I’m sure you know that the progress on this sweater can mean only one thing: The Boy unfortunately came down with The Girl’s flu.  For some reason the Daddy Monkey and I have been spared (so far, anyway) and for that I am extremely grateful. <repeats to self> I am healthy, I am healthy, I am healthy….

More sickness has meant more knitting.  I took a break from weaving in all those ends, and decided to start on The Boy’s stripes. Somehow it seems so appropriate to knit a sweater for someone while you’re comforting them.  Every bit of concern, love, and hope goes into each stitch.

It’s been incredibly hard this last week and I feel myself being stretched thin.

In the midst of it, however, I’ve tried to take peace in the quiet moments: knitting quietly on the couch, taking a cup of tea and a good book into the back yard to soak in the very early morning coolness (even if only for fifteen minutes), and a moment by myself to blog about it.

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at spinning for so long.  I finally found the inspiration I needed in the video Renate Hiller’s On Handwork.  If you have not seen this, please do yourself a favor and watch the four and a half minute video.  It is gorgeous.  How amazing it is to try a hand at something humans have been doing for thousands of years. To have a connection to knowledge that used to be so common, and is now so rare.

So I managed to get a copy of Abby Franquemont’s Respect the Spindle, and read it. Whew!  It’s a fabulous resource, and I’m not even ready for most of the information in that book.  That woman knows her spinning.  Next I bought myself a top-whorl spindle and some fiber from Mielke’s Fiber Arts.  After watching lots of spinning videos on YouTube, I finally gave it a whirl (har har).  It was challenging at first, but became easier with time.  This bit of yarn only took me three evenings to make.  It’s an ounce of New Zealand Corriedale wool.  I only wish the color in the photo was more true to life, because this color is the most gorgeous shade of teal.  I see myself buying a lot more of it.

I have no idea what I will make with this yarn.  It’s full of mistakes, but I certainly can’t get rid of the first yarn I ever made.  I’d like to spin another ounce of this color, then ply them together.

I was unsure if I would like spinning, but I can definitely see myself doing more.  I’ve already found myself pining for a spinning wheel.  And let’s not even talk about the sheep I want.  Yeah.  Because I really need more yarn.  And I live in Florida.

I’ve been feeling a bit mixed up lately.  Lots of Big Thoughts going through my head.  Thoughts about home, life, children, education, religion.  You know, the little things.

Sometimes when I feel a bit scrambled and need to think or just vent, I reach for my journal.  Only this time I pulled out my journal and as I flipped through its pages, I was overwhelmingly overcome with how awful some of the things written in my journal were.  I’ve always seen my journal as a place where I can “let it all hang out” so to speak.  But this was just bad.  I read through some of it thinking, “this isn’t even me anymore.”  How could I possibly write in such a space?

Now that I am trying really hard to “use it up, wear it out, make do, or go without,” I told myself I would have to go on in that book.  But I simply could not bring myself to write in that journal.  And this is not the first time I have done this.  I have several unfinished journals in my home.  But I came to the realization that it’s okay to let go of an old journal.  I try to think of each book as a different chapter in my life.

So I bought a new Moleskine.  How I love these books. This time I vowed to let my journal be about me.

I took it home and gave the front page a wash of vibrant yellow.  And I placed on it a simple message to myself.

Hope.

I know I’m way late on this, but I am totally in love with Natalie Chanin, and her company, Alabama Chanin.  The Daddy Monkey gave me The Alabama Stitch Book for my birthday, and it is such a beautiful and inspiring book.  I love the fact that she left New York City, and then Europe, to bring her business to her home town of Florence, Alabama, which was struggling after the post-NAFTA switch to overseas manufacturing.  At her company, Alabama Chanin, stitchers create all hand-sewn garments from recycled materials and American-made organic cottons.

Just look at this skirt!

I would love to support such a beautiful and noble endeavour, but it’s a bit out of my price range, so now I have the instructions to create my own.

