Category Archives: Yarn Crafts

Seraphina’s 7th Birthday

Can you spot the frog??

There aren’t words for how much I love her little scrunched up face in this picture.

A few weeks before her birthday we had a conversation where it occurred to her that I’d made far more dolls for her siblings than I had for her.  I believe that this doll is the only one that I’ve made for her (she got a little update here).  And it’s true that I’ve made two or three dolls, or more, for each of the other kids (some of which can be seen here if you scroll through).  It’s also true that I’ve made her other toys and that I’ve bought her two dolls, which I never did with the other kids.  None of this was intentional, it just kind of worked out that way.  I think part of it is that I’ve been quite ill for the vast majority of her life, resulting in far fewer little side projects like that, but also, she took an interest in the kinds of dolls that I can’t make at a much younger age than the others.  I told her that I didn’t realize that she was now interested in the kind of doll I make (Waldorf dolls) and she assured me that she very much was.  So, of course, I offered to make her a doll and had her describe to me what she would like….a mermaid with rainbow hair.

Instead of pushing myself to try to make it as a surprise (the truth is that these days, I’m in bed for as many hours as she is, if not more) I told her we would make it together.  Mairi was intrigued and asked if she could make one as well.  In the picture of the three mermaids side by side, Mairi’s is the first, the second was drawn by Seraphina, and the third was the one that I made for her.

It’s been a tradition in our house to read The Seven Year Old Wonder Book aloud to children approaching their 7th birthdays.  It’s a conflicting sort of thing for me because that book really speaks to children at this age and there are elements of it that hold great beauty, but it’s also racist.  There is simply no way around it.  I’m not sure when it was written, but the author was born in 1901, which is not an excuse, but it does start to explain why some of the imagery used comes across as inappropriate to the modern sensibility, which is hopefully more in tune with social justice.  My compromise, and I’m not really sure if it’s a good one or not (!), is that I’m the only one who reads the book and I change the objectionable parts.

The book reading was very different this time, as my voice is still limited.  I would read her a couple of pages a night, sometimes less.  It took us a long time to get through that little book, but it was our special time together and every night she thanked me for reading because she knew it was a struggle.  I got her Snow and Rose for her birthday and we’re reading it in the same slow, patient, quiet way now.

As is also tradition, she had a wonder book of her own as well and people (okay, mostly me, but I talked some other people in the house into contributing too) volunteered to be “rhyme elves” for her, adding in pictures and poems for the two weeks leading up to her birthday.  Her beautiful wonder book came from EllieBeeCrafts on Etsy.  She was really sweet and customized some things for me so that it was exactly what I was looking for.  It’s magical.  Seraphina was so pleased!

She wanted a cat cake, only the cat’s ears where supposed to actually be mountains and the mountains were to have a whole forest on them and there were supposed to be gnome houses in the forest (?!?). I’ve got to be honest with you, I haven’t even managed to picture that, much less figure out how to make it! In the end, she settled for a pink kitty vanilla bean cake with raspberry jam between the layers, white chocolate-strawberry buttercream icing, and marshmallow fondant details.

I own a small collection of vintage baby knitting patterns…but of course I no longer have babies to knit for!  Because my brain works in mysterious ways, despite the fact that there are probably thousands of patterns that come in her size, I decided to adapt a pattern meant for a six month old.  Not only that, but I liked certain elements of another pattern so opted to combine the two.  It was quite an adventure (in knitting terms anyway), but I will spare you the details.  The yarn is Snuggle Puff in ‘Hatchling’ and ‘Lamb’.  I expected and wished for a much softer shade with the hatchling, my face fell when I opened the box of yarn, but I’ve learned to live with the disappointment.

We went for a walk in the afternoon and our neighbor spotted us and sent over clumps of snowdrops and a crocus as very apt birthday gifts for my sweet, little, spring babe.

