Simple Joys-Signs of Spring

What a great joy it was to walk out on my balcony this week and find little leaf buds on the stems of my rose bush!  Even on a cold day like today seeing this is a reminder that spring is in deed on its' way back to us and that soon there will be lots of things growing and springing forth with blossoms out there.  What hope and joy!

What is your simple joy this week?

Valentine's Day Baby Gym

Happy Valentine's Day (a day late) to you all.  Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday, but we've had a couple of crazy, busy days here Under The Old Oak Tree.  By the time we got home from school and then getting the stitches taken out of Toadstool's head, I was just too tired to take the last few pictures I needed or to write up this post.

I've been thinking for a while that Rosebud would probably really enjoy a baby gym.  Her favorite place in the world is at home on the floor on her sheepskin rug.  It's a warm cozy spot and big brother Toadstool likes to join her there (he got his own sheepskin for Valentine's Day so they can be near each other but not have him so in her space all the time).  

I looked into buying  her a wooden baby gym, but the price was way more than I could justify for a toy she'll probably only use for a few months.  I started looking online and came across these directions from Seedpod Craft.  I decided that I could do this!  I used heart plaques instead of ovals and Toadstool and I spent quite a while sanding all the rough edges off and rounding them to have a more Waldorf aesthetic.  We also rounded off the ends of the 4 support dowel rods.  We don't have a huge amount of space in our small apartment so I felt that it was important that we be able to take the whole thing apart and reassemble it easily.  I'm not sure how often we'll do this, but I'm sure there are times we'll need to, so instead of attaching the legs with wood screws, I drilled all the way through and used machine screws with wing nuts.  I decided it was safe enough if they were well tightened and we take it apart and put it away once she's pulling up on things.  To go on it I knit a pink and red heart and a pink and red ladybug  lovebug with heart spots which attach to the cross bar with i-cord.

 I did a bit of cooking for Valentine's Day this year too.  I made us heart shaped brownies.  My brownie recipe is an adaptation of Elana's Pantry's breakfast bread, but you'd never know it.  They really have  a good bit of protein and very little sugar in them and are so so rich and chocolatey!  I'll have to post my changes to her base recipe at some point.  

I made these heart shaped peanut butter cookies for Papa to take to work for the Sweets Day he was organizing for his co-workers.  They turned out really cute shaped as hearts.

For our breakfast I made my guys and I heart shaped eggs and bacon with a little chocolate cherry mouse.  These mice have been quite the hit with Toadstool.  He loves mice (so much that his teachers at school gave him a little needle-felted one for his birthday) and cherries so when I saw these over at The Magic Onions, I knew I had to make him some!  One on each plate was a perfect little sweet start to our Valentine's Day.

 Toadstool and Rosebud show off one of the Valentine hearts he made to give to family and friends this week.

Linking to Creative Friday at Natural Suburbia.

This Moment-Sibling Snuggles

From SouleMama: {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. Share your own moment in the comments or atSouleMama.com.

Yarn Along

I'm joining with Ginnny of Small Things again for the Yarn along.  My current projects on the needles/hook are a rag rug I am crocheting from old clothes and a set of  liners for W's rainboots.  Here is the pattern I am adapting to fit rainboots with a tab in the back instead of the handles on the sides.  I feel like I've been working on these liners for a really really long time given that they are just simple in the round knitting of stockinette with a few decreases periodically.  Not difficult knitting, and perhaps not the most attention grabbing either.  Maybe that's why I keep setting them when other projects come up.   I'll be happy if I finish them for W's rainboots this spring.  I do think they will be very practical for him to have for playgroup and school and they make the boots look so cute!  In terms of reading, I've been a bit all over the place.  I have been re-reading Little Women again on my Kindle.  It's easy night reading that doesn't keep me up since I've read it so many times in the past, but is cozy and comforting like a visit with old friends.  It's definitely one of my all time favorites.

I've finished two other projects since my last Yarn Along.  The first is this scrappy hat for W.  He had a lovely hat with a long floppy point that I had made for him last year.  It was causing some issues on the playground at school however since all of his friends wanted to pull on it, so we decided he needed a new hat.  I had also been thinking about knitting a cowl for him but decided to make him  this instead.  He loves it and was so happy wearing it at school today.

The other project  I finished was this "ranger cowl" for my park ranger husband.  He wanted a brown scarf to wear with his uniform.  I didn't have enough of this yarn for a scarf so I made him this cowl instead.  It's kind of nice knowing that on a cold day at work he can wear something made with love to help him stay nice and warm. 

I want to make W a pair of felted mittens to match his scrappy hat.  Also I'm thinking that it's time the mama in this family makes herself a hat and cowl to help her stay warm this winter too.

For more "wooly" goodness, please stop by my photography project Wool365.  Often these days things I am making are posted there before I manage to post the here at Under The Old Oak Tree.

Another gift for W completed.

Okay, it seems I am off and running with this Christmas in July thing again this year.  Only 5 months left till Christmas and 4 months left till W's birthday.  I am starting to feel a little panicked over the whole thing, but that leads to progress right?  

