Ezra's Sunshine Quilt

I made a quilt for Gibbie when he was small, and have been intending to make one for Ezra ever since. Gibbie's is rather a Valentine's quilt, in reds with lots of velvet and corduroy and flanneliness. Ezra, of course, needed something different. I believe the first time we took Gibbs to church, he was wrapped in his quilt, as it was winter and none of his limbs would stay in their places in a snowsuit yet-- Ezra's, being just finished now, obviously was not in use as a baby quilt, but has been fun in a different way because he can be a part of it.
Ezra's quilt is sunny. I remember sitting all day in my nursing couch with this one when he was yet tiny--my August baby, and just thinking how sunny and joyous all was. He has often chosen bright sunny colors. In fact, I often look to his drawings for color inspiration; he picks loud but harmonious combinations I wouldn't think of.
We went to the fabric store together, and looked at fabric. There was also a lot of searching in the piles of old clothing and linens. My neighbor Wendy gave us the backing fabric, which had been a crib sheet, and was nicely softened. I embroidered all the borders between squares. That was fun. Embroidery is one of my favorite crafts, and I don't do it very often. Partly, I just like looking at and using my amazing embroidery floss box, which I started way back in junior high or high school, when I did a rash of crazy quilting. (still working on that quilt too!)I have these lovely blue birds from an old garment my friend Maggie gave me. They have been waiting for homes. Two flew onto Ezra's quilt, where he wanted them, in the middle of the back. One alighted on Gibbie's quilt. Another reason I like quilting is that we can always add on later. Working on this has given me all kinds of ideas--how fun and easy to add pictures, or sew on special things, or stitch in a little poem or song.
For batting, I used an old lambswool sweater that was beyond repurposing. I think this will be warm. It is not bulky at all. The binding is inspired by those blankets that were always on the bed at Gramma Loretta's house, with the silken edges--so nice to rub as you fall asleep.

A good small quilt remains good. It can always be used along with bigger blankets to stay warm in bed. It can go on laps to watch movies even for teenagers or grownups. Kids use them to lie on the floor, or build forts on the couch, or any number of other things. And the more loved they are, the more reason to keep growing them, with new patches and pictures! Plus, they're good for you, with all that love stitched into them!

Kid's Blogs

Drawings, photos, coloring pages, and real life photo journalism by the children of The Full Cup!
Gibbie's work can be seen at Gibbie'sPhotos.

And original work by Ezra may now be viewed at Ezra's Picture Pages!
Artwork is chosen by the kids, with text dictated by them also.

Collaborative Art with a Child

This piece was a collaboration between Gibbie and I. I was working on a small piece Paul's mom commissioned, and Gibbie was so enamoured of it he wanted me to make a copy for him. I said I wondered if he wouldn't rather choose a favorite animal, and that launched this simple project.He drew the landscape and the sky, and told me which animals to put and where they should go. He brought his stuffed animals as drawing models and set them up for me on the dining room table. I drew the animals and painted in the colors, with consultation and discussion about the Antarctic. This is a painting of the time of year when it is dark all the time--we don't really know what that looks like, so we surmised, and we will learn more about it later.

We talked about painting snow. At first, Gibbie said it was white, and wanted me to use white paint. I suggested he look out the window at our snow heap and asked how he can see the shapes in the snow. He decided that there are blueish parts, so we put those in.

For the sky, I just used a watercolor wash, sprinkled with table salt . We both signed it. The most challenging part of this painting for me was keeping my admirers from sliding the tablecloth off the table and bumping my arms in their excitement while I worked.

I love working together with my kids! We will both treasure this painting.

Making Waffles

Gibbie loves to make waffles. And eat them. We really lucked out when my dad gave us this wonderful old waffle maker. It has a tiny round glass window on the top cover with an arrow that points to hot when it's ready for batter. Gibbie has been really coming into his own in being helpful around the house. I'm not sure if he thinks of it as being helpful or having fun or doing work, but I am celebrating his growing competence.

