School of Honk!, and learning to play Trumpet

I've not been posting as much the past year or so, mainly because I've been working less on the type of projects that I've come to see as good material for the blog. House maintenance and the like just don't motivate me enough to share here as other projects do. In addition to less bloggable projects though, I have been spending a significant fraction of my free time on music and language learning. I though I might make some posts in those areas over the coming months.

In the music area, I sort of unexpectedly started playing the trumpet in August. Yeah, sounds funny, right?



Somerville is home once a year to a fantastic festival called Honk!, wherein boisterous street bands come from all over the country and even internationally to play on street corners and parade around the streets. It is a good time and we have been going down to Davis square for years to take in some of the energy and music during the weekend of Honk!

Just over three years ago, some local enthusiasts and musicians organized an open community band inspired by the Honk! festival called School of Honk. It welcomes newcomers, even if they have never played an instrument before, and I think for all the green members the music comes off as pretty damn good. The band owns and maintains a number of loaner instruments for newbies to use. They run a summer camp which Child 1 went to last summer.

Child 1 has always liked brass bands, since she was very little, and has enjoyed going to Honk! So she was psyched to attend the summer camp with her clarinet. The camp did not disappoint, and she had so much fun that she wanted to start going to the weekly meeting for SoH every Sunday. She made some friends at camp and loved the energy. Now it is without a doubt her number one favorite thing in her life.

The first event we did post-camp with the band was to join them on a trip out to George's island in Boston Harbor over the summer. We explored the island for a while before the music started

 then Child 2, Child 3, and I followed the band around while Child 1 paraded and played with them.

These people sure looked like they were having a good time!

Some weeks later, I took Child 1 to drop off at SoH sunday session. People were not really sure if it was ok to drop off a 10 year old, so I just stayed there to watch. One of the leaders of the trumpet section, Candy, came over and strongly encouraged me to blow a horn even if it was the only time I'd ever do it. She said trombone is easiest to get sound out of for a beginner, but I felt like it is such a large instrument it could be hard to transport by bike. Plus I've always liked how the trumpet sounds. So I grabbed a trumpet and paraded down Main st. with School of Honk to Kendall square and back. I tried to copy other trumpet players in fingering some of the songs, and the more experienced players were helpful and generous with occasional instruction. It is even possible I made the right note a couple times.

Parading with the band, draped in a borrowed polka dot scarf and blowing a plastic trumpet, I could see delighted, shocked, and nonplussed bystanders witness our passing by, many of them whipping out their phones for a video. Almost all these surprised people were smiling. Between the music, the spectacle, and the welcoming atmosphere, this was a ton of fun! And Child 1 had a blast and was highly committed to continuing to attend.

So the very next day I bought a used student trumpet off craigslist for $80, and I go with Child 1 to the Sunday SoH get together every week we can make it.

I don't practice as much as I should at home, but it is surprising how fast I've been able to develop some basic skills. After 6 months I can sort of play about 3/4 of the songs, especially if I can keep an eye on an experienced player nearby to remember the fingerings and get the timing right for when to come in. I can't get past F at the top of the treble clef yet, and my face gets tired quickly while playing, but I can feel improvement happening. There are quite a few people in the band who play very nicely and were beginners just like me only a year or two ago.

Meanwhile this experience has made Becky and my neighbors appreciate the trumpet much less than they used to. I tried playing with a practice mute, but it makes playing much more difficult, even after I drilled some extra holes in the mute. Sometimes I play with the bell facing a crumpled up blanket sitting on my lap some centimeters away, which helps limit the volume. Actually the second mute I got is much freer blowing and works pretty well. This "bubble mute" by Jo-Ral was more expensive and doesn't stay in the trumpet as well, but it sounds better and is not too difficult to blow through.

Still not quite like playing unencumbered but ok if I need to be quiet. As I get better, it gets easier to play with less volume, and my playing gets less annoying for others to listen to. Or maybe they are just getting numb to the barrage of horn sounds? I am still awful at improvised soloing but I have faith I'll get better if I keep working at it.

