WIP Wednesday : Testing,1, 2, 3 ...

I was recently fortunate enough to test a pattern for my friend Michelle, and it was such a fun experience. Michelle is a very talented knitter (check out her ravelry page) among many other things and has been kind enough to come to my rescue many a times with her knitting wisdom. Believe me, I jumped at the chance to be her tester!



Her latest pattern is a sweet little cotton dress with the prettiest lace trim. It seemed so girly and perfect for C. I couldn't wait to finish it. Rav notes here



It knit up pretty fast and I actually conquered my fear of crocheting with this pattern, as well.



The test pattern was for a younger size but I think it works great as a little swing top, too. Perfect for layering with or wearing alone. As soon as Michelle releases the pattern I plan on making more in wool for our chilly summer days here in Oregon.



What's on your needles? Happy creating!

I forgot to mention, you may have noticed a new addition to my tutorials. I am trying to go back and find all of my old tutorials on here and add them to the left side bar to make it easier for everyone to find.

WIP Wednesday : Testing,1, 2, 3 ...

Angel of Mine, Watch Over Me...

An angel in K's room

"The realization that we as human beings continue the work of the angels, the archangels, and even higher spiritual beings can fill us with awe and inspire a feeling of gratitude." WECAN - The World of the Young Child

You may have heard of the importance of angels in Waldorf philosophy. This is one of the things I instantly fell in love with. There are many different rolls and aspects of angels in a child's life. In Rahima Baldwin Dancy's lectures you will often hear her refer to your child's angel "Also, try taking your question into your sleep: make a mental picture of your daughter as you see and love her, and then give over this situation to her angel, asking for inspiration".
It is believed that children see angels and sense otherworldly presences until about the age of seven, and that we all have our own angel. K has really taken this to heart. She seemed to already know about angels before I started telling her about them (a couple of years ago after my dear friend lost her husband in a car accident). I can still remember a day in November when she saw C sleeping in my lap and she said that I must be her guardian angel watching over her.

It seems that at least one conversation a day is centered around angels in one way or another. Sometimes it's about her specific angel, or maybe C's angel and other times it's just about angels in general. Some days she even likes to dress up like an angel and play her lyre. Oh yes, my sweet little K has a love of angels.


Angel shelf in K's room

It seemed only fitting to have angels in K's room (and pretty much everywhere else in our house), and wouldn't you know that her two bedtime songs she requests are angel ones! She has both of the songs memorized now. Both are from Mary Thienes-Schunemann, and are as follows:

Angel of mine, watch over me
Guide my work, to the good deed
May I be one who will work with my hands
Angel of mine, watch over me.


All night, all day, angels watching over me, my Lord
All night, all day, angels watching over me
When at night I go to sleep, angels watching over me, my Lord
Pray the Lord my soul to keep, angels watching over me.


Angel beeswax impression in our living room

The absolute best moment of each day comes at night when K sings these two songs to C before bed. The sweetness and sincerity in her eyes and her voice as she sings would melt any one's heart.

Oh yes, my K deeply believes in angels, and I am so blessed to have her in my life to teach me to believe as well.

Angel of Mine, Watch Over Me...

I'm a Cat Walker...

K is carrying on a tradition of sorts in our family, she is learning how to walk our cats outdoors on a leash. You see, our cats are indoor cats (because the current state of the world is just too cruel, and we would never want anything to happen to them), but we know they long to be outside exploring and munching on grass. Our compromise is to get them outdoors for a couple of hours at a time but on a leash.



My family used to do this with our cat when I was growing up, too. I can still see her in her collar and leash munching on grass by the deck at my Mom's house.



Now it's K's turn to keep this fun tradition going. We just started recently and so far two of our four cats are loving it. The other two are too jumpy to take outside just yet, unless an adult is walking them. K absolutely loves it. It helps to bring her closer to her furry friends while teaching her responsibility and building her confidence.



C will get her turn, too, once she is a little bit older. I know she can not wait!



So many memories came flooding back to me of walking my first cat as I was typing this post so I thought I would share a couple pictures I have of her out and about. I used to have more but can't seem to find them now. She traveled all over the world with me and was always out to explore her new surroundings. She was a well traveled cat, let me tell you!
*Little Warning - these pictures are copies of my original pictures. The quality of these are pretty horrible (and grainy, and washed out, oh I could go on and on) due to being copies. I took these pictures many years ago with my beloved manual film camera.


