The Lady Beekeeper

Hi Friends!  I’m behind on work and DanyCon prep so this is going to be a short one!  (And if it wasn’t a short one it would be WAY too long given the current events going on in the place I’m ashamed to call my country!)  First off, before you do anything else, hop on over to enter June’s contest, you still have a few days.

Patricia and Julius both start waterplay at daycare soon!  Julius needs to bring his water clothes home daily to have them washed, so I asked my local buy nothing group if anyone had any swim shirts they were getting rid of!  My friend and another woman gave me several so I’m all set for when I inevitably forget to do laundry for a couple days.  The one downside is a couple of the swim shirts didn’t have tags for me to write Julius’ name on, and the material was too dark for a sharpie, so I whipped up some labels.  This took me all of about 20 minutes, and I have stitched the labels onto both Patricia’s and Julius’s water clothes.   You could do the same with a fabric marker if you don’t have a sublimation machine.  I might eventually make myself my own personalized “made by Lexi” labels.  Those would have been great for my hatmaking days! 

Clothing Labels

• Sublimation machine & all the fixins’ (or just fabric markers)
• 5/8″ 100% polyester ribbon

1. Using your tool of choice, create your labels, make sure they are only about 1/2″ tall.  Print them onto sublimation paper using sublimation ink in your sublimation printer.  Make sure you print designs reversed. 
2. Take your polyester ribbon and cut it into strips.  Cut your labels into strips and place on top of the ribbon, leaving about an inch between each. 
3. Using a heat press or iron, press the labels at 400 F for 45 seconds. 
4. Remove paper and cut into individual labels. 
5. To stitch onto clothing, be sure to use the proper needle for the job!  For instance, bathing suits and stretch fabrics require a ballpoint needle or a jersey needle.  

Happy (observed) Juneteenth everyone.  I cannot even imagine what it would feel like to be told as an enslaved person that I am now free.  Elation? Or perhaps suspicion and tempered optimism?

I need to add some more optimism to my daily regiment.  Lately my glass has been overwhelmingly half empty.  Or even three quarters empty.  It’s pretty clear I need to start getting back into my mindfulness practice!  Today I lugged stones around for 2 hours and that felt pretty close to yoga… okay I’m kidding.  But I did feel accomplished despite the fact that I have to move another 110 stones at least…who thought it was a good idea to redo my garden wall?!

I’m going through old posts I haven’t put up yet and I just realized that I never posted how to make the mermaid tail that I made for Patricia’s birthday!  It still gets some use every now and again when they see it in the closet.  Looking back at these pictures though she is so BIG compared to when she first wore the tail!  Actually we’ve been working on potty training and now Patricia says “big girl” when she goes in the potty.  She really is such a big girl – she is talking in some sentences now and we’ve ditched diapers (for better or worse).  I feel like it is going by too fast, especially since we don’t plan to have any more.  At the beginning of the pandemic I felt like things slowed down a bit.  I told Will the other day that it seems weird, but I look back at that time fondly.  Now that we’ve all gotten used to working from home, it seems that things have accelerated again, and for me it’s at an even worse pace.  I’m back to the race-around routine of packing lunches, getting kids fed, dressed and out the door, then work for way too many hours, maybe have dinner with the kids (usually not) and then perhaps if I don’t have a meeting, read a book or two before bed.  Wow!  When I lay it all out like that I think it’s clear something needs to change!

Mermaid Tail

• 2 yards mesh sequin material*
• 2 yards fleece*
• 1 yard shiny stretch material to match sequin material
• batting
• Pel-tex ultra firm stabilizer

*2 yards should cover the large majority of children

1. Measure your child from waist to floor, call this measurement x.
2. Measure your child around the waist, call this measurement y.
3. Draft a pattern, by dividing the waist measurement in half (y/2) and using that as your waist measurement.  Draw a half hourglass-like shape the flares outwards at x/3, and then back down gradually to the y/2 width at the bottom of the tail.  Leave the remainder x/3 of the tail y/2 wide.  Length should be x.
4. Cut out two pieces of fleece, and two pieces of sequin mesh material an inch larger than the pattern you drew.
5. Draw a mermaid fin shape to use as a pattern, fin should flare out and be 6-12 inches wider than the y/2 measurement. Cut interfacing and batting to match this shape.  Cut 2 pieces of shiny material 1/2″ wider than the pattern.
6. Cut another piece of shiny stretch material y long x 7″ wide.
7. Cut sequins away from the sides of the tail pieces, an inch away from each edge.
8. Place two sequin pieces of material together, sequins in, and sandwich these with two pieces of fleece.  Sew down the two sides of the tail.  (I then serged this.)
9. Sew the shiny stretch piece of material in half, right side together so the two 7″ sides match.  Stitch the two 7″ sides together.
   

