Yarn Along

Hello to the weekly visitors of the Yarn Along!  It’s always refreshing to meet others there who are as crazy about yarn as I am.  It makes me feel slightly less crazy.

This week I finished what I call the “Glamour Monkey Romper.”  I really played it up and made a crocheted flower to attach to the waistband, and a second flower to attach to a clip that can go on a little baby headband, or hat, or just in hair.  I’m pleased that I got all of the finishing work done right away, (patting myself on the back…) and didn’t let it linger.  It was finished, ends woven in, buttons attached, blocked, and listed in my store.  Yeah!

During our once a month “School at a coffee shop” day that I do with Silje, I started yet another romper.  I don’t need another one in my store.  What I mean is, it’s not on my official list that I make out at the beginning of the month of things to get done for the store.  Still, with girls’ weekend out! I mean the homeschool convention coming up, I thought it would be nice to have some really easy knitting along for the road, or hotel, etc.  Projects are so much easier to keep up with when it’s cast on and markers placed.   It’s just coasting and fiddling from there.  No counting.

I haven’t gotten far on it, though, because I’m forcing myself to place 2 flowers a week on Silje’s grandmother’s flower garden quilt so that the top will be ready to hand quilt this winter.  Hand sewing is done in the same time slot as knitting in my house (aka: t.v. time at night).  That’s for another post, though.  To go down a small rabbit trail quickly, Silje is assuming that as soon as it’s done it’s going on her bed.  I told her I’d have to think about when I wanted to give it to her.  She did not like that idea.  I’ve always been of the belief that quilts, even hand-stitched ones, are meant to be used.  Really loved and used!  However, this quilt is being done entirely by hand over the course of years!  I’m starting to think that if I give it to a 7 year old and something happens to it, I’ll lose it.  I’m playing with the idea of keeping it and giving it to her for her 16th birthday.  I chose all the fabrics for her to grow up with in her room though.  Using a quilt for it’s intended purpose, regardless of what happens to it feels so much more authentic.  A used quilt, even damaged, has a story.  That story is part of the beauty.  Anyway, as I’m debating, I’d love to hear thoughts.

On the reading front, I’m still working my way through The Well-Trained Mind.  I’ve gotten through the training during preschool years, and am almost through the 4th grade period.  I just have the junior high and senior high years left.  I really love this approach to learning.  I resonates so much with me.  I do like Sonlight’s tweek of a classical education because it gives more time to Eastern history.  So much of a classical education relies on studying Western history.  Maybe it’s my roots in the fact that my mom was a missionary kid in Japan, or that Silje has an obsession with China and is working on studying the language.  Maybe it’s that I just think that the entire Eastern culture is so foreign to us and we will never reach people there without understanding them.  Sonlight devotes an entire year to Eastern history.  It still pales in comparison to how much Western history is taught, but it’s leaps and bounds more than any other program I’ve seen.

I’ve got such great books on the back burner.  I need to get through this one so it can head back to the library on time for once.  In all reality, this might be my next swagbucks purchase on amazon.com though!  It has such great resources inside that I think we’ll use it a lot!