Kevin walking my kitty in South Korea (told you she went everywhere!)


Kevin walking her in the alley behind our home in South Korea

And just because I found these while looking for my cat walking pictures... a couple shots from our time living in South Korea. I have a lot of beautiful images I took of the temples and life there, but again they seem to have disappeared *sigh*. We loved living there and I hope we get to bring the girls there someday.


Cartoon cardboard stand ups outside of a military building




The DMZ

Thanks for letting me share! Wishing you all a beautiful weekend!

I'm a Cat Walker...

WIP Wednesday : Adventures

Yummy yarn

I finished up quite a few things during my time away but since I was taking a break from my camera as well, I didn't get any pictures. Go figure. That is something I shall have to remedy soon, but in the meantime here are a couple things I do have pictures of.



I mentioned working on a project for K's skuut bike adventures awhile back.
When we take longer nature walks, or when we are trying to wear out the dogs, K rides her skuut bike along side us. She loves riding it and from the way she rides it, I think she'll be on a traditional bike by next summer (we chose to have her learn to ride on a balance bike instead of a traditional bike with training wheels, to avoid training wheels all together). The only problem she has with riding her bike is that she has no place to put all of her nature treasures. She tries to carry them in her hands while riding but she always finds so much more than she could possibly hold on to. I promised her I would figure something out. I really wanted to get her a basket to put on the front of her bike but a.) I didn't know if a basket would fit on her bike and b.) money is always an issue. So that idea was scrapped. Then I happened to look over at my scrap fabric pile and thought I could just sew her a little bag.

I took some measurements of the front of her bike and her handle bars and just winged it from there. I used some dark corduroy fabric with acorns on it that I bought years ago for some random project that never happened. Although I stay away from dark colors with things for the girls, it seemed perfect for this project because her bike is always covered in mud and this would hide dirt. I used some bright pink on the inside for the liner fabric to make up for it, too.



Her bag needed some kind of extra something, something. K loves embroidery so I thought I would embroider a couple of flowers and a simple word to finish it off. I sewed some pink ties to the back of it (one for each handle bar and one in the middle of the bag to tie around the front part of her bike), and it was done. I surprised K on our next nature walk with it, and she really put it to the test.



Mother nature helped a bit with testing it as well, she was pouring rain on us, but we carried on. One thing we have learned so far from living in Oregon is if you don't get outside in the rain, you won't get outside at all!



Another couple of projects I worked on are for an upcoming adventure - K's first day of school! The school has quite a list of things required for each child to keep at the school, so this means we need two of a lot of basic things (one for school, one for home). I knit her another gnomie gnome hat (notes here, made some alterations) in some super soft rainbow yarn she picked out herself (from inspired mama makes) to keep at school. Since this will be a gift for her first day of school I had C model it for the picture.



She also needs a pair of waterproof mittens so I am trying the felted mittens pattern in an old issue of Living Crafts. They are about halfway done, I just need to knit the cuffs and sew them on.



Wow, that was quite a bit for one post, wasn't it? More to come soon!
Happy creating everyone!!

WIP Wednesday : Adventures

Pine Needle Crafts & I'm Finally Back!

All right, so it was more than a week! I have to be totally honest and say that I loved my little mini break. It was nice just enjoying moments with my girls without feeling the need to document them (although a couple times K asked me to take pictures of things to put on the blog, that was a bit of an eye opener for me). I finished up quite a few projects (I'll share those later), started some new ones, re-organized areas of our home, did yard work in our front yard (which sadly has not been done since we moved in here), and so much more. I didn't know I had it in me. I guess I just needed to step back for a bit to see that I could.

As much as I loved my break, I missed this little space. I am happy to be rested, refreshed and 'back home'. I wanted to thank all of you for your amazing insight and wisdom. Your words really got to me and helped me through my little funk.

The irony to all of this is that as soon as I felt ready to come back, our computer crashed. By pure luck, we have it running right now but I am not sure for how long. fingers crossed it keeps working!

I didn't take a lot of pictures during my break but I thought I would share a few I took when K wanted to pretend it was Christmas for a day. We listened to Christmas music, drank hot cocoa (hey, it's still cold here!), sang carols and told stories. It was a fun day!