I was making waffles one day for our weekly breakfast with neighbors, and Gibbie was watching, and all excited over our new contraption. A waffle maker is one of those things that would usually have no justification in our kitchen. I don't like single-function gadgets, or most things that plug in, and try to cook without that kind of stuff. Except for waffle makers, which are just a phenomenal thing. Because we mostly eat all homemade food, sometimes there's not enough around our house in the way of snack food. Sure, sometimes I make energy bars, and the kitchen is stocked with yogurt, granola, fresh fruit, bread, and cheeses. But during busy weeks, when we're more likely to need more snacky stuff, I'm less likely to have all that around. Waffles are a super thing for this! We can have fun making a big batch, have a luxurious breakfast with fruit and cream and all, and then freeze the rest for instant toaster fun for ages to come.
So, in my waffle enthusiasm, I was eager to introduce our budding cook to waffliciousness. I had no idea how much of the process he would be able to do. The first morning he tried it, he ladled batter for dozens of waffles, pressed the lid down, watched for the steam to stop leaking out (the waffley sign of doneness), open the lid, and fork out a couple of lattices of golden goodness onto the butcher block. It's really fun for me to cooperate together, rather than just teaching cajoling. I like hanging in the kitchen, working together, a lot. Especially on Saturday mornings, when Paul is home, with BlueGrass Saturday Mornings on the radio (Local public radio jewel Jazz 88's jewel; just the best show for that sunny, relaxing productive kind of Saturday morning I like), and a morning with friends ahead of us.

Buildig A Bicycle

For a couple of years now, I've been dreaming of owning a bike with a few specific features: single-speed, road tires, bullhorn handlebars - along the lines of your basic hipster bike. I didn't have the knowledge or parts to build something like this myself, and didn't feel like going to craigslist. I tried to get one person to build it for me, and then she passed me off to another guy who I finally started working with last Friday to build my long-desired bike from the frame up.

It's a vintage (1960's or '70's) polish frame called a Tyler. It's surpisingly light for something that old.
We overhauled and greased-up all the bearing systems.

Almost all of the parts were from Daniel's home stockpile. We got used brakes (with new pads) from Sibley Bike Depot along with new Salsa brake levers.

It was great to finally get the bike I've wanted for so long, and be able to participate in building it.

Thanks, Daniel.

Unschooling Our Four Year Old or Backstage with Little Bear

Putting on Birthday Soup for Gibbie's birthday party is such a great example of our learning process that I want to explain how it all came to pass. Gibbie loves pretending. We're always making up a story, or acting out a favorite book. Gibbie lives for the days when we go to our neighbor's house and the kids all put on costumes and do a little "show." (the show is usually mostly Gibbie announcing that the show is going to start in three minutes! a loose string of "tricks" or one well-used story about a lion and a Chinese person and a baby putting out a fire)
I don't know who's idea it was, but we started talking about doing a show for his birthday party. Lots of enthusiasm. I suggested we pick one of his favorite books as the story. We looked at his bookshelf and discussed the possibilities. He picked Little Bear's Birthday Soup. That was maybe a month before his party.
Gradually, the plan developed. I started a page in my planner for his party, and as he had ideas for it, wrote them down. It was my idea to make real curtains for the "stage" and I went and bought an old sheet for the fabric, but it was his idea that they would open by pulling a string. I sewed the curtains while he danced around excitedly one afternoon.
We read the book a lot. We discussed his costume. He and I both made drawings and discussed the features. I found out what he considered the essential features of little bear. He listened to my suggestions too. We tried out various plans for costumes for the other characters, and face paints for everyone. We ran our ideas by Paul and shared excitement with Ezra and friends and family.
We discussed the invitations; what they needed to say, what he wanted them to look like. We started making some by hand. He did drawings of little bear and told me what to write. We worked together, but he became very frustrated that they weren't turning out all the same, and it was taking a long time. I ended up making invitations/playbills by cutting and pasting from photocopies of the book's title page, and copying them. He folded them up and hand-delivered them.
He had a longer list of people who he wanted to come than could fit in our house. We talked about how this could work and decided that the kids who were going to be in the show would come first, get ready, and practice, and the grown-ups and little kids would come later. The little kids would sit on cushions in the front. He had definite ideas about all kinds of specific decorations, activities, and foods. Some he made happen on his own, some I did for him, a lot we worked together on, and some were eventually forgotten or rejected. He helped me clean the whole house for the party, bake the cake, prep the food, set up the props, make decorations and party favors. He designed valentine name tags and tickets for popcorn. The popcorn tickets were a feature he was most proud of. As per his instruction, I carved stamps out of rubber erasers that said, "popcorn!" and "recycle me!" He cut out tickets, stamped them, and planned how they would be used for the guests to order popcorn for the show. For a long time beforehand he dictated little signs advertising the show which he cut out and taped up everywhere.