   (Sorry the color is yellow, this is from my son’s tail)

10. Turn right side out then fold in half lengthwise to form a double layer ring.   Place this ring inside the inside out tail along the waist line, and line up the two unfinished edges. Stitch.  (I also serged this).
11. Turn the tail right side out.
12. Serge around the bottom edge of the tail.
13. Pin the two pieces of shiny fin material together, then stitch 1/2″ from edges, leaving the top portion opened.  Turn right side out and stuff with batting and interfacing.
14. Place fin on top of the tail, pointing the tail part towards the top of the tail.  Stitch the serged front edge of tail to the unfinished edge of the fin.  (I also serged this).
    

    Here you can see the tail end is serged, then the fin is attached.

15. Voila!  You have a tail for your little one (or not so little one) to wear!

I told Will the other day that Patricia is like a Pokémon.  She started saying her own name and now it’s how she reacts to something she wants to participate in, remind you she is there, contrasts something Julius is doing etc.  It’s pretty cute.  The last couple weeks though she’s started using her name as a possessive, “Patricia cup”, “Patricia wawa” (water), “Patricia malk” (milk), “Patricia broco” (brocolli) etc.  Then this week, she’s upped the game to two word sentences.  “Patricia poop”, “Patricia eat”.  She’s doing great with her words now.  It’s funny how different the two kids are though.  Julius used to be eager to please, Patricia likes praise but really wants to do everything herself.  The the point of a potential meltdown.  I remember Julius wanting to do that a bit when he was a toddler, but it came much later.  I’m not sure if it’s the cause or effect of giving her more independence (side effect of having more than 1 child).   Sometimes Julius calls us on it.  Like in this instance.

Julius: “Patricia is taking a big handful of [plastic] forks”

Me: “That’s okay bud, she’s trying to help set the table”

Julius: “And now she’s putting them on the floor”

Me: “Oh, that’s not so great”

Julius: “And now she’s putting them all in her mouth”

Good news?  Julius watches Patricia like a hawk so we probably don’t always end up with toddler slobbered utensils.  (Also, I’ve started sneaking anything she touches back into the dishwasher.)  Julius and I planted our garden last weekend, finally.  Only a few weeks behind schedule.  My raised bed has been disintegrating for the last couple years so I’ve been procrastinating erecting a new one.  I just had 1.5 tons of stone delivered though, so you better believe that’s going to be a new post.

One garden I did successfully build though is a tiny garden in an Altoid mint tin, that I made as the other play set for Julius’ Christmas present. 

Tiny Bunny garden playset

First I needle felted a tiny bunny

Then I made a shovel for the bunny’s garden out of oven bake clay (I used a toothpick wrapped in clay as the handle of the shovel.)

Then I created, radishes, lettuce and carrots by hot-gluing felt together. 

Next I cut out small rectangles the width of the mint tin and glued them in a line, stuffing each with a tiny amount of stuffing to form a mound.

I continued adding little mounds until I had several rows of mounds.  I was careful to only secure the felt between the mounds to the bottom of the tin.

Next I added a little grass are next to the garden rows.

Finally I cut out a white picket fence from felt and secured it around the little grass portion

Here’s bunny harvesting his crops

Well, thank you to those who entered my contest last month!  The winner (determined by Google’s random number generator) is Mark!!  I’ll be sending you your jar of honey soon!  And keep reading for your chance to enter this month’s give away!

I don’t know about you all, but I need some more joy in my life!  The news combined with a stressful job during the day (and evenings) and dystopian fiction before bed is really dragging me down.  Luckily I’ve got some little balls of energy to cheer me up.  Patricia is always good for a cheer-up.  A couple weeks ago she walked around the dinner table 4 or 5 times “tickling” everyone in sequential order (Dany included).  Her tickling consists of nearly pinching you and saying the work “tck tck tck” over and over again while smiling.  We pretend to laugh about the tickling (though we’re really laughing over the cuteness) because it’s so darn adorable.