We went out a gathered some pine needles for crafts



K braided some as decorations



I made a pine needle heart that I still need to finish with a bow (instructions here, one of the ornaments from the Living Crafts article I was a part of)



K chose her own ribbon and made one with me. We decided we are going to make a whole garland of them to hang over our fireplace this winter.



The other pine needles, as well as pine cones and other finds were used by both of the girls to make a Christmas display at their table.



K made a wee little fairy broom with some of the pine needles that were too small for ornaments. One of our fairies is doing some spring cleaning on the nature table with it now.

Speaking of spring cleaning, I hope to clean up this space a bit over the weekend, it's becoming a bit cluttered to me and in need of some sprucing up!

I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. Thank you again for your kindness and understanding.
XO

Pine Needle Crafts & I'm Finally Back!

Inhale.Exhale.Repeat

I swear wildflower bouquets are so much more beautiful than store bought ones

This space is a journal for me and my life with my little ones. A way to document the magical times I want to always remember (as well as those crazy days that I am told I will laugh at later). It started out as a way to stay in touch with my family and friends and then I (semi-recently) made it public. It really is an outlet for me, as well as a way to remind myself of how blessed my life is when times get rough. It's my saving grace of sorts. Being here has become such a big part of my personal rhythm, and I wouldn't give any time spent on it for the world. I have so much fun when I sit down to type up a post and look through pictures of our recent adventures. To top it off I have all of you! Blogging is such a great way to connect. I feel so blessed and honored that you follow me on my journey, with nothing but sage wisdom, and words of encouragement. Thank you.

I have been trying not to show it, but I think it has been a bit obvious lately that my inspiration for the blog has been running low. To be honest, I have been feeling a bit run down with it, and I can't seem to catch up. It doesn't feel like what I intended it to be, and it's all my own fault (and that darn perfectionism in me!). All I can seem to think about (as I try to type a post) is the piles of projects waiting for me, or parenting books I need to read. I feel like I am being pulled in so many directions at once that everything only gets bits of me instead of all of me... if that makes sense. It drives me crazy that I feel this way. How did I lose that loving feeling?

With that in mind, I decided to take a week off from the computer all together.
I need to collect my thoughts, enjoy my family and every moment without the camera attached to my face, get through some of those project piles, and just exhale.

I hope to be back in a week, refreshed, re inspired and back to that loving feeling. I hope you all understand.
I wish you all a wonderful week. Thank you for everything!

Inhale.Exhale.Repeat

WIP Wednesday : In Honor of Kelly

I am taking a break from my usual WIP posts to share a project dear to me



I first learned about an amazing, amazing woman named Kelly last winter. Nicole from Gardenmama sent me an e-mail about the Wellness Tree - a project of hope and encouragement she created for Kelly. I was touched after reading her story and I knew I had to help out in any way I could. For me, that meant creating. I wet felted her this candle ornament along with one of our nightly verses that just felt perfect.

Some of you may already know Kelly recently left this world much too soon, after losing her battle with cancer. Honestly, to say I was shocked at the news is an understatement, I really wanted to pretend it wasn't real. Nicole wrote a beautiful tribute to her here.

I knew, again, that I needed to do something for her sweet baby boy Ari and husband in her memory. Then I saw that Tonya from Natural Earth Farm was starting up a blanket project and I knew that was the perfect thing.



I knit up one square using a pattern from the Spring issue of Living Crafts and I am currently working on my second square. I hope to knit quite a few squares to mail out to Tonya for this blanket ASAP.



I am asking those of you that knit to please, please check out the project and consider knitting a square. The deadline to mail them to Tonya is June 15th. The squares are 6"in size so they do not take a lot of time to make, but are still filled with all of our love.

If you do not knit but would still like to contribute please check out this post via the Wellness Tree for inspiration of other things to make. I hope after I complete some more squares for Ari's blanket I can make something else, I just haven't figured out what that something else will be yet. I wish I could do so much more...

You can learn more about Kelly at The Wellness Tree. Thank you Nicole and Tonya for putting this together and thank you to all of you who took the time to read this and, perhaps, even contributed in our efforts.

May we as mothers and women hold Kelly in our hearts and may we honor her strength in our everyday as we mother our own children and act in a mothering spirit to everyone we come across.
- Nicole at Gardenmama

WIP Wednesday : In Honor of Kelly