Some of you may remember W's birthday sweater from last year.  Well, building on that idea, this year I decided to use the same technique to make a needle felted vest.  This turned out to essentially be a free project.  I used leftover yarn and roving and a wool thrift shop sweater that I purchased a long time ago for a different purpose.

I had felted this sweater a long time ago before we moved, thinking I was going to make it into a purse, and make W some wool pants out of the sleeves, but that never happened, so this week, I decided to make it into a cute little toadstool vest to give to him either for his birthday or Christmas.  (Because they are so close together, my plan is to make a few things and then sort out when I will give them to him later on).

In any case, The sweater had been a turtle neck and I was able to cut it up the middle and press the neck down to make a cute little collar.  I used wool yarn to blanket stitch around the edges.  The pockets were cut out of the sleeves that I went ahead and felted.  (I have plans for the left over bits of these too).  Somehow, hanging up in the picture they look a little wonky but i don't think they look that bad in real life.  If I decide they do, I'll have to remove them and re-stitch them on.  

In any case I very firmly needle-felted the toadstools onto the back and the pockets (before I attached them) and then sprayed them with water and used a hot steamy iron on both sides of the fabric to help set the design.

I need to get some more wool sweaters from some local thrift stores and try to make W  a few more of these jackets/vests.

Christmas Cards and Gift Wrap

Christmas is going to be here before we know it!  I've been busy for months working on handmade presents for family and close friends. For details on the gifts we are giving this year, see my handmade holiday posts.  My goal is to get all of the presents done by the end of November so that I can focus on decorating, baking, celebrating, honoring old family traditions and starting some new ones as well.  Most of my knitting is completed. During December I may work on knitting a few gift items, but for the most part they are little things to supplement larger gifts.  If I get some of them done great, if not, they won't be missed all that much.  What I do need to get really busy with this week is sewing.  I have plans to sew several items for Daddy and W.

I'm thinking that means one of this week's tasks is going to be starting to draft this year's Christmas letter and and get our card address list updated.  Maybe I'll have Daddy start printing out some address labels this week too.  We always try to do a photo card.  The last two years have been of all three of us, but I'm thinking this year we should probably just feature the young man of the house.  His Grammy has purchased several nice holiday outfits for him, so once I have all of them, we will choose one and start taking some pictures.  Last year we used our Christmas tree as a backdrop, but I'd like to get the pictures done this year before it's time to put the tree up so, I'm debating what would make a good setting for his holiday pictures.  Also, last year we got a great deal on our photo cards from SeeHere.  I think we paid something like $2.00 for 50 cards (including shipping).  It was a fantastic deal.  I'm hoping there is a similar deal from them this year since I have already designed the card and just need to insert the picture of W.  I'm also including a picture of the winter scene needle felting I made this fall on the card.

By the way this 12x12 needle felted wall hanging is currently for sale in my etsy shop.

As for gift wrapping, we have decided to try to make reusable cloth gift bags for as many things as possible this year.  I have a few styles that I have collected over the years already.  My aunt always sends gifts to W in cotton drawstring bags with Christmas prints on them so I have quite a few of those at this point.  I also have one that I bought at a craft sale last year that has a contrasting piece of fabric at the top and an attached ribbon.  The benefit of this design is that it can be used to wrap a box similarly to how you would wrap with paper.  Over the past 6 months or so I've been trying to give gifts in cloth bags when possible and have usually just made a mitered bag with a very wide hem at the top and done with a decorative stitch.  I then have put in the present and tied a pretty bow around the bag.  My mom and I have been collecting some Christmas fabrics for a while now, so we need to start sewing on some of these bags pretty soon.  I anticipate still needing to use some boxes and wrapping paper this year to supplement the bags, but hopefully much less than we have in the past.  I figure we can add a few bags each year form now on and buy the fabrics we want to use on clearance after Christmas from now on.

Edit 11/18/10-

I ordered our Christmas cards from SeeHere  three days ago and they arrived today.  I used the best deal I could find this year which was 25 free cards ($4.95 s&h) and then ordered 10 more at regular price.  With tax our 35 cards came to just over $10.00 which isn't too bad.  Our Christmas letter is written and I am waiting for my mom to send me some extra pretty paper she has to print it on.  My hubby and I have also compiled our card list and are working on gathering up addresses.  We need to get stamps this week and print out our address labels (these are are the hubster's responsibility too) and we will be ready to send out our cards by sometime  in early December.

Our First Candlemas

Yesterday we celebrated our first Candlemas. One of the major ways we have chosen to bring Waldorf principals into our home is by celebrating some of the festivals. I love how they add to the gentle rhythm of the year. At this point the celebrations are as much for DH and I as they are for W. He's just over a year old, and while he seems to enjoy the celebrations, most of it doesn't really mean too much to him yet. This year was our first experience with Candlemas and it was truly lovely. I wrote previously about our preparations for Candlemas.

