But in the busy-ness of packing to move back to Finland, time is something I have very little of. And that little time gets easily taken up by other things. This last week though, it has mostly been taking up by fun making things.
After realising that my yarn and fabric stash can fill two moving boxes I realised I really should take some time to turn my stash into stuff. I fell off my bike a few weeks ago and tore a hole in my last pair of trousers (warning- jeggings do not make good cut-offs so don’t bother trying) so I decided to whip up a quick skirt. As I said before time is limited so it is very basic; 2 rectangles of fabric, hemmed and a thick elastic waistband. I loved it...until it struck me that the stripy fair-trade fabric and its simple shape made it look a bit like a shepherd costume from a nativity play. What do you think? Does it look like I should be acomanied by someone dressed in a white pillowcase with some tinsle tied around their head?
Gábor and Ernest were away last week so with the toddler out the house there was finally time to give Lily the sewing lessons she had been begging for. I got a few good tips about sewing with children (best one is to put the pedal on the table and have them sew with their hands) and discovered my own top tip (use stripy fabric, having a line to follow makes a world of difference).
We had been taking it easy and enjoying it and agreed to make a goodbye and thank you present for her teacher. We thought we had plenty of time sew it but on Monday Gábor realised that this week (not next week) is the last week of school! (Thanks for that my Love).
FRANTIC SEWING!
I would cur and pin all the pieces in the evening after the kids went to bed, Lily would sew them up after Ernest was asleep right before her bedtime, then I would sewthe more complicated bits and pin the next lot of pieces for her to sew the next day. We managed and Lily did a damn good job for her first sewing project. I can’t think of a better gift for a 1st grade Waldorf teacher. Perfect.
Further frantic making ensued when a party invitation came home with Lily from school the other day. Just the day before I had packed up a bad full of old crayon thinking that once we cet back to Oulu they could be recycled into pretty new crayons. They came right back out of the box, as did my muffin tins. I had to boost it with a pack of new crayons too though, even so what that became was so much better than a bring pack of crayons.
It was another kid’s birthday today, party invitation is imminent. Any suggestions for a last, last, last minute homemade gift that requires so craft supplies (they are all packed)?!
I managed to squeeze in one more little sewing project; Ernest’s car seat is made of some horrible plastic fabric which is hot and uncomfortable to sit in when it’s 30oC so I cut up an old baby towel and cot sheet and made a nice cotton liner so that he can survive a summer road trip in a car with no air conditioning. After seeing me sewing with Lily, Ernest was desperate to join in too. I had a hard time getting him off my lap and he would occupy my seat the instant I stood up. The dials have strawberry juice smears on them because I happened to stands up at one point while he was having a snack. That kid is fast.
We have about 25 boxes packed and only essential items still left out...yes, my sewing machine is essential.
Waldorf-Steiner pedagogy is kind of against media technology for young children and we are inline with that as far as computer games (are all these gadgety things still called computer games) and television is concerned - watching TV is passive and constantly bombards us with advertisements and gender role stereotypes (although our lack of TV has more to do with the fact that I am a bit of a TV-addict and having television in our living room would be a bit like a recovering alcoholic having a bottle of vodka in their jacket pocket). However, we diverge from Waldorf when it comes to computers and internet. Lily wants to know everything, her questions are becoming more and more complex and my standard answer is fast becoming “let’s google that”. Of course we also throw in occasionally “let’s see if we can find a book about that at the library” or “let’s cut it open and see” but google invaluable.
There is also the Flat Lily blog which she eagerly watches for updates and loves to check the statistics of who has been reading, where and when. But today she took the next step in the technological world. Today she posted her very first post on her own blog. She was chose the background, the fonts and the colours. She decided what her first post was going to be about, how it was going to be. She took the pictures herself and selected the ones she wanted to use, she chose the post title. This is all her.
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