Teacup Trolls Preparations

Preparations for next week's mystery continue, with more trolls. This gentleman has a tree growing out of his head -- a sign that he has recently woken up from a long nap.

I am enjoying the needlefelting. It works well with the felt sewing we already do at Dragon's Eye. I am not sure how kid-friendly the art is, due to the extra-sharp, barbed needles that break. 

My team and I will work on slow, careful work -- hopefully producing both patience jewels and successful trolls! I will have backup patterns, though.

Some of the other characters for the story are also under development this week. The Rat Queen from the sewers of London (from the case called "The Market at Wits' End") will be joining us. She heard there was tea in this adventure and just insisted on joining us.

Two of the Queen's Guards will be joining her entourage. I have a bearskin hat that was given to me by a dear friend, many years ago, so it was useful in gaining the slightly shaggy yet orderly look of the hats. The first layer of the hats were felted, and then the fur was applied, taking my new-found skills to the next level. This is promising for future Dragon's Eye fur-babies.

Teacup Trolls for 2024 April Vacation

Trolls are a favorite topic for research, and I have pages and pages of notes from fifteen to twenty different sources in my library. Somewhere in those notes, I jotted down a comment from a book that escapes my memory, about trolls as small as teacups. This stray comment became a mental note about teacup trolls -- clearly a topic worth exploring with the detectives.

This April, this note will become a full-blown adventure for detectives in grades 3 through 8. We will be running the mystery at Durham Community School, in the Art and Makers rooms. The program runs from Monday through Friday, April 15-19, from 9 AM to 4 PM. There is still room to enroll in the program!

This week, I have been designing the trolls for our adventure. My goal was to create trolls that look like stones that awoke and walked out of the forest, down the mountain, or up from the sea. We will be trying our hand at needle felting -- a craft I've been intending to explore for some time. I'm pleased with the design so far. She fits perfectly into the palm of the hand -- or a teacup. She's a bit mossy from her time of sleep. And she has runic designs carved into the "stone." Add some tusks and a tail, a few hagstones, and she'll be ready to meet our detectives!

April Vacation 2024, Session B: Teacup Trolls

Our 2024 April vacation mystery will involve a five-day adventure called Teacup Trolls. Monday is a regional holiday, but the program will run on that day, as well as the next four days.

Trolls are a favorite theme in Scandinavian folklore. They are inspired by shapes in nature that mimic creatures -- eyes, noses and chins jutting out of mountain sides; far off trees that appear to be walking across the land; or sleepy boulders with the shapes of animals and people.

Trolls may be as large as mountains or as small as a teacup. Dragon's Eye will explore the world of Teacup Trolls through an adventure of very small proportions. Travel will be fun, as we dive into tiny whirlpools in teacups, visiting other tea drinkers and legendary whirlpools around the globe,

We will construct our own Teacup Trolls. Please bring a vintage teacup for your troll to enjoy! The trolls prefer their cups to have a little second-hand patina -- flowers are fine for some trolls, while others may prefer one of the brown and ugly varieties. It's your troll's choice!