Category Archives: Pentagon

What a morning

How many minis?

I think that I’m starting to feel a little better, although I don’t know how that is really possible. I’m still spluttering. I’m still waking up too early (and even staying up too late on calls). I’m not eating as well as I should be.

Despite all that, I’ve found a reservoir of energy that I’m applying to the miniature kites. They are still not perfect (I would like anyone that receives one to help me improve them by helping me with the survey that I posted about last week), but they are good enough to move forward from R&D to limited production.

I woke this morning after about 4 hours sleep (again), and wanted to get right to the work. I had started on this kite the day before yesterday after bedtime, but was called away to a lock-out half way across the county. While I didn’t have a way to keep my eyes open after the call, I jumped right back into it this morning.

After wrapping it up, I still had some time, so I started into another, finished and prepped it to mail out. It is a belated birthday greeting that I had threatened to send out to a friend who has given me some grief over kiting, but especially kite making (it is also an ironic note as he has recently discovered a couple branches of power kiting).

Kudos to me!

As each of these was ready to bundle up, I posted them to facebook and my new Instagram account. No one has found my IG, but several of my friends and family reacted to the two fb posts, which stoked my ego in a nice way.

New material and tools.

On my way home from one of my lockout calls (it’s been busier this week that it often is) I found a new print to work with. I think this might become a birthday card for my dad.

The other day a slowed down for a moment to cut out a new template for a 3 inch version of the pentagon shape. I’m not ready to make one yet, but I am equipped now.

What else is coming down the pike?

This weekend I will take most of the day on Saturday to help put together the Christmas tree lot with the Boy Scout Troop, and Sam has a birthday party that he wants to go to all afternoon and into the night, but with any luck I will have some energy left over to make up some kites to use as samples to take to Winddriven (otherwise maybe a nap is in order).

However Saturday goes, on Sunday I should be able to take most of the day from the family and make a whole mess of kites in a variety of shapes and sizes (including some new custom 3 sticks) from both napkins and tissues.

Once I’ve got that selection ready to show off I’ll mail off a sample to the owners of Winddriven, and then keep making some more to take to OKR and send out to Warm Sands and U-MAKE.

All this productivity has got me inspired to work on some other projects, but most of my sewing room is filled up with this non-sewing venture and all of the other projects will take most of the room. So other projects are on hold until I can first catch up, then get ahead on production, but I do have so many news toys that I am really excited to play with when I can pay for them and dedicate the space to putting them together.

The shape of things to come

I have a train of indoor kites that are loosely based on the classic Eddy kite, but to keep from having tails on the train I extended the sail straight down from the wingtips allowing that excess sail to be the drag to keep the kites flying right.

Recently I decided to try applying the theory to my miniatures as well. Unfortunately it was not effective for eliminating the tail for this scale, but I like that it allows for greater exposure of the graphics.

This is the first kite with a new print that I found, and it just wouldn’t work quite as well as an Eddy or Shield. Look for more of this shape with other graphics.

ThisĀ  one is ready to go to Winddriven for sale, although the graphic works so well that I may just mail it to the owner as a sample.