Pondered In My Heart

Yarn Along: Hello! and Twin Wee Bonnets

Well, Hello!

I'm really, really trying to remember how to blog. How to find the time, how to spare the mental energy, how to make sentences... So I thought I'd start small with a little Yarn Along. Here are two Bonnie Wee bonnets (pattern here) I made recently for some newborn identical twins at church. The pattern was pleasant to work with, and I like the twisted cords for the ties. It was fun to make two the same, but different.

I have lots of books going at present and we just started a new read aloud this evening. By popular demand (and requested by my husband) I'm reading The Pushcart War to the whole family. This one is a classic in our house, and it had been a while since I last read it aloud (maybe 2013?). You have to love a book with characters like Frank the Flower, General Anna, Harry the Hot Dog, and of course Maxie Hammerman the pushcart king. I am also happy to see that it is back in print and published by The New York Review Children's Collection in a lovely hardback edition, very appropriate as The Pushcart War is set in New York City. Our vintage ex lib copy is getting quite dilapidated and it's nice to know it can now be replaced if necessary. I may have woken up the dog yelling in my Albert P. Mack voice, but so be it.

"Oh," said Wenda Gambling. "Well, I think that there are too many trucks and that the trucks are too big."

Professor Lyman Cumberly has suggested that except for Wenda Gambling's innocent remark, there might never have been a Pushcart War. Instead, says Professor Cumberly, the trucks would have simply gone on taking over the city, crowding out the taxis, buses, cars- and finally the people themselves. No one would have challenged them until it was too late.

-Jean Merrill, The Pushcart War

Do visit Ginny for more books and yarn. And thank you to all who have emailed and nudged me to get back into this little online space. You are very kind!

Yarn Along: my first knits, and family hats

Look! I am learning to knit! That blue thing up there is a hat in progress for myself. I am very happy that I have finally figured out this secret thing called knitting, a skill previously elusive to me for many years. I have known how to crochet since I was a little girl, having been taught by my dear Auntie Irene, but alas I had never learned how to knit. After trying several times over the past few years I have at long last succeeded (at least in the basics) and am enjoying myself immensely to boot.

My previous attempts were with English style knitting, and the running conversation in my head would alternate between Look! I'm really knitting! It looks like real knitting! and Why would anyone want to do this? It's so hard! I could have crocheted five times as much my now! This is terrible! and back again to Look! I'm really knitting! ...Then someone told me about continental style knitting and how it is easier for crocheters to learn, and is faster as well. It has definitely been the ticket for me! It all feels so comfortable and natural, whereas the English made me kind of want to scream (see above). I'm not sure if continental is very unusual or not- I was sitting in a coffeeshop knitting and someone came up and said, Oh! I haven't seen anyone knit continental in years! Made me feel a bit odd, but at least I knew what she was talking about and I was actually knitting. :-) It's so satisfying to learn something new (at my age! ahem), and to learn something that I've wanted to do for so long. It's fun! It's relaxing! I like it! (okay, so I'm a little excited about it!) (pat me on the head and smile)

Oh, and the book I am reading is Towers in the Mist, set in 16th century England,by Elizabeth Goudge. It was recommended by a reader on the girls' blog after Mary Rose wrote a rousing post about her Confirmation and taking St. Edmund Campion as her patron. I do love Goudge's writing, and apparently her historical fiction more than her more modern works (this is reminding me of how much I enjoyed Gentian Hill, my first Goudge love). I have it out on interlibrary loan and hope I can finish it before it's due. (the library failed to notify me when it actually came in, and the return date is fixed and non-renewable - no fair)

I'll also show you all the hats I made for my family and presented to them on Candlemas. My first Finished Object of the knitted variety was a WWII watch cap I made for Josiah:

It's from a 1940 pattern, and just the thing for history-loving Josiah. Everyone was suitably impressed that I had actually Knit Something, and I think it suits him very well.

 

All the other hats are crochet, as I knew I could do that reliably and in good time. Mary Rose got a green beret in her favorite olive drab:

 

I used some bulky yarn for some quick-but-cute flowered hats for the little girls:

At first Eliza didn't like hers - she called it a big blueberry and threw it across the room. But then she changed her mind, and now she likes it. :-)

Jonathan got a new medieval looking slouchy:

Michael got a stripey beanie. It fits perfectly and he likes it!

