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The kites Bob and Charmayne made in 2008 |
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The kites Bob and Charmayne made in 2008 |
| 2008 is history. Time truly accelerates each year. Kiting was not our only activity this year and our time for kite building was pretty limited. A few more kites in our bag nonetheless. We taught another class which always means at least one more kite for us, too. As I am adding photos of what we made this past year, I am amazed! It sure did not seem like we were in the kite room very much! |
 Arno Haft bird replica. Another one! This blue bird is the 4th in our flock. Red, yellow, black and now blue. We offered our bird class at Ft. Worden. So of course I felt I needed to make another one to make sure my directions were OK and to remind me of the whole process. |
We won a Peter Schmidt Firebird kit someone donated to the Ft. Worden Raffle. Thank you! While I worked on 2 more Arno Haft birds I promised to Holm and Ralf, Bob sewed Peter's Firebird. It is bright and showy in the sky and adds one more bird to our flock.
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We still don't have an arch of diamond kites but I made two more this year. Again, not for us. These were for the Ft. Worden 25th anniversary project, auctioned at the AKA Convention. Anne Huston and Gerry Pennell did a great job with the project. |
| A future class we are working on is the classic Voitländer kite. To this end, we made another one, in yellow cotton this time. Bob made a set of sticks and we had another beautiful classic kite. One of the true tests for our instructions is for one of us to use them to complete a kite. My turn. I made our third Voitländer bird (yellow again), including sewing the wings to the spreader rods. Not as hard as I had feared. Our bird kites are growing fast in numbers and varieties. We can fill the sky with Rudi the crows, the Pterosaurs, Voitländers, Haft replicas, a Firebird, and a pair of swallows. Fun! |
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One more of the Maserski Rhomb kites has been added to our display. The plan was to have 7 kites flying in a formation of 2, 3 , and 2. We now have that. Maura Alford and I sewed her first and my final Rhomb late in 2008. It will be wonderful to have the 7 flying at last.
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Yea for the Cody War Kite we now have! A Cody kite, whichever one a person builds, is always a challenge. This kite is awesome. Bob can bounce a quarter off the skin it is so tight. His rods and rigging ensure a great flight, a stupendous sight in the sky. This Cody joins our Experimental Cody and the Compound. |
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 Bob came up with a great idea for an arch. Adding to our bird theme, we made swallows. Not many at first but when his idea worked, we added more.
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We were finishing our class on Sunday morning at the Ft. Worden Kitemaker's Conference while Cliff Pennell taught his Korean Wave Kite Train. I would have missed this great little kite except Cliff let me purchase a kit, containing his template, instructions and 6 skins and all the bits and pieces. My train is 25 kites, varying colors with a red stripe or 2 or 3 on each. It finally flew in April, 2009. And flew fantastically well. I am so happy with it. 25 kites is fine. It makes a showy display without being too hard to take down. To the right is a photo of it flying and also one of the bag I made for my train. The bag has a center divider, one side for the kites and the other side gets the tails stuffed into it. Many people use boxes for their trains but we need soft storage so that we can pack them for air travel. This bag works great for us. It is made from hot air balloon cloth. |
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With this year being the 25th Anniversary
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Ken Conrad taught his Ohashi Variant kite
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