Yesterday we went to our favorite place, Davis Farmland, for unicorn weekend.  All the farmers had unicorn horns on, and their pony rides were “unicorn rides”.  (This just meant we waited three times as long for the same ponies we ride every week, with horns cleverly attached to their heads.)  Julius was very excited to take a unicorn ride and Patricia usually loves to go on the ponies as well.  When we finally got up to the front of the line though, Patricia freaked out and decided she couldn’t handle a unicorn ride.  When I asked if she was scared of the unicorn her response was, “yeah scare”.  Who knew that plastic horn was so intimidating!

Julius of course wanted a unicorn horn after seeing the ones the farmers had, and I, opening my big mouth, told him I could make him one.  He watched me make one last night, and now you can make your own too!  I used more of the rainbow batik fabric I’ve been using it for everything lately, though I gave Julius the choice of rainbow or shiny and he chose rainbow.  After we finished it, Julius jumped around his room the rest of the night pretending he was flying, and then made up a story about how he could take his horn off but it would make him lose all his magic.  It was hilarious and I managed to get some of it on video.  I just hope Patricia isn’t scared of Julius the next time he wears it…

Kid’s Unicorn horn

What you’ll need:

• a small piece of lightweight fabric for the horn (I used cotton batik)
• a handful of stuffing
• thread (I used metallic, but it was extremely unnecessary)
• elastic (I used a light colored metallic that would blend with Julius’ fair hair)
• pattern here

1. Cut fabric for your horn, by cutting out pattern as directed.
2. Fold horn fabric in half, right side together and pin and stitch along the edge line you drew to form a cone.
3. Turn right side out and stuff gently.
4. Using a water soluble ink pen, draw along the outside of the horn, starting an inch from the top and spiraling down to the base.  At the base draw along the seam allowance.
5. Thread your needle and handstitch a wide running stitch along your spiral, gathering as you go.  You want to gather slightly at the top to give the horn definition and more drastically at the bottom to keep the horn less dramatically tapered.  Tie off.
6. Cut a small circle of fabric and handstitch to the bottom of the horn to cover the unfinished portion.
7. Measure elastic by fitting around your child’s head.  Do not overlap the ends when measuring.
8. Overlap the two ends by 1/2″ and then stitch together.
9. Hand stitch the overlapping ends of elastic to the underside of the horn.
10. Wear with pride.
    

    Checking out his magical unicorn horn in the mirror

Wow!  You got this far?!  You are magical as a unicorn!  You deserve a prize!  Or at least a chance at a prize.  Tell me a magical story in the comments below and you’ll get a chance to win a travel utensil set for your next picnic or outing!  We carry these utensil sets everywhere so we don’t need to use plastic silverware.

The other day Julius picked some flowers and asked to put them in a vase in his room.  I gave him a mini wine bottle that actually looks pretty cute as a vase and he gleefully took it upstairs.  He has been continually monitoring the water level to make sure they can touch the water, but yesterday he declared “my plants are not looking so great”.  I explained to him that even flowers outside eventually wither and he responded that they still looked pretty enough.  Today I noticed he had changed the flowers out for new ones.  It is so weird to see how we have created a little independent person.

Sometimes I think he is years more mature than his age.  Did I tell you about the trip to Scotland?  My in-laws planned a trip to Scotland for the family in honor of their birthdays, but the trip was to be kid-free.  Julius, somehow, overheard us talking about the trip and asked when we were going to Scotland.  I explained that it was a trip for adults only, but we didn’t think we were going to go.  His response?  “That’s okay mommy, I can stay home and watch Patricia!”  The real kicker?  I think he almost could.   (Key word here being almost.)

That trip ended up getting cancelled and much to Julius and Patricia’s delight (and our own frankly) was replaced with a trip to Canada where J&P were allowed to join us.  We ended up having to get passport photos ASAP because apparently they take a very, very long time these days.  Fun fact – you have to apply in person with both parents for a child’s passport (or else jump through other hoops).  I’m excited to take a vacation!  I also booked a week vacation to Block Island (one of my favorite places on Earth) that I’m very excited to take.  Julius and Patricia keep asking the next time we’re going to drive to Tennessee or Texas (so I guess I was the only one traumatized with the drive).  In preparation for the next long drive (or actually just to keep my car from turning into a disaster again) I made a couple things from recyclables including the old jeans I’ve been collecting.  Check out my car collection:

Between carseat denim toy basket.  An actual adult human cannot fit its butt between these carseats but don’t tell this former pair of pants that!