Patterns:

Waldorf Inspired Mermaid Doll by ThimbleGarden

Slightly modified Sweet Dreams Vintage Bloomers by RabbitRabbitCreation

Angel Top #1 from Fairytale Baby Book by Susan Bates, with edging from the Two Color Angel #14

 

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Books, celebrations and festivals, doll making, Kids, Yarn Crafts
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Valentine’s Day

I made myself a dress.  After reading all of Jane Austen’s novels last year, an empire dress seemed inevitable and not made any the less likely by having binge watched Bridgerton.  I amused myself with full on Regency hair to boot, because it’s not like I was going anywhere and it kind of made me laugh.  There are worse things to be than a Jane Austen character for the day!  When I was young people used to swear that I looked just like Jennifer EhIe in Pride and Prejudice.  I’m not sure that the resemblance still stands, but if there was ever a time for it to show, I suppose it would be while I was dressed like this.

I made my littlest love a dress as well.  I haven’t really sewn in a year.  The last thing that I made was a dress for Mairi for a dance last Valentine’s Day.  There was a quickly thrown together Halloween costume fiasco, where Elijah practically propped me up at a machine and handed me everything I needed, while I just settled for trying to make sure that things stuck together, but that doesn’t really count.  I sewed Mairi two dresses last year and Seraphina none and this is a very sore spot.  The fact that Seraphina gets piles of hand-me-downs, both from Mairi and friends, and had at least ten new-to-her and perfectly lovely dresses last year and Mairi had zero hand-me-downs from anyone, means nothing to her.  All that matters is that I sewed Mairi dresses and not Seraphina.

I bought myself the fancy little French violet candies, in the charming little tin, which have been kicking around the back of my head for two decades.  And now I taste like violets.  I thought about getting roses, because it would be fabulous to have roses right now…maybe pale, pale apricot ones?  But decided that it would be wiser to invest in a new house plant to pad out my rather paltry indoor garden.  I spend a couple of weeks obsessing.  Did you know that Etsy offers tons and tons of house plants??  I did not.  Game.  Changer.  In the end I wanted so many that I couldn’t decide on just one, so I didn’t get any at all, which is so very like me.  As it turns out, a friend ended up in possession of a whole bunch of just past their prime flower bunches and she left one on our driveway.  So, there were flowers after-all.

I put little piles of pink foil covered chocolate hearts next to each of their plates because, as it turns out, candy is as welcome with my adult children as the six year old.  The kitties got heart shaped treats and catnip.  The home-made sugar hearts (and flowers and chicks) went out with the girls’ valentines.

Dress details:

Mine is the Folkwear Empire Dress pattern.  Hers is cerisier en fleurs on top, with just a simple skirt I whipped up on the bottom.  All of the fabric came from our old homeschooling co-op, where we maintained a community fabric stash.  It was two old duvet covers with coordinating fabric on front and back.  By the time I got to them, there had been some random head holes and things hacked into them in wild form, by children playing who-knows-what game.  Luckily there was still enough fabric left.  We over-dyed it and the yarn for Seraphina’s with avacado pits and peels because I look god-awful in white and, besides, nothing in this house stays white for long.

I resisted the temptation to add on the optional train, but oh, it was hard!  Highly impractical, I know, but gosh, it would have been so much fun!  Still making a dress from the late 1700′s/early 1800′s seemed eccentric enough.  I actually think I’ll be able to get away with it as regular wear, without too many people pointing and giggling.  Certainly without the ribbons in my hair.  And probably dropping the sash as well.

These days I try to live part time in a fantasy.  Balanced with as much time as I can endeavoring to be very, very present with my kids.   It’s easier to pretend myself a stricken fairy tale character than to fully face the very unromantic, though still somewhat tragic, medical and practical realities of my world.  I’m not really ready to look at everything head on.  Just a periphery glance will do, thank you very much.  Or maybe the modern day version…those gorgeous women on Instagram who swan around in dreamy dresses, putting pretty little touches around their homes, and writing their rose covered lives out like poetry.  Yes, I think I want to be her for a while.

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Holidays, sewing, The Handcrafted Wardrobe, Yarn Crafts
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Episode 5: Updates All Around

Or, In Which I Blather On and On….