I made Lydia this owl hat, and she looks so cute in it:

And finally Anna's is a felted hat with a bit of a vintage feel, topped off with a pin from the thrift shop:

 I've also (finally!) just joined Ravelry as Tea Drinking Fool (I had the hardest time coming up with a user name, can you tell?). My project page is here, where you can find links to all of the hat patterns and any notes and such.

I'm joining Ginny for this week's Yarn Along - visit her to see what lots of others are knitting/crocheting and reading. Currently we are expecting another snow storm, great weather for reading and knitting. And tea drinking. :-)

Yarn Along: Fall Shawl

I am joining Ginny for her Yarn Along this week. I, along with the rest of the folks in my house, tend to break from 'yarning' in the warmer months every year and then naturally take up crocheting again as the weather gets cooler. This fall has been like the others and we have our hooks flying again. I wanted something simple to work on while I sit with my young ones doing their schoolwork so I started this 'Eva Shawl' for myself. The pattern looks lovely in lace weight but I was in a hurry to just start something and use what I had on hand - so some Paton's wool in 'cognac heather' from my stash that I had picked up at the craft store on clearance it is. It should prove nice and warm for the winter. You can find the free pattern at the Without Seams blog (patterns are listed in the sidebar) or on Ravelry.

Presently I am reading The Golden Key and Other Stories aloud at teatime. We are all very fond of fairy tales in general and George MacDonald in particular and thus are greatly enjoying the book. Yesterday we finished the beautiful, lush History of Photogen and Nycteris and today read the Dickens-evoking Shadows. We love stories of other worlds and unusual beings, rich with language and descriptions that are at once so simple and yet run so deep.

"How old are you?"

"Ten," answered Tangle.

"You don't look like it," said the lady.

"How old are you, please?" returned Tangle.

"Thousands of years old," answered the lady.

"You don't look like it," said Tangle.

"Don't I? I think I do. Don't you see how beautiful I am?" And her great blue eyes looked down on the little Tangle, as if all the stars in the sky were melted in them to make their brightness.

"Ah! but," said Tangle, "when people live so long they grow old. At least I always thought so."

"I have no time to grow old," said the lady. "I am too busy for that. It is very idle to grow old..."

Be sure to visit Ginny for lots more yarns of all kinds!

 

Wordless Wednesday: Crochet Lesson

{because the only way to get back to blogging again is to just jump back in, right? :-) }

Yarn Along: The Crocheting Mad Hatter Edition

 

Linking up with Ginny for her weekly Yarn Along of current books and projects. (Pretend there's a crochet hook stuck in that sweet little graphic she made.) I've been busy making more hats since last week's post. First up is my new spiral hat in cream wool, inspired by the ones Justamouse made. Don't you love the green one she did? The free pattern is here: Divine Hat Pattern. It's very clever and it was so fun to work up and watch the spirals form. It's also nice and roomy which is good for me as I don't like anything too snug on my head.

At the same pattern site I saw this Lattice Hat (also a free pattern) which looked kind of cool. Mary Rose said she would like one, as hats are currently in fashion at my house, so this is what I'm working on right now. I actually was almost finished with it but wasn't pleased with how the lattices turned out, so I went back and looked at the pictures and realized I was doing them wrong. The directions are very clear and there are helpful pictures, but I hadn't previously looked at them. (ahem) So I ripped it back and started them over, and this time I've got it right.
I've just started reading Never Too Late by John Holt which I 'just happened' to come across. It immediately caught my eye as I often the lament the fact that I have no musical talent, having never studied music as a child. The book is a memoir of the author's early musical influences (or lack thereof) and leaning to play the cello in middle age. So far it has been interesting to read of how this man had so little music in his early life, yet remembered so well the tiny bits he was exposed to. It has me contemplating my own childhood musical memories, and wondering indeed what the possibilities are for learning music later in life.