In the fall, Child 1 and I got to perform with the SoH band in the actual Honk! festival. We played a set in Davis square

and Blackbird Special on a stage in Harvard square. The band dress motif is polka dots, so I got some fabric and sewed Child 1 a dots shirt to wear for the festival.

The kids worked on their own little projects while I was making the shirt.

Just about a month ago, Child 2 and I started joining the SoH dance section when it is running (once a month usually). A few awesome dance leaders choreograph group numbers to SoH songs and teach the rest of us. This is really fun and adds another dimension to the SoH experience. Becky even came to dance section for the SoH party around Mardi Gras time.

Child 2 got a cheap melodica from Amazon and has started hanging out with the reeds section during non-dance sundays to start the process of learning the songs.

She plays piano pretty well, so the main challenge is learning songs and figuring out how to play whilst holding the instrument and blowing in the tube, parading down a city sidewalk.

Child 3 has gotten interested too, and says he wants to play trumpet with me. So we've started practicing a little a few days of the week. When he can play the notes for middle C up to B he will be ready to start learning some songs. His favorite one right now is African Marketplace, which I know 100% and play around the house frequently. He is learning a low section which only uses C, D, Eb and F#.

Here are Child 3 and Child 2 helping me give my trumpet a bath.

Maggie (a trumpet section leader) gave a great lecture on brass instrument cleaning and maintenance at a trumpet sectional meeting and we wanted to put the instructions into practice. The valves are definitely smoother and faster since the deep clean.

SoH is absolutely awesome, and we are so grateful to all the people who put in their time and energy to make it happen. I have never experienced anything nearly as fun and rewarding when it comes to playing music, so I am eager for us to take advantage of this opportunity while we can. Everyone is friendly and supportive and the music is great. We donate as much as we feel able to help with the cost of keeping it rolling.

I actually stopped practicing my fiddle in January in favor of focusing on trumpet, and have also set aside the concertina I got last summer. At present I have a wonderful venue for playing every week on trumpet with an amazing group of people (including my kids), so I want to maximize my uptake of that while possible. Whenever I find myself not going to SoH every week for whatever reason, I'll pick up the fiddle again. Or maybe after I get to a minimum functional level of skill on trumpet.

If you live in the area and have ever had a desire to play this kind of music, you should come check it out, even if you have never played before. We meet on Sunday afternoons, in various locations in Cambridge and Somerville. Check out the website SchoolofHonk.org and get on the email list to find out where we are meeting every week!

Kids make more clothes for American Girl dolls

We rearranged some rooms in our apartment over the summer and created a project room. All the sewing, printing, and electronics supplies went there. The new room has a great view of the backyard and is a little isolated from the rest of the house, being up a back winding stairway on the third floor. This presents a bit more of a barrier to working on a project there vs. taking it out on the dining room table. But for a few months the kids were having a lot of fun hanging out up there by themselves listening to music and working on their own stuff.



I had helped them get started on some dresses for their American Girl dolls, I think in the spring of 2015. First we took some measurements from the dolls and drew up some basic patterns on paper. We taped these on the dolls and made some adjustments, then cut apart to transfer to fabric.

These were all hand sewn, since they were so small. Plus it is good to develop one's hand skills. Here is Child 1 doing her hem.

I helped Child 2 a lot since the sequined fabric she picked from the stash for her doll's dress is challenging to sew. She wanted it long sleeved, with lace trim.

She was pleased with how it came out.

Child 1 did almost all of hers on her own, with some advice at key points from me. She picked some scraps of vegetable print cotton I had used to make her and Child 2 some dresses a few years ago:

Here is Child 1's dress she made.

She used the circle knitting jig to make some mittens and a scarf to match.

Edges are trimmed with hand stitched hug snug ribbon. She added a faux button strip and button on the front.

Closures are with hook and eyes on back.

She was also very pleased with how it turned out.

Inspired by the success of the dresses, they made a bunch of other quick outfits too using scraps of fabrics that interested them. Child 2 made Kit two little skirts.

