off it 12”, and the lower middle bar was also 30” with two 12” bars.

This mobile ended up being much larger than I expected. But it balanced beautifully and all swung clear, nothing hit.

This is where being a packrat comes in handy. My helper friend and I went down and excavated the box stash under the cellar stairs. We found this box and the mobile fit into it exactly! I had thought I’d wrap it, but on second thought, I can’t turn the box over, so I think it will just have ribbon and bows.

As we finished up our projects, the snow turned to huge flakes. It continued snowing all day and turned to sleet by evening.

In the afternoon my husband and I went out to do a bit more shopping. We went to look through the new L. L. Bean store near us. I was pretty disappointed with it. Outside of a very expensive flannel shirt that would have looked lovely on my husband, I didn’t see anything that really interested me.

The high point was a chest of drawers holding fly fishing tied flies. They ranged in size from gnats to whole mice. Fascinating looking at how they were made and all the different kinds.

After a late afternoon appointment it was nice to come home, cook some pasta, heat the meatballs up, and supper was ready. Yum!