kite making 101

June 7, 2011 by Lauren Albrecht 7 Comments

My really nice boyfriend, Jacob, and I have been making a kite over the past week and a half! He surprised me last Saturday and took me out to buy supplies so I can check it off my 20-while-I’m-20 list:). What a great man, right??:)

Here are some pictures of the process….

Part 1: The Kite Frame

Here are most of our supplies... And an ice cold diet coke to top it off:). Couldn't leave that important ingredient out of the picture:).

Jacob measuring out the sticks so we can cut them appropriately.

:)

Time to attach the sticks and form the kite frame!

Our kite frame!!

Part 1 complete.

Part 2: The pretty cover!! Jacob went into work for the afternoon, so while he worked, I set to work on making our kite unique a beautiful creation:).

Ladies, does this material look familiar to any of you??? I made this kite cover from an old skirt! I found a hole in it when I was moving out of school, so instead of throwing it away, I saved it to use for crafts later! Came in handy. I cut it up and sewed it together to make our kite cover!

Well, between kite-making days, I broke the kite. So Jacob saved the day and fixed it with some duct tape:).

I bought a clear rain poncho from Walmart to sew to the fabric to give the kite more durability.

I pinned the fabric to the poncho, cut the extra off, and sewed it together! The kite cover is ready to be folded over and taped!!

Here's our kite folded over and sewed together! We tried using tape to attach the cover to the frame, but it didn't seem to hold. We decided sewing the fabric around the frame would probably work better, so that's what we did! We also added the tail here! And then Jacob trimmed off the extra poncho fabric to make the kite look nicer (not pictured).

And I broke the kite again:(. This is what happened when I excitedly ripped the tape off, thinking we were finally finished. So I sewed up the injured area... hopefully this won't affect the kite's flying abilities.

And here's the last picture!!! Our finished kite, complete with a tail and flying string!!

We also attempted flying it today. However, there was literally zero wind, so the attempt mostly consisted of me running up a hill, letting go of the kite, and it falling straight to the ground over and over again… a funny sight, I’m sure. So we’re waiting for a windy day to test her out for real!

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