Some weeks before the party, he stopped wanting to play Little Bear and was reluctant to practice acting it out. I got a little worried, because he had so much invested in this idea. We talked about the need to practice, and kept reading the story. He seemed nervous about being watched and wouldn't even repeat the lines. I resolved to abandon the show and just have games and cake if it looked like it was going to be too stressful. A few days before the show, he practiced it with me in costume, and had practically all his lines down word for word! After that, he wanted to practice every chance he got. We went over it with some of his friends when we could. We worked out some staging, talked about talking loudly and facing the audience. It seems he worked through his nervousness all on his own, and had been getting ready inside-- until he was ready to do it with others.

Of course, not everything worked out. There were some timing and logistical issues, things we would do differently next time. There were some nerves before and after the show, but what actor or host hasn't experienced those? I'm not going to detail the academic skills practiced here, or knowledge gained but I do want to highlight our process: how much it was driven by Gibbie's vision and ideas, how that vision led him to gain new skills, seek out resources, and solve problems; how he was externally supported but also internally motivated; how each step led to new ideas and spurred him on to try new things; how naturally social and interdisciplinary the process was; how much fun we had, and what a thrill of accomplishment!

Elise Mittens

I have sold my first pair of mittens.
They were commissioned by the lovely and talented Elise, a coworker of Paul's. Making them was such fun.
I knit them in a "cashmerino", which is a rather luxe baby-soft blend of wool and cashmere. They were really fun to do. The request was for pretty, feminine, and delicate pale lavender/periwinkle mittens. I wanted to do cables in a bulky Lamb's Pride, but realized this would not turn out delicate. So I thought of lace. But lacy mitts don't make for warm fingers.
After flipping through a few pattern books and finding nothing like what I wanted, I turned to Barbara Walker's wonderful treasuries of stitch patterns. I found a lovely tulip bud edging, which made a chain of leaves. From this I extrapolated the pattern for a single knitted leaf.

One of the first things my mother showed me how to knit was mittens without a pattern. (It's funny, she says she doesn't like designing!)
Knitting Details For knitting-types:
Freestyle Mittens:
-In the round, on double-points: Knit a ribbed cuff. I like K2, P1
-Knit around plain 3-4 rows. Increase a bit for hand width.
-Make a gore for the thumb: Increase the first stitch of one needle. Place a marker and Increase again. I like to increase here by knitting into the front and back of the stitch, which makes nary a hole. Wrap the fabric around thumb to determine number of thumb stitches. Continue increases (first stitch of the same needle, first stitch after the marker) until gore has enough stitches.
-Knit around until mitten reaches webbing of thumb comfortably when tried on.
-Now I like to knit the thumb. I do this because it's easier and prettier than making a hole for the thumb and trying to pick up the stitches around it later. Put hand stitches on holder, (everything except the gore) knit around for length of thumb, decrease quickly, and sew in tail.
-Pick up hand stitches and join thread in by knitting a stitch, and then knitting with two strands until the tail is used up. It doesn't show.
-Knit around until mitten is as tall as the index finger when tried on. Decrease quickly and sew in end of yarn. Voila!

In my early mitten-making days, after a few rounds making three mittens in search of two alike, I learned a few mitten-making tricks for patternless rogues:
-Either write down what I'm doing as I do it, or be prepared to count stitches and rows on the first mitten many times over.
-Make the ribbing around the wrist long enough--snow and cold like to get in between the coat sleeve and mitten!
-I like to increase three or four stitches right above the cuff and two stitches in the hand right above the thumb gore for good fit. These increases can be nicely hidden by the ribbing or gore.
-Check to make sure the thumb gore is wide enough and long enough--this makes for the perfect fit.