A mask organizer from recycled boxes.  I alternate masks every day of the week, from what I read online 3-4 days is about how long it takes for covid-19 to die on masks kept properly ventilated.

A car trash can.  I have high hopes for this little guy.  Should be able to hold a few cans of cola, so basically half a day of refuse when Will’s in the car… ;)

If you want to make yourself a trash can, follow the steps below!  But first, you only have two more days until the end of May when my May contest ends!  See the post here for details!

Car Trash Can

What you’ll need:

• 21″x9.5″ rectangle of outer fabric of your choice (bonus points if it is thrifted or upcycled)
• 10″x2″ rectangle of outer fabric for hanger
• 20″x9.5″ of usable fabric from the leg from a pair of worn out jeans
• enough scraps of pellon peltex stabilizer to Frankenstein into a rectangle 10″x18.5″

* Use 1/2″ seam allowance everywhere.

1. Fold outer fabric in half to form a 10.5″x9.5″ rectangle.  Stitch along sides adjacent to the fold.
2. Cut out 2″x2″ squares from the bottom corners (where stitching and fold meet).  Make sure you start your square on the stitching NOT on the selvedge.
3. Unfold fabric near each corner so stitching lines up with the fold, and the now unfinished edges are matching.  Stitch.
4. Repeat steps 1-3 with the denim and the interfacing.
   

   Finished interfacing box (yes it is a Frankenstein piece cobbled together from lots of different scrap pieces from hatmaking)

5. Place outer fabric inside denim fabric, right sides together.  Pin outer fabric to denim fabric with the raw edges aligned. Stitch together, leaving a 2″ gap around one of the seams.
6. Turn outer fabric and denim out through the gap, both should be right sides out.
7. Push the denim into the inside of the outer fabric to form the liner.
8. Turn the interfacing right side out (seam side in).  Fold the interfacing up and insert it into the 2″ gap.  Align the bottom edges of the interfacing with the bottom edge of the outer fabric and then manuever the denim fabric inside it.  The outer fabric should protrude into the inside of the trash can slightly.
9. Press, then pin and stitch the outer fabric just above where the inner and outer fabric meet.
10. Fold rectangle for hanger in half lengthwise, press.
11. Turn under 1/2″, press again.  Stitch closed.
12. Form handle into a loop then tack the handle onto the trash can, along one of the seams at the top of the trash can.
    

    Stitch loop onto the bag along seam.

    

    I will get a car picture in daylight tomorrow…

    

Patricia called herself “Shasha” several times this weekend.  She is fearless and curious and constantly exploring.  The other day a spider walked across the floor and she was so excited she chased it and despite me trying to dissuade her, she eventually picked it up… Julius and I were slightly horrified.  She did the same thing to a dead wasp a few days later, but we thankfully got it away from her before she touched the stinger.   I can’t remember if Julius was always more cautious than Patricia or if he learned it at some age post toddler.

Julius recently has become afraid of ghosts and monsters and sleeps with a unicorn night light that he made himself (it is an awesome little kit, I got it at a thrift shop for basically nothing!)  Julius likes to watch Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, but there is one very short episode about ghost trains.  It didn’t bother him the first time he watched it but the other day he said to me, “Thomas has ghost trains in it now, so I will have to watch it when I’m an adult”.  I had to try really hard to stop myself from laughing.

Julius has a really good imagination and I always want to make all sorts of little toys for him.  I’ve had lots of ideas for homemade toys, but family members buy us lots of stuff which makes me feel kind of bad that I’m always giving him homemade or secondhand stuff.  Luckily Julius is a sweetie and seems to appreciate my homemade items.  Since I’ve been felting I had ideas to make little animals and make them homes inside mint tins.  I got a bunch of mint tins from someone on my buy nothing group and created a couple little playsets!  I gave them both to Julius for Christmas.  Here’s my mini-hamster playset

Mini Hamster Playset

I first felted a little hamster about 1″ long and 1/2″ wide

My tiny felted hamster

I made a log house out of oven bake clay.  To make it fit in the mint tin I used hot glue to attach the two halves of the house with a strip of felt.

Making “logs” from sculpey

I used some scrap felt and hot glue to make a little nest for the hamster.