Child 1 worked on a holiday present for Child 2, which was almost a match for one of Child 2's outfits at the time. Child 2 decorated a ball cap with a ghost on it as a project at a friend's birthday party, and she wears it around backwards all the time, for a while she was even sleeping in it.

And she loves leopard print on anything.

Child 1 made these out of felt and scraps; it really does look like something Child 2 would wear!

New bunny suit for Old Bunny

I've been continuing to make these bunnies as baby gifts these last few years, never actually catching up with how many I'd like to make. Meanwhile, Child 1 still keeps her bunny (the first I made, in 2010) as her favorite, and it has gotten pretty ragged looking. This bunny has been slept with thousands of times, and has soaked up an ocean of tears (plus some drool and a little blood). It has been on trips in suitcases, on planes, and in the car. The ears were near to falling off completely, and the rest of the outer fabric had degraded to a fragile spider web like layer. The ones I've been making since the first one have used a double layer of muslin for the outer shell to help with durability and to prevent wool fibers from escaping.

I proposed making her a new one, but she was adamant in her desire to not retire her old one. So we came up with a scheme for preserving the old bunny but protecting it from further decline while still keeping it in constant use. A bunny suit!

The idea was to make a new bunny, somewhat bigger than the old one, then stuff it with the old bunny rather than new wool fiber. Child 1 still wanted the chance to visit with the original, so she asked for a zipper in the side.

She wanted the embroidery on the outside to be just like the first model, which was easily done.

The new tail (cut from an Ikea sheepskin rug) is fluffy again; the old one had withered to a low bit of wooly scrub.

I started this project in the spring, but didn't finish it until fall. I had put a few patches on Old Bunny to keep it from coming apart inside the bunny suit, and also took the opportunity to push in a bit of extra wool since the original had been compacted considerably with use..

The sewing machine is now up in a different room, looking out a window on a scenic view of the garden. And a parking lot; this is the city after all. You get a great view of my two dead apple trees in the back fence espalier from here, and can better appreciate how the trees on the right half are struggling for some unknown reason. Ah well, one project at a time!

The bunny suit looks great, although it is a little on the loose side. It is probably good I didn't make it any tighter since it was already tricky to get Old Bunny in the zipper hole without causing its fragile fabric to come apart wholesale.

Becky thinks it is a little creepy, having the old bunny lurking inside. As if the old bunny rejuvenated itself by taking the skin of a young bunny. But Child 1 is extremely pleased with the outcome, and I think the solution was rather clever.

Violet's Tiny Embroidered Buckwheat Hull Pillow

She has had this project going for a couple years now, but recently wrapped it up.



First she embroidered the muslin with a design to please her american girl doll Ruthie, which she received from grandma Mary some time ago. She is almost done with a dress she designed and made for Ruthie, but perhaps more on that later.

After the embroidery was done, she sewed it up with the Singer 99, leaving an opening to put in filling.

While we were in Maine last fall for cider 11, we milled some buckwheat Ben had grown on his small orchard up there using a bike powered Country Living grain mill. The first step was to run the grain through at a wide burr spacing to crack off the hulls.

I think I had told Child 1 that I had once spent a very pleasant night in a ryokan in Kyoto sleeping on a pillow stuffed with buckwheat hulls. So she asked if we could save some hulls to use in a pillow, and Dave obligingly swept up a shopping sack full for us to take home.

The bag of hulls sat on the shelf in the basement for a few months. We pulled it out and devised a scheme for cutting down on the extraneous material in the hull filling. First we riddled the hulls through a coarse mesh to take out leaves, sticks, and straw. For this step the hulls pass through the mesh, but bigger stuff stays behind.

Next we tossed in a sieve for a few minutes, the idea being that the hulls would stay above the seive, but smaller bits and dirt would fall through. Lastly we hand picked out a few remaining bits of debris.

We filled the pillow using the cleaned up hulls through a funnel.

Child 1 hand stitched the opening up.

Nice doll pillow!

I wonder if we should take enough hulls next year to make a person sized pillow? Not sure if Ben is growing buckwheat this year again or not.