Peggy Squares

I did a bit of satisfying, fast, colourful, feel-good knitting in the weekend.

The three bigger squares on the right are for UNICEF's Unite For Mothers. There's still time for you other knitters to whip up a square or two and get them to UNICEF by this Friday. We sent three to represent my three healthy children. The one on the top was knitted by Miss Nine - a cool mother-daughter project! She used wool I hand-dyed with a group of friends a couple of years ago.

The smaller squares will be sewn into a snuggly, love-filled baby blanket for a friend's brand new baby girl.

I cried

I'm not a crier but this week I cried reading Wearing the Poppy to my children. It makes me sad, sad, sad thinking of mothers losing their children through war. And does this remembering we do make it stop? It makes me sad, sad, sad thinking of mothers in Darfur, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan............

Happy St George's Day

Stories

Games

Dragons, of course.

Dragon's Blood (Beetroot) Soup

(Yeah, it kinda really was that bright!)

Shut-Ins

After a splendid run of beautiful weather the inevitable happened and we turned into Shut-Ins today.

More Tomtens to lead us through Autumn into Winter. I may even share my sultana and cinnamon porridge with them.

Mr Hedgehog rustles around in leaves we collected on a fine day recently. (His eyes should be beadier.)

Harvest

We spent a productive couple of hours up at the community gardens yesterday, meeting other participants, sharing information and harvesting almost the last of our Maori spuds. We've both been ridiculously and naively astounded at our awesome rate of return from a few measly kilos of seed spuds. That's what I call a good investment.

Keep me in the kitchen

I had a birthday, not so recently. There was a distinct theme running through the gifts I got. My peeps know me so well;-)

I'd been drooling over Ladies, A Plate since it was released last year and was bummed when it sold out. But Hubby was on the ball when it was reprinted. Good boy. It has been in much use since I got it (much to my waist's chagrin).

Mum & Dad found this wee gem for me and it is a fantastic book for us to maximise our play garden.

The Kitchen Goddesses were smiling upon me when my brother and family handed this beauty over. His hand had wavered over Ladies, A Plate but landed on Gran's Kitchen instead.

My local bestie gave me this cute, cute, cute recipe folder. I'm planning a major sort out of my recipe disaster zone (while bestie minds the troops for an arvo this coming week!!).

So, I'm happily kept in the kitchen with this lot. One of my happy places.

Holiday Stitching

School holidays are upon us although in effect it means very little change to our day to day rhythms around here. I'm attempting to give myself a mental health holiday from the pressure I put upon myself to be the perfect homeschooling mummy.

The girls and I did a bit of stitching while A4 constructed contentedly with his new marble run.

I6's fun softie, christened Emily.

M9 did this for her guitar-totin' Daddy - soon to find pride of place in his office.

I, of course, continue the obsession;-) Funnily enough, a little fellow has already asked nicely if this can hang on his bedroom wall.

Mend and Make Do

"Mend and Make Do" is definitely a state of being to wear in the coming age. This now hangs in my craft room (aka bedroom). I took this attitude on board yesterday when looking at my hideous had-it dining chair cushions. I'd been given these fabrics by a couple of friends and I repadded them with repurposed couch cushion inners. Free makeover - suits my budget! (Long autumn afternoon shadows in my house - sigh.)



I spotted this perfectly good picnic basket at the Sallies for $5 . It had a manky fabric inner that I replaced with apple fabric and fold over elastic from my stash, loosely based around the basket lining tutorial found in the Living Crafts mag craft room.


Yet again, I'm so grateful for another free online tutorial - this one is for a Gratitude Wrap from Soulemama that was a wee giftie for H12 last week.


I wouldn't let I6.5 buy a waldorf fairy at Craft 2.0 in the weekend as I was overcome by a moment of "I can SO make that" - so I did and she seems mightily pleased with her angel - complete with leaf wings.

They're everywhere

We can't escape these little guys! The girls and I went to Craft 2.0 yesterday. (Thankfully it wasn't as manic as last time I went alone.) Of course this little guy had to come home with us for little brother.

My girls shot across the room like greased lightning as soon as they spotted the lady with all her gorgeous needle-felting. A wee addition to our autumn table with Mr Green Gnome.

Our resident teeny needle-felted gnome (or Jawa as I like to call him) bought himself some new tools for his gardening and underground work (thanks Nova).

Hubby harvested the final round of beets from our garden before every got pulled out. He blanched and froze it for our curries. Winter garden planning now underway.

It's good to be alive!

Today the autumn sun shone warm, we enjoyed a family bike ride along the river and ate too many Easter eggs and buns. It felt great to be alive on this day that our family celebrates Jesus' resurrection.

I was intrigued to read Sharon Astyk's description of her Jewish faith as being a communal religion requiring a critical mass of Jews for many spiritual practices. I'm not sure why Christianity, with its roots firmly embedded in the Jewish faith, has swung so far towards the individualisation of our faith.

I'm wary of the mood of triumphalism that creeps into our celebrations on Easter Sunday - particular in the evangelical branches of the Church that I've always been a part of. Sometimes we simply rejoice in our individual salvation "ticket" and fail to see that the Easter story is a powerful call to a gathering of believers to a different life, a difficult life.

Let me just throw some random Rob Bell quotes I've been enjoying at you:
"The way of Jesus is the path of descent. It's about our death. It's our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it's our participation in the new humanity, it's our weakness calling out to others in their weakness."
"The gathering of the church, in a service or worship or teaching setting, is to remind, instruct, and inspire people about being Eucharist ["The Good Gift"] for the worlds they find themselves in."
"The Eucharist is ultimately about what we do out there, in the flow of everyday life."
"Disconnection from the suffering of the world, isolation from the cry of the oppressed, indifference to the poverty around us will always lead to dispair."

So for me Easter has been yet another reminder that this journey I'm on is with others and for others.

Twins

I have two friends expecting twins at the moment. I'm not sure what was in the water that week! I've started knitting a wee stash of soakers and longies for the set of identical twin girls. I've been using the Little Turtle Knits Original Soaker pattern for five years now - since my second child was in cloth nappies. I still love the pattern and am particularly chuffed with the simple look of this pair using Treliske Organic Merino - so beautifully soft for those precious girls.