working in colour

The boys have been waiting patiently for their pockets, while I went off and finished the one button cardigan, knit the puerperium, and a rabbit.
Then I decided to use the pockets to practice techniques:  stripes, (twisting the yarns on the inside in a very pretty twirl), and a slip stitch pattern.  It was much easier than I expected, and the boys love their designs.

To Jean they all look the same.  I thought that the blue would be darker than the grey to him, but no - he cannot see which one is his. That is really no problem, the little ones quickly tell him if he has one of theirs, but I found it fascinating that he could not distinguish between these two colours.  After 8 years he still surprises me with what he can and cannot do.

I have found that I like photos slightly desaturated.

I have not read much, with all the knitting, but Jacques has been reading GK Chesterton at me at night after the children went to their rooms.  (Yes, I meant to say "at").  We worked our way through the best parts of Orthodoxy and Heresy.   I downloaded "The Wisdom of Father Brown" onto my Kindle, but have really only read the first couple of pages.  I like Chesterton, although he did not agree with my theology. (I think it would be fair to say that he was a staunch Roman Catholic that disagreed with Calvinist ideas?)  I, however,  agree with him on most things, although I would often simply replace his "the Church" with "the Bible". I would not tell him that, though, he would mop the floor with me when it comes to discussing serious matters.

I am linking to Ginny's yarn along again, and looking forward to all the inspiration from around the world!

let's meet at the pool!

 

Jean's "I am really happy and listening to everything although I look bored and unhappy" pose.

 

See - raising my child in a bubble. 

I just do not think they will be dancers one day, look at that Mr Bean pose!

Sharing Sorbet

My kids never drink soda - they shared this tiny can and did not finish it.  They really do not like it.  Martinus did like the icing on the birthday cake.

It is almost summer in Texas, soon we will spend all our afternoons the way we did today, because there is really very little else you can do when it is 100 degrees outside.  At the moment we are enjoying perfect days.  Just as I thought that we were in for the long haul and that everything outside will die, soon, we had a week of rainy days, with some more in the forecasts for next week. The average day temperatures have been around 80 degrees (26 in Celsius), and it cools down at night to around 65 (18) degrees.

It still feels wrong that the year winds down in May.  PSIA state meet is over (Melva won fourth place in Music Memory), and math team try-outs are behind us too (she made math team).   The choir performances are coming up this week, and if Jean did not accidentally break our piano teacher's husband's favorite lamp, the piano recital would have been this week too. 

I had a feeling from the beginning that she was a bit highly strung for the likes of us, but she really overreacted and although she apologized afterwards, I opted to pay for the damage and resume our quest for a piano teacher.  We need one who can teach a squirmy girl and a very near sighted boy, both with strong opinions and no ambition to become pianists.  And we want them to be serious about it. I think I am starting to see why we have not yet found that perfect person...

I still have energy, while I see my friends slipping into the vacation mood the way we do in November in the Southern Hemisphere.  But with the end of the school year, I am hoping that everyone will adjust their pace of living to what we maintain for most of the year, and I cannot wait to spend more time with friends, just visiting.  I am also making plans - I want to teach knitting to the older girls, I want to build a doorway puppet theater and perform some plays with the bigger kids for the smaller ones, I want to sew bags for every activity that we have planned for next semester... If I manage to do just one, I will be happy.


In the mean time, I have been knitting a rabbit. Melva said we should not embroider facial features, apart from the eyes, then it can be a Waldorf bunny.  You can pretend that it is either happy or sad.  I laughed, but I guess it is true.  It looks a bit cross in this picture, and if I knit a bunny again I will first sew on its limbs before I finish the face, it kept looking at me while I was pushing the needle though its torso.  This little one was a present to the girl whose birthday party was today, and I think she really liked it.  I started looking for bunny patterns the moment I we finished  "The Velveteen Rabbit", about two weeks ago. I will now cast on to knit the boys some bunnies too.  Jean wants a blue one.

Melva knit her own bunny, with yarn she dyed after researching online (she followed Elizabeth from Keep on Spinning's tutorial)

Amazing.  She did it all by herself. While working on it, reading the tutorial, she called to me: " Hey Mom, this is L's friend, the one who once sent her a package." (in Afrikaans, but I translated)  This online community is in many ways very real, and the people I "meet" have are such a positive influence in my life.  Because really, she did not do it without any help.  Elizabeth taught her.

Have a good week, dear friends and family!

Who said knits for boys are boring?

I finished my first puerperium! I wish I could put it on the little baby boy that it is intended for, and hold him for just a few seconds (okay, maybe minutes, until he sleeps).  We are all still waiting for him, though, he is being woven himself as we speak.  He will not be close enough to hold once he arrives, we hope to meet him around Christmas.  He will be a southern hemisphere spring baby, so I knit the newborn size in cotton.  The next size I could knit would probably have been the 9 - 12 months, but there is still a lot of time for that.  I love the buttons - Jean woke up the morning after I finished it, found the sweater on the kitchen table, and ran to me: "whoa Mamma, baby armor!"

 

The book we have been reading is one recommended by Ginny - The Three Little Dassies by Jan Brett.  It is, as she described, beautifully illustrated, and the boys love reading the story again and again.  And every time we get to the part "and when you travel to Namibia today", they ask - "Ouma bly in Mamibia, Mamma?", and I can tell them the story of the one Easter when the Dassies ate the chocolate eggs the Easter Bunny (Paashaas) hid. Then they get all confused and think the Dassies will eat the "Paashaas"...  I reassure them that we will be back home in Austin before Easter, so they do not have to worry about that.