In the Elise Mittens, the leaf is appliqued on, and the curlicues are embroidered in a chain stitch. This would look nice in contrasting colors on the right mitten, but I wanted it to look knitterly and subtle.

Happy Birthday, Little Bear!

Gibbie's birthday, clearly, was a big big event in our house. Ezra, throughout the day, sings to himself, "Happy Birthday, dear Little Bear..." (see "the show" for the reference.) We also had a special birthday visit from our dear Grammers, pictured above.
And here is Gibbie, showing off the new light he received as a much-appreciated gift from his Grandpa Bill. He is planning to use it to "look for the dark slugs in my garden, at night." With a few tantalizing garden gifts, plans for the garden are kicking into high gear. I'm putting together my seed order. Gibbie is planning a garden of his own. It will be, according to plan thus far, a new garden, in the grass, with logs around it, painted black. He has made signs to label his plants and four useful warning signs which each read, "no dogs out loud." So much fun.

Making Knipfle

A favorite dinner of ours is Knipfle. It's German for noodles, though I just know it from my Gramma Loretta, who says, "ki-NIP-fla". I only know this word orally but poking around online, I found spellings Kinipffla, and Knepfla. She and my Grampa Bob grew up speaking low German in a small town in North Dakota and foods like this are one of the only remaining elements in the family of our German roots.
Knipfle are chewy noodles, filling and unctuous. They're cheap, and made only with things that tend to be in the house anyway (handy when one's run out of meat and fresh veg and fruit, and pulling together dinner!) Ezra calls them "sticky noodles". It may be the love of my teeth sinking into knipfle that has driven my love of chewy foods.
for an actual recipe, look it up as "German egg noodles" in the Joy of Cooking, but here's how I make them:
Knipfle:
in a small mixing bowl, stir together with a fork
several handfuls of flour
two generous pinches of salt
a dash of parsley
and a dash of nutmeg. (I've had questions about this: a dash is when your spice jar has a top with holes on it and you shake it once )
dig a hole in the center of the pile of flour.
break an egg or three in this hole
beat the egg up with a fork. as I beat, flour will be incorporated into the egg; let it. Mix until a soft dough forms. I usually add extra water; if too wet extra flour could be added instead. Knead for a few minutes. It's often quite sticky, and requires generous flouring, especially for children.
Now I usually drop a puddle of olive oil in my mixing bowl and roll the dough in it so it doesn't dry out while I work on some other thing for a bit. If I'll be a while, I've found it's best to put the noodle dough in a plastic bag in the fridge.
When I come back to it, I knead it until it feels stretchy. It gets smooth and feels quite like skin!
I take this elastic dough, cut it into a few pieces and begin to roll them out into ropes about the thickness of my finger. When a piece of dough gets too long for my bread board, I cut it in half so I can roll it comfortably.
Knipfle can be cooked in plain water, or it's great in chicken soup or broth. When the broth or water is boiling vigorously, I take a snake of dough and cut it into pieces maybe the length of the first joint of my finger. Gramma Loretta says, "you cut them as small as you can." I cut these straight into the boiling pot. Usually the kids like to cut some too, over a bread board, and I put these in as well.
Kids can make these start to finish with a little direction; scooping handfuls of flour, pinching salt, stirring the dry ingredients, beating the egg, kneading, rolling, and cutting dough. Both our two year old and our four year old can cut knipfle.
If your kids are anything like mine, they will enjoy also the eating! Mine like their knipfle in broth, or plain with ketchup. They are good with sour cream and salt or baked with cheese and buttered bread crumbs. Also would make a nice side for kraut and sausage, or roasted veg or meat, in stew or with gravy.