And back to the hats, I said I'd show you Jonathan's new hat this week which is now finished. Since the striped hat didn't fit him I offered to make him something else, and he requested a slouchy beanie rather than a close fitting hat. After searching a bit for patterns and looking around on etsy for inspirations I decided to just make it up as I went along. Half double crochet crown, mixed with some double crochet for the body and a single crochet brim. It got super slouchy as Jonathan kept requesting the brim wider to cover his ears snugly and so it got longer than I anticipated. But I love the look.

And when his brother saw it he said, Dude, that looks cool. It's kind of medieval. I want one! How could any crafty lady refuse that bait? And so I made slouchy hat number two in the same light brown wool as Mary Rose's. Josiah wanted a brimmier looking brim so I used alternating front post/back post double crochet.  This one is all half double crochet and it's very warm.

Both guys are happy, and so is their crocheting mama.

Do visit Small Things for more Yarn Along goodness, and thank you to Ginny as always for hosting.

Yarn Along- the crocheted Christmas gifts

Joining Ginny for her weekly Yarn Along, that lovely linky party of luscious yarns to knit and yarns to read. Here I am posting all the gifts that were crocheted this Christmas, not just mine but all the household crafters. As you will see, we like to stick to small projects when we crochet.

Here we have two little stocking stuffers - Anna made her Dad a cotton wash cloth and Mary Rose made him a wool cup cozy - Pattern here, although we made ours bigger to fit the large mug. Exhorted by the children, I am reading through Tolkien's World: Paintings of Middle Earth that they love to peruse. It has some of Michael Hague's work which we are fond of as his was the first copy of The Hobbit my children ever read. Naturally there is plenty of John Howe and Alan Lee, whose artwork so influenced the movies. But there are other artists as well and it's interesting to see the different styles and interpretations, and to hear the kids' remarks like that balrog looks like a jack-o-lantern...(which it does)

Back to the crochet - Jonathan worked up this handy cotton bag to hold the checkers to the set he made for the little girls. I like how the greens complement the vines he burned on the board.

I made Anna this slouchy hat in a soft grey wool, and apparently she is fond of it as she wears it every day. I think this was my first time using puff stitch, and it makes the hat very thick and warm. Pattern here. 

Here we have Eliza modeling what we call my new Wee Willie Winkie Hat or nightcap that Lydia made for me out of a cream wool. It is of Lydia's own design, similar to one she designed for Mary Rose last year in red (inspired by the book Happy Little Family).

As you can see, Kateri is fond of my new hat as well. (to see me wearing it you'll have to visit The Saracen's Head later on, if I let Lydia post the picture)

Kateri has usurped another hat as well. I made a Moriarty Beanie of striped black and grey wool for Jonathan for Christmas. Pattern here, but note it is written in UK terms, US equivalents are in the notes. I made this during one long night I was up with a feverish sickie, and thus distracted I didn't think once to check the gauge or sizing. I just kept going round and round in those neat spirals praying Hail Mary after Hail Mary. It wasn't until Christmas when I went to wrap it and realized how small it looked. Kateri has since 'claimed' it for her own, and who could argue? It looks perfect atop her curls, so I added the flowers and it's a done deal.

It's a great pattern, but "check your gauge"! And stay tuned next week for Jonathan's new hat, which is neither striped nor a beanie.

Anna Ruth made 'his and hers' black wool scarves for Michael and me. His is plain, while mine has a scalloped edge. It's very warm, goes with everything, and I love it. I'm wearing it right now.

Here's a little quickie headband I made up for Eliza:

And here is the beard I made for Josiah. We kind of tease him, as every time he gets a nice one of his own going he has to remove it since he is required to be clean shaven to serve at Holy Mass. So I made him a nice wool one as a stocking stuffer. I just made the pattern up as I went along, using popcorn stitches to give it some texture.

I think he looks quite dashing, but then again I am biased towards hirsute men in general and my husband and sons in particular. Do visit Ginny for lots more yarns of all sorts!

Edited to add, apparently I am not linking up with Ginny as I didn't make the Linky Widget deadline. Explorer crashed on me and ate my post last night, and alas I am now too late for the party. Maybe next week! :-)

Yarn Along

Joining Ginny and friends for her weekly Yarn Along, a chance to share current reading and knitting or crochet projects.

