Holidays

The term 3 holidays here were very busy this time.  My brother turned up on his way from Asia back to Adelaide, and stayed for a while.  I had my home education report to organise for my moderator, we went to the Royal Perth show, and Arden was off to an Airforce Cadets camp for the second week.

Particularly the camp made things a bit complicated, as I needed to discuss aspects of the report writing with Arden.  So week one was busy getting prepped, with lots of reviewing our year, both via my planning and my notes on our calendar and pulling all of that together.  I was feeling a bit stressed out about it this time, as I had a new moderator again, and I had lost last years calendar, and some of my notes.  I did *eventually* find them all!

We went to the Show with the whole family, Willow had come up from the South- West, and my brother was here, and we had a fairly full day out at the show.  We went to see the racing ducks, and the alpacas in particular (Willow, Arden and Irving had done an alpaca handling course, so they were very keen for this).  We visited the dairy pavillion, watched the woodchopping, went on some rides, and got some showbags, and watched some of the stadium performances, including the fireworks.  The finale for the night, was Arden and I  heading onto the slingshot.  I wasn’t particularly keen, but it was quite magical being shot towards the sky with the moon as our target!  We were a bit lucky with that aspect.

We also headed North to visit some friends who live out of the city, and Arden got a second outing to the show with one of his homeschool friends.

Irving got into filming and photographing the showrides, after we dropped Arden off.

I managed to catch up with some crafts, and repairs, in the second  week of the holidays.  This time I did some fabric dying, and refreshed some faded clothing of both mine and Willow’s.

Arden got back mid-afternoon from his Airforce cadets camp, and we had a bit of a quiet afternoon before heading out to the Fire Garden festival at Government house.  It was visually spectacular, but a little hot!  Especially since we hadn’t had many hot days yet, when it was on.

The Importance of Knitting in Steiner Education

https://educationfreedom.locals.com/upost/4672591/knitting-and-crafts-in-steiner-education

This article that I’ve shared in my local’s account, on knitting, is a great read, and clearly explains why handicrafts are so important to life, and bodily development.  All of my children have followed a variation of this plan to become accomplished in a variety of  handicrafts, and on a more personal level different crafts continue to appeal to each of the children as they grow older.

2022 part 1

So at the end of 2021 my PC died and so did my attempts to keep this blog up to date. Since I now have a new PC and I was thinking about blogging again, I thought with the new year I would start with a recap of 2022.

For quite some time we have taken the beginning of the year slowly, avoiding any structured work until late February/ beginning of March and we continued in this style. Taking the Summer to swim, visit the library and celebrate 5/6 of our birthdays! By March we started to ease into some more structured activities, and as usual we began with some geometry and painting and reading.

Arden and I started the year reading about Shakespeare, by Bill Bryson, and reading the first section of “Tragedy and Hope” by Carroll Quigley for History.

Meanwhile I was working on re-upholstering a circa 1940’s sofa we had found in the hard waste, which at times was being delayed due to comfort!

Arden and Irving both did some weaving for their first craft project. Irving wove a small rug out of wool, and then did a second version from embroidery thread. Arden worked on a band on the inklette loom.

We all worked together on a domestika illustration course- which we have been rather slow completing! Arden’s, Irving’s and my sketches.

As usual we started the year with watercolour painting- this time we did lots of coloured themes and worked on a flowing colour wheel.

We’ve been having some regular bird visitors to our place, and Irving decided he had had enough- Our residence was declared closed!

Arden got into “The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” this past year, I’ve been gradually getting through this excellent book of celebrity interviews from the 60s’ “Limelighters” that was a hard waste find. “Covid-19: The Great Reset” was my first foray into reading the World Economic Forums take on our future, and finally we read “The Never-Ending Story” by Michael Ende together (so much better than the movie IMO).

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Crafts

Since people were sick around here,  I’ve been a bit slow about posting what’s been happening.  So here are some recent crafts.  I finished off a new bra, in green gingham, and I’m feeling very pleased with the results.  This is the first bra that I’ve made that has straps that are really comfortable.

I started making Damien another knitted tie.  It’s looking good so far, and I’ve been surprised by how much I like the colour combination.  (I’m using some left over wool out of my basket.)

I finished some jamies for Irving.  He’s very pleased to have some that match Arden’s.

Irving picked the red buttons from my stash of vintage buttons.

Arden and I have been working on a block of crafts relating to how people clothe themselves.  He did a small project on our lap loom and made a cape for a teddy bear.  We were also lucky enough to come across WAFTA doing some demonstrations on weaving, book binding and basket making. 

Getting set up.

Shuttles are ready.

Making progress

One completed cape!

Teddy modelling the cape.

Arden and I have moved onto spinning this week, learning to use a drop spindle.

Arden has almost finished his pyjama pants.  He is up to sewing the hems, and we threaded the elastic into the waist band yesterday.

Gabriel finished has handsewing project, and is very happy with his new tie.

Gabriel started using the sewing machine yesterday, generally experimenting with it, and getting a feel for how it works.  He is making a book cover for his first project on the sewing machine.

The start of the book cover.

Willow's Horse

Here’s a picture of Willow’s horse.

It’s almost finished – will be exciting to see it finished next week. It’s just awaiting the final embellishments- eyes and ears.