The book and Miss Natalie herself are just oozing with charm.  What’s not to love about this video blog, wherein Miss Natalie shows us how to “love” our thread, literally and figuratively?  She writes in the book, ” ‘Loving’ your thread infuses the work with kind intentions, but it’s also a very practical step that removes excess thread tension and prevents pesky knotting.”

The book is gorgeous, the projects are beautiful, and the story is so uplifting and inspiring.  I practically ran to my local thrift shop to buy this stack of old t-shirts to make the Reverse-Applique Corset.  A pre-cut stencil is even included in the book.

Looks like a lot of hand stitching, but lately, I’ve come to really love hand-sewing.  As good for the soul as knitting, I do believe.  And apparently so does Miss Natalie.

Here’s my new zafu.  I roughly followed the tutorial found here.  I know it’s not necessary to have gear for meditation, but it certainly is more pleasant to have a comfortable place to sit.  I really enjoyed sewing this, it’s another one of those mindful sewing projects that I love.  This is actually the second zafu I have made.  I made a beautiful pink one with cherry blossoms on it years ago, but it was destroyed by the kids.  So I took it apart and reused the buckwheat hulls to stuff the new one.  The new one resides in my room, away from the children.

She still likes to sit on it when she can.

Since we are now honoring more yearly rhythms in our family, (and really, who needs an excuse to celebrate?) we celebrated Candlemas/Imbolc/Groundhog Day yesterday.  Even though our celebration borrows a bit from many traditions, I have chosen to simply call it Candlemas.  Candlemas is a cross-quarter holiday, which means it falls at the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.  In a nutshell, it’s about welcoming the return of the sun after the darkness of winter.

The ancient Celts began celebrating this holiday in honor of their goddess Brigid.  Goddess of fire, healing, poetry, home, and fertility, she is the keeper of the eternal sacred flame, and ushers in the arrival of Spring.  Any remaining yule greens would be removed from the home and burned, thus sending winter on its way.  It is a time for a cleansing of the home, both literally and figuratively.  The Celts called their celebration Imbolc, which means “in the belly” referring to the pregnancy of the ewes.  Imbolc is still celebrated by pagans today.

When Christianity swept the globe, the church realized that they could not prevent the people from celebrating their goddess, so they sainted her and renamed her Brigit.  Thus it became that Candlemas is a day that candles are made, or brought to the church to be blessed.  It is considered the day that Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem.

From Candlemas, the holiday became Groundhog Day in the US and Canada.  Long ago, it was believed that hibernating animals began awakening on this day.  If the groundhog fails to see his own shadow (due to overcast weather) the worst of winter is over, and spring is on its way.  Spring doesn’t arrive officially until March 20th, however I’m happy to report that our “groundhog” did not see his shadow yesterday.

It used to be believed that due to the lengthening daylight hours that occur around Candlemas, housewives of long ago would no longer need to work by candlelight in the morning.  Hence the saying, “candlemas, candle-less.” And indeed, in our little home, we noticed just a few days ago that we are now eating our evening meal while the sun is still out.  Spring is coming!

While I shared simplified versions of these traditions with my children in the morning, I’ll admit that most of this research has been for my own benefit.

In preparation for the changing of the nature table, The Daddy Monkey and I made the figures above.  Brigid, lamb and ewe.  I designed and drew them on the oak board, The Daddy cut them out, and I sanded and painted them.  I am so in love with them.  I cleared away the winter nature table, and replaced it with a white silk, our figures, the freesia we planted, and the beeswax candles I made.

I made our favorite pancakes for breakfast, a round symbol of the sun.  We ate breakfast by candlelight, which the kids thought was a novel idea.

I was originally planning on making candles with the kids, but once I thought about it, I realized that me + 2 hyper kids + hot wax = a trip to the emergency room.  So I made beeswax candles by myself.  The whole project took less than an hour, and I have to admit that I am now completely head over heels for beeswax candles.  I cannot get enough of that fragrance.