The Great Kilting Adventure

What man's garment takes a full eight or nine yards of fabric? What requires precise and extensive hand sewing? A traditional dress kilt! What eats up more than three spools of silk buttonhole twist? Six kilts! Current kilt count: two down. Abby has one and is fully taking care of it. That leaves three to go. The wedding is on Friday. Paul made me coffee before he went to bed. I've noticed I only seem to have time to blog when I'm so busy that I'm already a bit crazy.
p.s. I love Pat and Angela more every time I see them. Very excited for this marriage.

Post-Modern Collaborative Advent Wreath

I posted last year on our Advent devotions, a family tradition we're carrying on from Libby's childhood. Advent is the season in the church year that comes before Christmas. It's a time of remembering Israel waiting for the light of the Messiah (who we believe is Jesus) to come, and a time of preparing our hearts for this Christ to come again. We explain it to the kids that when Jesus comes back, God will fix all the brokenness in the world; wipe away all tears and make everything how it was made to be. We do a little prayer time, light candles, sing and play instruments, and read a story or two. It's all very simple.
I love doing Advent devotions because it takes away the bustle of December and focuses us, draws our attention to the bright light that shines in the darkness. Don't we need light when it's so dark outside! Dinner time is really deep night for us this time of year! And then there are deeper darknesses too, for which we need even more light.Our advent wreath turned out so fun this year. All the supplies for this were thrifted or gifted. The colors of the candles are not "proper" at all; I just used what we had. The Christmas candle has little kids playing instruments on one side and ducks on the other. Of course he decided that the ducks will face out. I don't think that the colors of the Advent wreath are ancient tradition. Everyone seems to have their own idea about what each one stands for, so I make free with this tradition. For our Christmas candle, I try to find anything lovely. One year it was a rainbow, another it was covered in green sparkly swirlyques, and this year it's this little volks-art scene.
There are one, two, three, and four stars on each of the candles to represent what respective week we are on. By the time we get to the four-star candle, we will be lighting all four candles, and just a week away from Christmas. Gibbie helped me design and make the candle decorations. (they are made with soft colored wax that we cut and press onto the candles) We have a blackbird for peace, a lamb for joy, bunnies for love, and a sunrise for hope, all very personal symbols for us. I think this is the essence of liturgy; using ritual to make real to us spiritual truths that we cannot see.

Cradle Doll

There are a lot of beautiful, wonder-full toys out there. I do adore many of them. (If you want great toy stores in the twin cities, try Peapods, Wonderment, The Essence of Nonsense) But really, often, the simplest are the best. I especially love handmade waldorf or stiener dolls. But I think Maria Montessorri was right, that it is the very poverty of [toys] which speaks to the soul of the child, along with the care which a parent takes in making them.

A perfect example of this is the cradle doll. I got this wonderful idea from Freya Jaffe's Toymaking With Children, a book I highly recommend. You don't need to be an artist to make these kinds of toys, and they are the best, really all a child actually wants. I have noticed that Gibbie consistently chooses to play with these simplest (crude, even) of babies over much more beautiful dolls. These are the ones he loves and takes care of. He oh so carefully made this basket into a bed for them, arranging the blanket, trying different situations with the pillows, guarding them from Ezra! Gibbie was aghast that his brother wanted to cover the babies with a blanket, "he covers their faces!" Ezra later added other babies to the carefully arranged cradle-bed when Gibbie was napping.

To make a cradle doll:
-find soft fabric--extra receiving blankets, pieces cut from soft old shirts, flannel.
-ball up some rags to make a head. let some hang a little lower than the head to give the neck stability. Wrap them in something so that it won't fall apart.
-cover this with the soft fabric
-Tie a cord or strip of cloth around the outside fabric to make the head and neck.

This is almost the simplest rag doll possible. To make him come alive, I hold him in my arms, talk to him, sing to him, put him to sleep; treat him as tenderly and gently as I would a baby. The children see this and learn how to love and care for a doll. Just for a minute or two, when a little boy comes running up, wanting to take over the care of his baby. They completely ignore the fancy dolls.

Paul Does a Craft!

Those of you who tune in to The Full Cup for Libby's great creations and do your best to slog through or skip over my technical automotive, biking, or espresso posts - Wait! I did a craft! I got tired of waiting for Libby to make me a nice cover for my ESV Bible, so I did it myself.