I used oven bake clay (and a toothpick hidden inside the spout of the water bottle for support) to make a hamster water bottle.  I used a paper clip to bend into a water bottle holder, so the water bottle can perch on the side of the play set.

Bending the paper clip into a holder for the water bottle.

For the hamster’s food bowl I made a short cylinder of clay and gently pressed an indent in the center using the back of a pen.  I filled the bowl with “pellets” I made by cutting tiny slices of a very narrow cylinder of brown clay. 

The hamster wheel was just a flat disk that I surrounded by a thin wall of clay.  It made it just small enough to fit inside the mint tin with the lid shut.  It sits nicely up against the side of the habitat.

Pieces for my hamster wheel

As the final touch, I lined the inside of the tin with felt flooring

Playing in his log house

Snuggling in his nest

The little guy is out for a jog

So little Patricia has been working on her name.  Sometimes she says “Pa-tree-sha”, sometimes “triss-a” and sometimes “sha”.  Her vocabulary has gotten pretty large, though she still says mostly one syllable for every word, usually repeated twice.  For instance “gogo bobo”, a very common phrase at all times of the day, is goldfish crackers in a bowl.  I’m really proud of her language skills and I’m always tricked into giving her goldfish crackers at all times of the day because she’s so darn cute.

Patricia’s favorite book right now is probably Goodnight Moon, which is fine by me because I love reading it.  She points to the mouse in every picture, which is actually pretty challenging.  Maybe she’ll like I spy as much as Julius!   As for Julius, he has been reading to us every night for the past couple months.  He’s gotten pretty good at it and I’m really proud of him!  We are on the last book in the first Bob book set, so I hope the next set of books we ordered comes soon!

I haven’t showed you the copper leaf technique yet!  It was quite challenging getting things to work properly even after reading several online tutorials.  I think the best one I read was this one.  If you’re interested, I’ll give you my tips and tricks that worked for me.  For starters I bought a gilding kit straight off of amazon which came with everything I needed.  For all of the frames on my door I used about half of the copper sheets (about 50 sheets total) and a very small amount of gilding adhesive.  To seal the frames afterwards I used the same brand of gilding varnish which went on smoothly and sealed the projects very nicely.  Below are the steps I used.

1. Mix the gilding adhesive with water as suggested.  Paint the adhesive (also know as sizing) on the entire surface of what you want to gild.  Wait a period of time indicated on bottle until gilding adhesive is tacky (about 30 minutes).  Note, gilding adhesive stays tacky for a very very long time.  More on that later.
   

   Frames ready to be coated with sizing/adhesive

2. Remove a sheet of foil by holding it gently on top of one of the sheets of paper.  I found the best way to deal with the large sheets was to cut them in half (and cut the sheet of paper in half too along with the foil).
   

   Example of holding foil over the adhesive surface (I ditched the gloves quickly).

3. By holding the edge of a half sheet of foil between the paper and your fingers, lay it on top of your surface.  Use the paper to gently press the foil onto the surface into any little cracks that may exist.  I actually found it easiest to use another sheet of paper to block out half the project while I was pushing the foil down, then gently  remove the paper and push the rest of the foil down. This helped me get the foil into the more intricate surfaces without tearing.  Another tip here is to avoid touching the sizing/adhesive with your fingers AT ALL COSTS.  If you touch the sizing immediately wash and dry your hands thoroughly because any amount of adhesive on them will stick to the foil and make it impossible to to do steps 2 or 3.
   

   Example of using the paper to push into the cracks of the frame.  Note the piece of paper underneath the foil, covering up one part of the frame so I can apply the foil to one area in a continuous piece without tearing it.

4. After the foil has been pressed down onto the surface through the paper divider sheet, remove the sheet, and gently push down with your fingertips.
5. Once the sheet is in place, place next sheet by steps 2-4, overlapping previous sheet slightly.
6. When entire piece is coated, let dry thoroughly then use a cotton ball to brush along the surface you gilded and remove any extra gilding.  I collected these tiny pieces in a bag for later.  When surface is smooth you are ready to varnish.
   

   Polish frame using a cotton swab.

7. Follow the instructions to apply varnish to entire piece.  Let dry thoroughly.  For me the gilding adhesive remained extremely sticky for weeks, so sealing the project also removed any tacky areas that I did not cover in gilding. It also made the whole project feel so much more secure afterwards.
   