I am planning on posting more often, and not only on yarn along Wednesdays, but for the moment I am just doing a lot and and taking pictures, I am sure there will be time to catch up! Any other homeschoolers out there who suddenly remembered about science...?

the thread that binds us

I finished some pockets to send on to Lori, who is heading to Namibia soon.  She will take them along as small gifts when she visits a Himba village.

The local children keep asking if this one is theirs. I am sure these little gifts will be welcomed and appreciated!

I am so glad that she gets to go; I want to show everyone here the beauty of that little-known nook.

When friends come back with insights and stories that I never heard or saw, just always living there, I cannot help but wonder if others see the goodness of this country the way I do. If they realize how they are as strange and amazing...

It is all a tapestry of light and darkness.

My heart will be traveling with Lori, and she will bring back amazing stories and pictures to share.

(Christian is much better.  He does not talk about his finger.  Martinus, however,  used him as a handy conversation starter at church: "Can I tell you what my big brother did?")

All's well that ends well.

I was sitting under the Live Oak, knitting the third pocket, listening to the boys playing in the dust, enjoying the perfect temperature and the light breeze.

I stood up from the chair and went in to put barley on the stove, to have with the roast that I put in the oven an hour earlier.  I felt chuffed.  Look at me, meal planning, knitting for strangers, children playing outside...

Jean met me in the den, ashen. "I tried to crash the fire ants but Christian put his hand..." Next thing I see is Christian, tears streaming, and the red on his shirt.  I picked him up, rushed to the bathroom, rinsed his hand, and turned it over... I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror; ashen.

I never miss home as much as when there is a crisis like this.  I miss the neighbours, and knowing that when I come back from where I have to go with this child, the others will have been fed, bathed, and in bed.  I miss knowing the road to the ER at Pretoria East Hospital, knowing that it will take me exactly 7 minutes.  If I speed. I miss my grumpy pediatrician who told a nurse after the first one was born "just leave her with the baby, she will do fine, she's a mother."  I even miss the little signs on the wall in the waiting room, warning about the most dangerous traffic intersections, two of them between our house and the hospital.

Mercifully, Jacques was home and I could just wrap gauze around his finger, load him in the car, and head for the urgent care center.  (In the car, the CD player continues where we left off, and we listen to songs of the Westminster Catechism.  I do not pay attention, but after a little while, between his whimpers and tears, Christian asks: God makes people Mamma?  He has meat? I explain as well as I can, he loses interest and starts shivering.)

I went to the same medical center where we did our medical examinations for our Green Cards.  On that day we spent a stressful 6 hours in a small room, filling in forms and receiving vaccinations.  The physician on the day was so amazing that I bought her a gift that I delivered the day I went to pick up our documents - a Debbie Bliss knitting pattern book, I cannot remember which one.  See, she was a knitter. She started talking about socks and I could see her checking herself, and refocusing.   And tonight, when we walked in, she was there, again!

We spent 3 hours, did x-rays (no fractures), tried butterfly strips and glue, and ended up with 5 stitches, on the pad of his right middle finger.

The strangest thing is - he insisted on watching.  He leaned in, made suggestions, warned her about coming too close with the scissors.  Of course he cried when she gave him the shots to numb his finger, but after that he was like a medical student.  At the end of it all, she turned to me and said "Now this was one of the most interesting nights I have spent in a long time.  Not even grown-ups watch with so much interest."  The nurse was amazed, too.  They greeted him "Good night, Dr Loock."

Back home, at 9:30pm, everyone eating ice cream around the kitchen table, he explains to Martinus that he is going to be a Doctor some day.  Martinus exclaims: But you're going to be a man, Christian!  Doctors are "tannies" (ladies)"  Oh boy, do not get me started.

He will be fine, the stitches has to come out in a week, and while I guess tomorrow will still be rough, it could have been so much worse.  I remember my dad often saying "Thank God for small mercies".  I always thought that he said it only half-serious, but he was serious. I was just not old enough to understand.

completed and finished

I need some positive feedback, please.  Every time I show my husband these adorable pants, he tells me that he really cannot stand that color.  Or something clever like - "that is a great color for baby pants - you will never notice that the diaper leaked."  I happen to love the color, but I know that my taste in color is somewhat, well, different.  It is crème brulee, and yes, I bought it on purpose.

He does not want to get excited at all - not even when I show him the brilliant finishing, the nifty turning row and the perfect casing for the i-cord that I knit without breaking a sweat.

But I know y'all will be impressed. (See, I'm turning into a Texan).

I found the pattern in One More Skein.  I am very glad that all knitting books are not available on the Kindle, I would have bought far too many...

I finished another children's book: Because of Winn-Dixie.  I actually read it while knitting and watching Celebrity Apprentice with one eye (I consider some reality TV as an important part of my American Assimilation).

My favorite part is the part about the Littmus Lozenges:

"How do you get that taste in there?"
"That's the secret," she said.  "That's why Littmus made a fortune.  He manufactured a piece of candy that tasted sweet and sad at the same time."

I have been a bit melancholic the last couple of posts.  But life is really sweet.
 (joining with Ginny's yarn along)

I finished something.

A cotton cardigan for a brand new baby in Namibia.

See?  I have not been doing nothing.  Quite the contrary, I have been very busy.

Things are settling down, the boys are not asking where the grandmothers are so much, and I have not picked up much around the house because I wanted to sit and mostly just knit, to feel better.  Oh, and then there are the left over chocolate eggs, and coffee, that all go very well with knitting and sitting.  I did do the laundry.

I have missed the blog, I will return to it now that things are back to abnormal.