Bibles can take a beating in our household, mostly because we carry them around so much. We were talking once with Libby's Rhodes-scholar-semi-genius-friend about Christianity and he was amazed at how well we knew where stuff was in the Bible (though I don't think we're all that unusual in this regard). He said, "I don't know if I've ever known any book that well." My response was that if he knew of a book he could read that would tell him about God and the meaning of life and stuff like that he'd probably read it all the time too. He agreed. My Bible is also a tool for me. I lead a Bible study with a handful of youth once a week for which I prepare and study. I also am writing some new songs for our church and get my text from the Bible. So yeah, it gets a lot of use and abuse.

I made the cover out of some leather that Libby bought at a thrift sale across the street from where I was buying our Mercedes last spring. (We both got what we wanted that day!) I made the cover (with much help from Libby) by folding one end of a rightly-sized strip of leather and sewing it together with a whip stitch. I used a glover's needle and synthetic sinew. The flap holds the front cover of the Bible.
The single piece of leather wraps around the cover back to the front side. I wanted it to have a curved flap on the end. I thought a big plate might help me make the desired curve, but it wasn't quite big enough. I used our pizza stone instead. The tuck-in strap to close Bible was my idea. It mostly works, but might need some improvement if I wanted it to stay shut more reliably.

Overall I'm pleased with the result. I didn't have to buy a cover since Libby had all of the materials already, and I feel like the Bible will stand up to being thrown in my bicycle panier bag much better than it would have otherwise.

In the Hinterlands

When driving up north, when the deciduous forest changed to scraggly jack pines, and the pastures left off for rocky outcroppings, my mom would say, "we're entering the hinterlands!" When it gets cold like this, it feels like the hinterlands right here!
The air temp didn't get above zero today. When we ventured out to go to school, I dressed the kids in their soft woolen unders, their school clothes, wool sweaters, and seemingly many layers of coats, hats, mittens, socks. They still love going outside! Gibbie still begs to play for longer in the snowbank (excuse me, dirt-encrusted icebank) on the way to the car. At school, their teacher asked if it was cold on the way to school with shivers in her voice. Gibbie nonchalantly and seriously responded, "just a little." Bundle up, and you hardly notice it!

So we've been playing indoors a lot! We've had a rennaisance of the art box. Here we are making valentines. So far none of them will actually make it into mailboxes, as I will explain in a moment. We are working with glue! I take scraps of used tin foil (or any other unusable, unrecycleable piece of small garbage; a pop bottle cap would work great) to make a little glue-pot, and squirt in a small amount of school-glue. The children apply the glue to the paper or table with q-tips, and then stick on scraps of colored paper. The beauty of these heart-felt creations is fleeting, alas. Part of the process for Gibbie is folding up his work after he finishes. Even if it's covered in wet glue. So it gets all glued to itself and crumpled up. I think all the love is glued in too!

Little Cabin in the Woods

Wow! It's cold! We made these back before Christmas. They were also photographed back then, and have long since now been eaten all up! I just baked loaves of gingerbread. (the dark, spicy kind; nothing like cutout cookies.) My recipe is a modification of the one in Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking, which would make a nice quick winter read.
We just cut the loaf into thirds, and sliced off a few edges to make houses. This way, there was no trying to use frosting to glue together crumbly or cracking cookies together-- what an exercise in frustration that would be for little kids! This way is also quick for littles with short attention spans.
Anyway, frost and decorate with whatever's on hand. Ever seen those "natural" food colorings in pretty bottles at the co-op? Just a word to the wise; they alter the flavors of the frosting. Makes sense, I suppose. Just be warned. I think this pinkish-one tastes a bit beet-ey.
Today, Gibbie crawls into the kitchen: "Mama, I'm a woodchuck! I'm gonna bury this bean! Mama, it's turning to spring, and do you know what woodchucks do in the spring? They turn into COWS!"
Later, in the bedroom, the cow morphed into a penguin. Betcha didn't know that cows turn into penguins when they grow up, huh? I think he might have picked up on my habit of piecing together bits of information gleaned from I've-forgotten-whence and authoritatively dispensing semi-factual information. I don't mean to do it. I intend to always tell him when I don't know the answer to a question, but what can I say?
I think a lot of real things also just seem incredible, as in not quite believable. Like, caterpillars turn into butterflies? Water and ice are the same thing? Rabbits change color in the winter? No way!
Or the circus? We just read a book about a circus, and after I closed it, Gibbie looked at me and said, "that's just pretend, Mama." I explained that there really are circuses; they are big shows, with lots of people doing tricks with costumes and animals like elephants to ride on, and they have the show in a big tent, and people come to see it.. yada, yada, yada...
Gibbie totally didn't buy it. "But it's not [real] outside of the book." Sensible kid.

