Made by MY Mama

So, after five days on, five days off, I thought I really should blog something today to get back into the habit. (I'm going to say that I was absent for five days because of the holiday weekend.)

My mom cross-stitched these beautiful name "plaques" (I don't know what else to call them) for my wee ones this summer. In fact, she was looking through alphabet patterns to design a community cross-stitch quilt for a co-worker (a tradition at her work for anyone having a first baby), and had these patterns sitting out. When I saw a similar example in this pattern, I asked her if she'd make some for Elisabeth and James, and she said yes. Then she had them beautifully framed.

They're done on linen, and I just love the vintage feel of them. Even the frames have that feel. I just love my mom's work. Her stitches are all so even and careful. The children that were "assigned" to the letters "E" and "J" were not quite right for my children -- I think the "J" was a girl, and the "E" was like a baby or tiny toddler, so she changed the patterns around to make it work. She even added a beagle from one of the other letters to James's (we are beagle owners).

I am sorry I've cropped the photos so severely, but when I first posted this, I was using pseudonyms for my children on this blog as using their real names was still far outside my comfort zone at the time.

Martinmas lanterns

One of the things that I like about Waldorf education is its seasonal focus; the emphasis on traditional festivals throughout the year and the way that the natural world is part of this. Some of the festivals seem so far removed from our modern, far-too-fast-paced lives, but I believe that celebrating them and letting them resonate for us today helps to ground us, and to understand where we are coming from and where we are going.

I found myself being especially drawn to Martinmas (Nov. 11) this year. For our ancestors, this time of the year, falling almost exactly between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice (or the natural "new beginnings" of autumn and the quiet and peace of winter right at Christmas), was an important time to remember that the light would yet return. Because I have been struggling with my own "inner darkness" this year, holding onto the belief that there is light, and it will come back to me, has become very important indeed.

Of course, I don't go into my struggles with inner darkness, etc., with my children. For my four-year-old, this was a fun craft project and a charming holiday celebration which involved getting to go on a walk after dark and receiving a gift. (Inspired by an idea in Festivals, Family, and Food, we have a tradition of setting out a little tray for her which has an apple, an orange, a new warm woolen item of clothing [this year, a pair of cozy wool socks], and a little piece of chocolate for her to find on the morning of Martinmas -- it's always so thrilling!)

So, here we are in the process of making the lanterns. It took four work sessions over the course of one week.

Painting:

Oiling the paintings (we used cheap cooking oil):

(Elisabeth did not want to be in this picture)

Gluing:

All lit up (behind them you can see the remnant of our Michaelmas candle):

WIP : sneak peek

A sneak peek at this year's handmade Christmas card. You'll have to wait until the end of next week to see the finished product! ;)

Apple pie

I took the wee ones to pick apples the first weekend in October. It was a perfect, sunny, beautiful afternoon (and all the photos are still in my film camera -- bad, bad mama!).

Then time escaped us for two weeks, as it seems to do, until we finally set to work making the apple pie. The baby took a nice long nap, and Elisabeth and I had a free afternoon to just work on the pie. I am always amazed by the way children absorb things without needing to have them laboriously explained. It was as though she already knew how to make the pie, even though this was really her first time to be involved in the process. (Pie, is, um, my second favorite thing -- after wool! -- and so I have to strictly limit how often they are made here.)

I thought this was really the perfect pie. It was so beautiful, and tasted so good, and Elisabeth did do so much of the work. I cannot really take too much of the credit for the beauty of the finished product:

Welcome to Typepad!

Oh, my! I am still trying to work things out here ... I am not, shall we say, a computer person! Creating the banner was about the most headachy computer thing I have ever done (the fact that my camera just came 3 weeks ago and I still haven't totally figured out the computer end there, either, is a contributing factor). But anyway, here I am! I have photos up on flickr now, too. I'm sure that there will be more in that arena as my patience with the computer allows.

For now, here are a couple Halloween pictures of my wee ones. More to come!

Edited: A couple of my friends looked at this post and emailed me to ask where I got the butterfly and caterpillar costumes. Well, I'm sorry (or happy?) to say that I made them, using patterns from an old (fall 2001) issue of Martha Stewart Baby. Elisabeth suggested butterfly & caterpillar costumes for them at the end of August, and I remembered the patterns almost right away. Sewing all the markings onto both sides of the wings was time consuming (for me -- I'm so into instant gratification, you know), but otherwise, the costumes were pretty easy.