Apple Picking for My Birthday

I celebrated my birthday last week and had a wonderful time! I took a break from preparing for the Fest of Fall and W and I went apple picking with some of our neighbors at Carter Mountain. It was a beautiful day.

We picked lots of Jonagold apples and then had apple doughnuts and what I think must be the best apple cider I've had in a long time.  It was so much fun watching the kids picking the apples.

Of course we all had to sample some as well.  They were delicious!  One of our neighbor girls declared them "the best apples ever" and she might have been right.  Eating them while sitting between rows of trees in  the orchard, you really couldn't get any better than that!

 W ate one that was almost as big as he is and he loved every bite of it.  We've been eating our wonderful apples all week and have been so grateful to have them and happy that we know exactly where they came from.  It was a wonderful morning!

We finished off the day having a dinner out with Daddy at one of our favorite Italian places and then topped it off with gelato from DeLuca's.  I had pumpkin and amaretto gelato.......yummmm!  DeLuca's is one of my favorite places.  We rarely go there but when we do it is such a wonderful treat!

The day after, W and I went to the Richmond Folk Festival.  It was wonderful! Our family always says how lucky we are to live in a place that has such wonderful festivals and I think this one is the best of them all!

 W and  I listened to lots of bluegrass and oldtime music (which luckily he enjoys as much as I do at this point), and both particularly enjoyed the female Cajun group BonSoir, Catin.  W gave me the cd for my birthday and we've been listening to it all week.  W claps for many of the songs each time he hears them and we've been dancing and singing along when I manage to figure out the French words.  We topped the folk festival off by listening to the Sand Mountain Sacred Harp Singers.  I love shape note singing and it was a real treat to see  a live performance of it!  If you've not heard it before, there's a sample on the Richmond Folk Festival's Performer's page. This music gives me goose bumps!

I had a wonderful couple of days celebration and then it was back to work.  The Fest of Fall at our local Waldorf School is tomorrow, and surprisingly, I'm ready and really looking forward to it! Of course, best of all is that unlike last year, I'll actually get to sleep the night before the sale.  I won't say I haven't pulled a couple of all nighters this week, but at least these last couple days before the sale I'm able to catch up on my sleep and I should be able to go and be present and really enjoy it!  I'll be back afterwards with pictures!

Adult sweater to toddler jacket...

This jacket may be one of my favorite projects that I've worked on in a while.  It started while doing some thrift store shopping with W a couple weeks ago.  I found this beautiful red wool sweater in a ladies size small.

I loved it and saw lots of potential to felt it down and make something new out of it.  Then it occurred to me that it would probably felt down to about the size of a toddler's jacket.

So home it came, and into a hot wash it went....three times.  It shrank and felted down to this...

I then cut a slit up the center, blanket stitched around all of the edges with yellow wool yarn and added some button embellishments.  I decided against using the buttons as a closure, because I felted the sweater down a little too much and it's not roomy enough at this point to button up.  I may add some hook and eye closures though.  (Note to self...next time...use a ladies medium sweater to felt down for a 2T jacket!)

I think this will be a perfect little jacket for W to wear for his birthday this autumn!

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)