Stay warm inside your own little cabin!

Do It Yourself love

On thrift and Doing It Yourself:
Fast is expensive in a way that slow is not. Efficient is expensive in a way that inefficiency is not. Oddly, most people love to tell us we are "idealistic" when we are really just being cheap. We don't want to pay so much for the services we don't need. We want to save money for what we do need-- and for the occasional great food from far away. Those of us who remember the annual orange in the stocking are not so much worried about losing freedom and fossil-fueled abundance of options. What we worry about is being able to afford the good things, like air and water and time and balance.
This is Donna Schaper, writing in Grass Roots Gardening; rituals for sustaining activism. It's an odd little book, but I loved her expression of the above idea. We often forget the real costs of the conveniences that seem normal to us. This is part of why I bake bread, and sew clothes.

Speaking of inefficiency, we have some catch-up blogging to do, now that we can post pictures of many special gifts that have been recently all given away. The above bit of inefficient homemade-lovin' is a little zippered bag I made for my dear friend Liz, leaving us for wonderful work in South America. You can find out all about her exciting work with this really amazing organization, LifeWind, on her blog, where you can also find pictures of us singing Elvis Christmas and The Doors numbers with her great family, with Paul at the piano, among other things.
We will miss her so much, and yet we are so glad she is going! Like for my friend who will be receiving the socks, I wanted to make her a present she could use lots, and feel loved every time. This pouch is made mostly out of recycled fabrics. The print is a fabric my mom used on so many things when I was very little; an apron, a teapot cozy, a quilt, maybe matching dresses for us? It is very evocative for me. I just have a small piece of it left, and this gift is worth it. It's funny; I told Liz about the special fabric and when my mom saw the bag, she saw the fabric and spontaneously said almost the same things!
I made the pouch following the directions in Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. It's the second zipper I've ever sewn and the first that didn't make me cry. It's a little stiff, but will have to do. The pouch is lined with flannel, and I added a simple pocket on the inside, as well as a bit of hand worked embroidery on the inside and out. For extra love.

Love you so much, Liz!

Our Advent Calendar

I made and designed this Advent calendar to go with a book we are using throughout this time: Advent Storybook by Antonie Schneider and illustrated by Maja Dusikova. This book was the only present we gave our first babe on his first Christmas. (He didn't care a whit that he only got one present from us, but now that he's more aware, he loves this book!)
The book is structured as twenty-four charming little stories in which a little bear follows a star to Bethlehem. In each story there is one special visual image. I'm assuming the book was designed to go with the kind of calendar that has a little door to open every day, because it always says, "On December 5th, the little bear opened the door and found a rosebush." or whatever. We read that, and then I have Gibbie look through all our paper stars and find the one with the rosebush. He holds it in his hand until the end of the story, when he puts it in our calendar's pocket for the day. Ezra gets blank stars to hold, and puts them wherever he wants in the calendar!
I like Advent calendars because they are a visual representation of time passing in days, which is so hard for little kids to get, that we are actually getting closer to something. I designed ours to be mostly purple, the color of waiting and reflection and royalty. (I made the third week, usually pink, to be mixed warm prints because I liked the way it looked) As we near Christmas, the strip of dark pockets fills with silver starry paper circles; like light coming into our darkness!
The kids love the whole thing. Gibbie helps me color the little pictures for each day on the backs of the starry circles. (not all our pictures look as cute as these ones!) Ezra is fascinated with moving the circles around, and laying them out in different ways. He also liked moving around the cloth pieces when I was working on the color design of the calendar-- very carefully laying them out one by one, and then rearranging.
I really like this book. The illustrations are lovely. The stories are good. The messages are simple. I think parents who wanted their kids to know the Christmas story, or the spirit of the Christmas story, but didn't want anything too heavy-handed would also like it. The stories are original and fun. There is a little aphoristic moral at the end of each story, like "god will always be with you", or "patience and kindness are great strengths". While don't think they would offend anyone, these don't really add much to the story either. The stories themselves say it better.
It's so tempting to spell everything out for kids, make sure they "get it". Sometimes we just make the beautiful more boring and less compelling. Anyway, this is a real sweet book, and a good beginning for talking about Advent and Christmas, and some of what it means to follow God, or just count down till the holiday.
Oh- we do move the calendar up high when we're not using it, as otherwise all the circles are methodically and evenly distributed throughout the house.