I think they served us well. Yesterday, W watched while I made butter in a jar with marbles. It was fun, but my jar was too small and I didn't have an empty larger one so everything was transferred to a larger plastic food storage container and it worked beautifully. Lesson learned...for a pint of cream use a quart size jar. Talking to Grammy today, I was also told that I should have rinsed my butter in water to keep it from going rancid. I need to do some more research on that and think about it for next year. For the small amount of butter we made (it just filled one of my small ramekins) I'm not going to worry about it going rancid though. This was the best tasting, sweetest, yummiest butter I can ever remember eating! W and I also both really enjoyed the buttermilk too! We ate a little bit of the butter on some homemade bread as a snack and saved the rest for dinner.

W and I also worked on getting the living room and dining room of our home clean during the day. This was sort of the ceremonial beginning to our spring cleaning but was really mostly just a surface straightening up. W of course proceeded to pull all of his toys back out after that, so things didn't seem to be straightened up for very long.

While W ate his lunch I planted the forget-me-not and alpine strawberry seeds for our little nature table pots. W watched while he ate and was very interested in the whole process. I'm really looking forward to involving him with the garden this year. He loves to be outside and he loves plants. We come from a long line of gardeners and it is something I look forward to sharing with him as well.

For our dinner, I had not ground any wheat earlier and wanted to make whole wheat pancakes, so I decided on these blender pancakes. They were pretty good with lots of texture to them. I mixed up a double batch, but because I have problems turning pancakes (one skill I have been trying to master my whole life with no success) DH agreed to do the actual cooking of the pancakes and "ground hog" sausage. I was also happy that there were several breakfasts worth of pancakes left over to go into our freezer.

We placed our birthday ring with all 9 candles on an elevated plate and placed our heart candle in the middle.

When they were all lit and the lights were turned off they gave a beautiful glow to the room and plenty of light to read by. DH commented that if we light candles like that every night, we could greatly reduce our use of electricity. I of course love this idea! W seemed to be enchanted by the candle light too, repeating "See! See!" over and over.

While we gobbled pancakes, I told DH about the special things W and I had already done to celebrate Candlemas and talked about the symbolism of the different things we had done. We also read some Candlemas verses and DH sang a rousing and theatrical version of this groundhog song to the delight of W and myself. I also read from Luke 2:22-40 which tells of Jesus being presented at the temple and encountering Simeon and Anna. After that I read this charming little story about the Snowdrop which I chose to use instead of the story about St. Bridget, which I'll save till W is older.

We ended our meal with a discussion about the upcoming season of Lent and I have decided to give up soda for Lent this year.

Later in the evening, while DH was doing the bedtime routine with W, I spent some time reading The Postage Stamp Garden Book: Grow Tons of Vegetables in Small Places and planning my early cold season garden. I only have about a 4'X4' space to work with beside our back steps so this book gives me wonderful ideas about what and how much to plant there and how to get the most out of my little plot. This spring I plan to plant sugar snap peas, carrots, radishes, beets, lettuce and onions in my little plot!

As Candlemas is also a time for renewed creativity, I finished off the evening working on a handwork project. I am currently knitting up bunches of little cotton squares to use as family cloth. I'm sure sewing up some flannel would be a quicker process for this, but, I'm just more likely to get around to knitting some squares up, so that's what I am doing for now to get the ball rolling.

Creating Traditions

DS is now a year old and our little family is working very hard at starting some traditions of our very own and finding some rhythm in what can be a crazy season.

DS's birthday falls towards the end of November near Thanksgiving. This year I made him a birthday crown which he wore on the day of his party and on his actual birthday. It turned out really nice and has an accorn, a maple leaf and a pilgram on it. I followed the wonderful tutorial from Nicole at Frontier Dreams. I was also impressed and greatful that family and friends respected our no plastic toys rule. DS was blessed to recieve some beautiful wooden toys as well as gift cards which were used for some bigger ticket items we needed/wanted (like a much needed gate for the bottom of the stairs and a wooden riding toy).

On Thanksgiving morning I shared one of my favorite traditions with DS, getting up early and taking him for a walk, enjoying the time outside and everything that we have to be grateful for. I find it also helps center me for all of the family craziness that ensues later in the day.

It seems that we were then immediately in the Christmas season. We have several new traditions this year.

With DS being just a year old it seemed that my collection of beautiful handblown glass Christmas tree ornaments was not going to be practical and I was at a bit of a loss on decorating our Christmas tree. I decided that we would aim for a mostly non-breakable, homespun tree this year that incorporated more natural materials. The result has been lovely. I crochet chained about 15 yards of garland for the tree out of red wool and needle fleted an angel for the top of the tree.

For ornaments I tied pinecones on the tree with red yarn. I also hung up lots of bells, some Swedish straw ornaments, some non-edible cut out gingerbread ornaments made from apple pulp, spices and glue (it smells incredible) and some beautiful wood ornaments I bought at the Richmond Waldorf School's Holiday Bazaar.

I did also hang a couple of glass ornaments including some toadstools, a pilgram and a gnome that I just could not resist.

Also, I put this one little plastic elf on the tree. He is very special to me as he was always on the tree at my grandparents house as a kid.

I also started using our wooden advent calendar with doors on it to hold an ornament for each day which we hang up as a family. I am still needle felting these ornaments. So far they have include a holy leaf, toadstools, a pickle (like the German glass pickles) and figures from the nativity.

(more on our traditions and celebrations to come later)