 

I just finished these two hats for my two littlest girls using the leftover wool from my big girls' handwarmers. It's an old favorite pattern I learned of a few years ago from Charlotte, but I can't seem to find it online anymore. I like how the two match but not exactly. When I was taking the picture today I realized it would be really cute to make a little hat for Faustina, Eliza's baby doll, as there is still a bit of yarn left over.

We have been making our way through the Anne of Green Gables books during tea time and we just started Rainbow Valley. All of them are so entertaining. You know how reading aloud goes - you're smiling to yourself but then you glance up and catch someone else's amused eyes or raised eyebrows and then you all laugh out loud together. Interspersed with all the silly antics and village gossip there are impressive characters to contemplate, such as Nan in the Cassie Thomas episode or the truly heroic Leslie Moore. We are already enchanted with the idyllic description of the children's own Rainbow Valley, ruled over by the learned Jem:

Jem always knew where the first and ripest berries grew, where the first pale violets shyly wakened from their winter's sleep, and how many blue eggs were in a given robin's next in the maple grove. He could tell fortunes from daisy petals and suck honey from red clovers, and grub up all sorts of edible roots on the banks of the pond, while Susan went in daily fear that they would all be poisoned. He knew where the finest spruce gum was to be found, in pale amber knots on the lichened bark, he knew where the nuts grew thickest in the beech woods around the Harbour Head, and where the best trouting places up the brooks were. He could mimic the call of any wild bird or beast in Four Winds and he knew the haunt of every wild flower from spring to autumn.

Isn't that a lush description of a boy? Not only does he know all that, he never forgets to take his mother a bouquet of mayflowers as long as they last. We're looking forward to another collection of blithe stories about the children and their coevals, and meeting new characters of the race that knows Joseph.

Yarn Along

 
This is my first time joining Ginny and friends for her weekly Yarn Along - a single photo combining one's love of working yarn and reading books. These are some handwarmers I just finished today as gifts for my three oldest girls (we are still within the Octave of Epiphany!). The pattern is here: Easy Victorian Shell Mitts. The deep purple ones are of course for Lydia, the royal blue are for Anna and match the embroidery on her cloak, and the leafy green are for Mary Rose- I just liked the green color and they seem to be a fine reminder that someday it will be spring again.

The book is The Silmarillion which my family in general and Jonathan in particular have been trying to get me to read for ages. I have a hard time squeezing in personal reading, but I am finally making some headway. It is a beautifully written book and I enjoy reading it, though it's very complex and I find myself reading and re-reading (and re-reading) frequently, hence the slow going. Also pictured is the lovely bookmark Lydia painted for me featuring a helpful list of the Valar on one side and the genealogy of the Houses of Finwë and Bëor on the other, which I refer to often. But my favorite part is the Two Trees of Valinor, with the glittering gold of Laurelin and the shining silver of Telperion, courtesy of a little shimmery watercolor.

Visit  Ginny's to see so many other lovely projects from so many lovely ladies. Don't forget your cup of tea!

Roses, Roses, Roses

Hello! We've had a super busy weekend here but I didn't forget about the drawing and the roses. Thank you to everyone who entered and for all of the kind comments (if I were a hip and trendy craft blogger I would say 'thank you for all the crocheted rose love'). We put all of the entries in a basket and stirred them up good,

  

and Eliza picked one out,

 

and the winner is-

 

Renee! Congratulations, and I hope your grandchildren enjoy them! Please send an email with your mailing address.

There were about 45 entrants for the giveaway and that's a lot of little people left without roses, so I've been trying to think of other ways to obtain roses. Lydia did once make a set for one of my rosary customers who wanted to purchase some, but we are really too busy with school to make a whole lot of roses. One option of course would be to find someone local who crochets. There are many people who love to crochet and are very fast and prolific in their creations and are often looking for new things to make and a purpose to make them. Perhaps you could locate some avid 'crochet ladies' at your local church or in your neighborhood and commission some roses. You might even be able to barter for them, perhaps with a cake or home cooked meal, or some leaf raking or the like. Look for ladies wearing crocheted hats or scarves and approach them with a proposition. :-) If you find them in church I would think they'd be delighted to crochet roses for Our Lady. 