Advent Candles

Our lovely neighbors and friends invited us to their house to make our advent wreaths together. This was doubly nice as it meant I actually got the wreath made on the first day of Advent. Now, in my book, Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas, and varies in length, depending on what day of the week Christmas falls on. I'm also big into using real things. No plastic greens for us! I'm also big into using what we already have around the house.
I've just discovered that thrift shops are a great source of candles! Our candles are from the box of Christmas stuff I keep in the basement, leftover from past projects and set aside for just this use. (A few years ago I found out that buying new candles packaged for Advent--three purple, one pink-- can be ridiculously expensive!)

The basic idea of Advent is it is the season of preparation for Christmas. We are like people waiting in darkness for our Messiah to come to us. We remember his first coming, and prepare for him to come again. Our church put out a little bulletin on preparing for Advent, which reads in part, "It might sound odd, but one symptom of our contemporary lives is that we can often be 'out of touch' with what is going on in our very own hearts." Thus, Advent is a season of introspection, preparation, and longing.

Now, the tradition is four candles in a wreath of evergreens.* They are purple, except for the third week's candle, which is pink. I have heard lots of explanations for this. At our church, the weeks are hope, peace, joy, and love. At Hand in Hand, the kids' school, they are the weeks of the Prophets, the Holy Family, the Shepherds, and the Christ. Go figure. Purple is the color for the liturgical season of Advent because it is the color of royalty, majesty. Gibbie's teacher, Miss Greta (who we will miss terribly next semester!) explained that Christmas is a great mystery. It takes time for us to approach a mystery. The purple reminds us that approaching a mystery is serious, but we need the pink to remember to celebrate the mystery as well, even when we're being serious.
We do daily readings, songs, and prayer, lighting the candles, lighting one more each week. If we use the wreath much, some candles will have to be replaced before Christmas. There is one big, special candle in the center of the wreath for Christmas.
*Despite a wonderful little class I'm in on the historical roots of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, I don't have any idea where the candles and wreath tradition comes from. Maybe I'll find out next week!

I don't think it matters a whit what color the candles are. Mine were white this year because it's what I had. We did decorate them with stripes of the traditional colors. We like the Stokmar candle decorating wax. It comes in a slim box, with about twenty differently, brightly colored sheets of beeswax. It can be tricky to use, and doesn't want to stick to some candles I've tried. No problems this year, though using some of the same candles. Hmm. I would recommend having everything at room temperature, and removing any plastic wrap from candles a while before the project if possible.

I like to stretch the wax by rolling little strips of it thinner with a chopstick or knitting needle. This also makes it easier to manipulate. We also decorated candles for the kids' teachers this way. Gibbie helped make the stripes on one advent candle, and later pressed on some of the pieces to his teachers' candles.

Hopefully more to come soon on our Advent times together, calendar, stories, and songs, as we have more pictures!
We wait in hope for your word to be fulfilled.
We wait in peace for your kingdom to come.
We wait in joy for the glory of our Saviour.
We wait in love for Emmanuel.