I made two Brigit’s crosses out of wheat, with The Boy’s help.

We planted a basket of wheat grass for the nature table.

We read poems (Shel Silverstein) in honor of Brigid. Bedtime stories were The Happy Day and A Little Bit of Winter, both from our own collection and both perfect for Candlemas. (I’m so sad to see that A Little Bit of Winter is out of print.)

I know most families don’t celebrate Candlemas, but for us, I think it was a perfect fit.  Living in Florida, it’s about this time of year that we start seeing longer days and warming temperatures.   All in all, I’m glad I did all the work leading up to this, and I know that next year’s celebration will be much easier, now that I know all of the stories and traditions.  It was a special, fun day, but I think next year, I will stretch out the activities over a week or so, rather than making it all happen on one day.  It seemed like a bit too much for me. I also look forward to including the kids a little more in our celebration next year.

Special thanks to all the links I’ve included above, the book “All Year Round,” and the countless bloggers over in my blogroll who have written about their Candlemas celebrations of years past. I’ve tried to link to information that I read online, but I’ll admit it all started to blur together after a while.

I’m rushing about always getting frustrated that I can’t Get It All Done.  I’ve been dealing with child meltdowns nearly every day after school for the past few weeks.  Child meltdowns that lead to Mama meltdowns.  That time between four and seven p.m. is the most stressful of my day.  Trying to reconnect after a day apart, getting homework done, playing, and cooking dinner, all while everyone is just plain tired, is becoming stressful.

How am I ever to teach my children to be peaceful in the present moment when I cannot even manage to do that myself?  I really couldn’t figure it out.  Then it hit me.  It’s the same thing I’ve been struggling with for years.  It’s all about mindfulness.  I don’t have to teach my children to be peaceful in the present moment.  I have to be peaceful in the present moment.

It’s about the simple moments. All our children really want is for us as parents to be fully present with them. To be in the current moment. That’s the world kids live in and as adults it’s hard for us to do that–we are so concerned with the future and the past.

I have got to realize that I’m simply never going to get it all done.

So as a reminder to myself, I painted these words over the doorway between the dining room and kitchen, where I will be most likely to see it many times a day.

I see yarn at the Goodwill pretty much every time I’m there, but this yarn was different.  This stash very clearly belonged to someone who loves good yarn and loves to knit.  There was not a ball of Red Heart to be found.  The store had them bagged up in large plastic bags, and was selling them for $4 apiece.  Thinking of my already embarrassing yarn stash at home, I picked only four bags and headed home.

I giddily showed them to the Daddy Monkey, and told him, “This is only a fraction of what they had.”  And then he spoke the ill-fated words, “why didn’t you buy all of it?”  This is why I love him. His logic of “why not stock up on the good stuff for cheap” was enough to convince me to rapidly get the kids ready and load everyone up in the car for another trip out there.  I then bought six more bags, still leaving a few behind.

So let me introduce my new yarn stash.  I think I probably doubled my stash with this purchase.  So for $40, I got luscious yarns in cashmere, merino wool, pima cotton, silk, alpaca, and angora.

It was all I could do to not dump them on the floor and roll around in them.  So instead I just took them out and sorted them by color and found that I have enough of some of them to make a sweater for The Girl.  Certainly enough yarn to make funky striped sweaters for everyone.  (Except The Boy who said he DID NOT want a sweater.)

So now I really need some new shelves because I have nowhere to put this yarn.  It sits, still in bags, piled up on my sewing desk.

I feel so happy about this purchase. That I somehow got my hands on on this glorious yarn shop quality yarn for insanely cheap feels like a small miracle to me.  I feel like I should do something to balance out the karma on this, so I decided to make the commitment to do something I have wanted to do for many years.  To make a wool sweater for Children in Common, a charity program that provides assistance to children in orphanages in Russia.  Ever since I learned to knit while pregnant with The Boy, I have wanted to do this but have never found the time.  I still don’t have the time, but I do have the yarn, so that’s a start.