“It is something to know what to do with ourselves when we are beset, and the knowledge of this way of the will is so far the secret of a happy life, that it is well worth imparting to the children.  Are you cross?  Change your thought.  Are you tired of trying? Change your thoughts.  Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your thoughts; there is a power within you, your own Will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you happy and right.  And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the Will acts.” -Charlotte Mason

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Books, Kids, Life, sewing, WIP, Yarn Crafts
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On My Needles

My second set of videos are now live!  Yes, I said set, because it’s in two parts again.  It seems that my camera only likes to record for just over 20 minutes, but based on my first two attempts, I seem to like to talk for approximately 24 minutes.  So I’m either going to have to learn to talk faster or to say less!

A long-time blog reader told me that watching these videos is like imagining a character in a book and then meeting that character and being totally surprised.  The really funny thing is that it’s the same for me!  How I look, how I sound, my style of speech… all totally strange and interesting to me.  Really?  That’s me??  If didn’t have the experience of recording it, I don’t know that I would believe it!

Show notes down below….

My poor trashed garden….

Patterns:

The Mini Wrap by Fox & Folk

Isis Tailcoat (because I misspoke twice for goodness sake) by Kari-Helene Rane

The No Frills Cardigan by PetiteKnits

Thrysos Yoked Blouse by Teresa Gregorio

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Gardens, The Handcrafted Wardrobe, WIP, Yarn Crafts
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Yarn Along June

I’ve been puttering my way through reading lately.  Picking something up, putting it down.  Just looking at the pictures.  Reading a paragraph or a page or two and then skipping ahead a hundred pages.  Some books lend themselves better to this than others.  Cookbooks for example.  Some knitting and sewing books.  Or this one: Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of the Swedish Style.  So many pretty pictures to look at!  And short captions to read to kind of get the gist of it all.  I did read the whole of the chapter devoted exclusively to Karin and found it very interesting.  Also, there is a child’s dress (designed by Karin, of course!) featured in several of Carl’s paintings, that I totally wish to recreate for Seraphina.

I read around two-thirds of Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver before it had to be returned to the library.  I’d like to finish it some day.  This is Home: the Art of Simple Living is my current putter, but I’m not finding it as exciting as I had hoped.  The photo on the cover is probably my favorite.

I’m all sorts of flitty and flighty these days.  There are reasons of course.  Since my concussion, back in March, I’ve struggled with reading leading to headaches.  It’s getting better.  Much better than it was, surely, but I’m not quite back to normal and I haven’t yet found my usual groove.  Also, the book supply has been spotty since Steve has been unemployed.  He used to drive by the library every day on his long ride home from work.  I would order books on-line and they would just magically show up with him when he arrived home.  It was a good system.  Perhaps it was a little too easy, we generally had 30-40 books out at any given time and sometimes upwards of 65!  Now trips to the library are rare.  We have a grand total of three books out at the moment.  Often by the time we finally pick up a book, it’s nearly time for it to be returned.

My knitting has been much the same.  Usually I knit my way through much of the day, during car rides, while talking on the phone, as I teach… but my brain is still struggling to coordinate multiple things at once.  And more often then not I still find myself dropping my knitting back in my lap after only a stitch or two so that I can concentrate on whatever else is going on.  I’ve made some serious strides with this in the last couple of weeks and I’m hoping to find that I’m back to my old self soon.

In the month of May I finally worked in all the ends on the twin sized blanket that I crocheted for Seraphine, I knitted a tie for Iain to wear for his senior photos, I made a bonnet for a friends baby, and I photographed not a one of them.  I discovered that mice had made a stash of quinoa in the scrap blanket that I’ve been knitting on sporadically for the last several years and I decided that it’s time to get it finished up, out of that work basket and in use.  I’ve been putting in some work on that and inviting others to do the same.  It will be a generous full-queen size when all is said and done and I probably have nine or ten inches worth of length to go.  And just two days ago I decided that I would really like the option of wearing the blue sweater that I had been working on, before I started bopping all over the place, to Iain’s graduation next week.  So for the time being I’m concentrating on that and sort of nervously knitting away.

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Books, Life, WIP, Yarn Crafts
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