Another option would be to look on Etsy where many people offer handmade goods for sale. Search under 'crochet rose embellishments' and you will find many, many crocheted flower offerings. There is a wide variety of styles and sizes and colors available. The prices also vary greatly as well, but some are quite reasonable and you might even get a bargain by ordering a set of eleven. Many Etsy sellers welcome custom orders as well so you can get what you like.

And finally, I wanted to try to make a different kind of rose that doesn't involve crochet and I came up with this simple felt rose. I used a piece of felted wool cut from a thrifted wool sweater. (You can read about how I felt wool here in this post.) I just cut a circle about six inches in diameter, and then cut it in a free form spiral pattern. You can cut as wavy or as smooth as you like. (That pointy nose part where I started cutting is not intentional - I just snipped off that part.)

 

Then I rolled up the spiral beginning with the center part, and stitched along on the bottom as I went around to hold the layers together like so -

 

I just kept rolling and stitching round and round up to the end of the spiral. 

  

I also cut two leaves out of green wool. I applied tacky glue to the bottom of the rose for added durability and then stitched the leaves on, covering up the glue and stitching. My finished felt rose is about three inches diameter, while my crocheted ones are about three and a half inches.

I think it turned out rather pretty.

 

Thank you again to all my rosy readers!

Praying the Rosary with Little Ones

Eliza loves to pray our family rosary. She has come a long way in learning all the prayers since I wrote this post about her earlier prayer attempts, but just like when we pray the Angelus, she does like to be the leader. However she can't possibly keep count and pray at the same time. A while ago Michael got out our rosary with giant wooden beads, but even that is too difficult because as anyone who has tried to teach a little person to use a rosary knows - if you let go of the beads you've lost your place. So the other night as I watched Eliza I thought to myself, there has to be an easier way. I thought if she had counters that she could move from one place to another, she wouldn't lose count. I tried getting out some milk caps but she wasn't really interested in them, as she associates milk caps with letters and spelling, not praying. I thought she should have something lovely and pleasant to count with, and something unique just for praying the rosary. I thought about it just a bit more and realized it had to be roses for Our Lady!

So the next day I crocheted a set of roses, ten red for the Hail Mary's and one white rose for the Our Father's. I found two similar sized handle baskets, as little ones love to carry things around, and arranged the roses in the basket. The idea is very simple - they start with all of the roses in one basket and as each prayer is said a rose is moved to the other basket. When the next decade is started the roses get moved back to the first basket and so on.

I also printed out a set of cards with pictures of the mysteries, and laminated them for durability. I put numbers on each of the cards using little squares of paper in symbolic colors:  pink for joyful, purple for sorrowful, white for glorious and yellow for luminous. I think these will help the little girls to learn the mysteries, as they hold the proper card for each mystery we pray.

I thought this was a nice idea, but still I was surprised and delighted at how much the little girls love praying with these roses. Kateri is so pleased to be in charge of moving the roses from basket to basket, carefully arranging them with each decade. With something to keep her hands occupied and her mind focused, this bouncy two year old was happy to sit still for the entire rosary, and so proud to have such an important job.

 She is thrilled to have the cards to hold as well, and she shows everyone the picture as each new mystery is announced. Now when someone says it's time for the rosary, the little girls gleefully run for the basket of roses for Our Lady. I trust Our Dear Blessed Mother is pleased with her bouquet from these sweet little ones who are learning to love her and to pray always for her intercession.

 

Resources:

The rosary cards are found here: Rosary Cards pdf generously provided by The Bookworm.

The pattern I used for the roses can be found here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/chs-rosettes.html?noImages= I believe you have to register at the Lion Brand site to use it, but it's free. I used Red Heart Super Saver worsted weight yarn - about 5 ounces of red for the ten. I used an I hook (5.5mm) and started with a chain of 35 stitches.

If you don't crochet or know anyone who does, you could purchase faux roses from the craft store.