   Varnish goes on opaque but dries clear.

Well I hope all the Moms and Mamas out there had a great Mother’s Day. I know I did, celebrating with my mom and the ones who made me a mama.  I hope you all got to celebrate your mom or baby mama and tell them you love them.  I strongly believe every Mom is a superhero.  I just hope there aren’t 3 million new undesired Mom titles bequeathed next year upon women without the right to choose.  I shouldn’t get discouraged – maybe just maybe, the government will do something to actually help women instead of keep us down.  Ha!  Good joke, I know, but a girl can dream (but apparently do nothing else) about equal rights!

Enough about bodily autonomy the hellscape Republicans are planning for women in the US the things keeping me up at night!  Actually last week, on top of that freedom killer, both kids were sick so we had a lot of things keeping us up at night.  Will as usual gave me the best mother’s day present ever – free time.  This meant I could catch up on my sleep this weekend despite the 1am doom scrolling over the previous week.  After sleeping in I also mended a couple items that needed mending and worked on a little project that has been on my list for months!  I hope you all were so lucky!

The little project was a set of potholders for the handles on my cast iron griddle!  I loved my old griddle, but after our oven died (wasn’t the oven, was the breaker) we replaced it with an induction cooktop model.  I do love it, but it meant I had to get rid of my fabulous griddle pan.  I changed to a cast iron griddle (pretty much the only option) but it took a lot of getting used to.  It doesn’t heat as uniformly as my old griddle, and once it comes to temperature it stays hot for a long time.  This meant I needed to adjust my cooking process a bit.  The good news is, a s long as I remember to preheat the griddle it works like a charm!  This unfortunately means that even the handles get very hot.  I have to keep a potholder on hand to hold the pan still while I flip the pancakes.  This isn’t a terribly convenient option, and I’ve been longing to make some covers that stay on easily, but can be removed when cleaning is needed.  The shape of the handles meant I haven’t seen a fabric version before, so with a teensy bit of geometry I came up a pattern that I liked!

Oh and if you got this far you already deserve to hear about May’s contest!  I’ve got a sweet prize for you this month!  One lucky winner will receive a pound of the Ladybeekeeper’s own honey and an adorable little honey dispenser!  All I need from you honeybees is a comment on how you will help make a woman’s life or women’s lives better.

Julius and Patricia and Will always work to make my life better, and Mother’s Day was no exception.  As an example, Julius and Patricia made me several art projects for Mother’s Day which I will cherish.  Julius on Saturday could not contain his excitement for one of the gifts he and Patricia (and Will) made for me and blurted out “it’s a frame!!!” Will heard him and shouted, “shhhhh” but Julius by this point couldn’t stop himself, he kept talking and started describing the frame and how they made them.  It was so adorable I couldn’t help but laugh.  Okay on to the pot holders…

Cast Iron Pot Holders

What you’ll need (for each holder):

• about 1 square foot of cotton scrap fabric
• 1/2 sq ft of of insul-bright
• about 5″ of 1/2″ velcro
• a chop stick or something to turn the piece with
• pattern here

1. Draw pattern onto the reverse side of one piece of your cotton fabric.  
2. Below the cotton fabric, place another piece of cotton fabric, right sides together, followed by a piece of insul-bright.  Pin together.
3. Starting at the bottom edge of the central octagon, start stitching on the line you drew.  
4. Stitch all the way to the opposite edge of the central octagon.  You’ll leave this bottom piece open for turning.
5. Trim the entire piece very close to the stitching (about 1mm away).  Clip any points. 
6. Start to turn the piece right side out.  Start at the top part of one the small octagons, and start to turn inside out through the narrow corridor between rectangles and out the unfinished side.  It was VERY tight.  I had to work the fabric quite a bit to get it to go out the corridor. 
7. Repeat step 6 for second small octagon, then press piece flat with hand.  
8. Turn under the unfinished bottom edge of the central octagon.  Stitch. 
9. Press entire piece flat with hot iron. 
10. Attach a piece of velcro hook to the bottom of the large octagon. 
11. Attach a piece of velcro loop to the top of the large octagon on the opposite side of the velcro hook.
12. Repeat step 10 and 11 for the small octagons.

To attach to your pot handle, wrap the central octagon around the center of the handle and secure with velcro.  Fold each side down and wrap around each side of handle and secure with velcro.