Tuesday Morning

Today has been such a wonderful day so far, I have been busy with my dye pots, dyeing up cochineal yarn to knit my Easter Rabbits. What a beautiful colour... so dusky pink and lilac, I love it! I have just hung the first batch up to dry. I soaked my Merino yarn in water overnight, filled my dye pot up with water this morning, added some Alum for a mordant and when the water was hot, I added the cochineal, the pot was suddenly bursting with colour! Once the water was ready, I added my yarn and let it simmer for one hour,took the pot off the heat and removed and rinsed the yarn once it was cool and hung it out to dry in the shade.

This is a wonderful book about natural dyes, it really is easy to dye with natural dyes and you will have so much fun if you decide to give it a try:)

We also managed some school work today:) Erin is busy with her Mineralogy block for grade 6 and so today we have learnt all about volcanoes. How they form, what happens when they erupt and we even did a little experiment out of the Childcraft book called Our Earth. What a fantastic resource these books are! I managed to buy some from Betterworld books they are amazing! To make our volcano, we used a shallow cardboard box, a glass jar, sand around the outside of the jar for the volcano.  Into the glass we poured 3 large spoons of baking soda, red dye, water and a glass of vinegar. The end result was wonderful and really looked like a volcano!



Jen is busy with Chemistry, Grade 8, she is learning all about ph and we have been using litmus paper to test, lemon, juice, vinegar etc... for acid or alkeline ph solutions. It has been such fun. So this afternoon she has asked if we can go down to our lake and test the water ph there as well:) I am thrilled she is so keen to do more, I really love that we have the freedom to learn in our own time in our own way!

Last night Erin lost one of her first incisor teeth, she was so excited, she put her tooth in a special tooth box and left it for the tooth fairy... we she was so surprised to see this adorable little chicken waiting for her this morning in place of her tooth:) Aren't these little birds adorable?? I found them on Swirly Arts on Etsy. I will definately be back for more.

And here is my love, Richard... doing what he adores... mountain biking. He rode in the Valentine's Dirt Ride last Saturday and he had the most wonderful day... Tonight, he has invited me on a belated Valentine's date, the day after Valentines, the restaurants are much quieter and that's how we like it... just the two of us... I am so looking forward to it, I think I'm in love...
xo

Grade 6 Waldorf Geometric Drawings

Today was our 'official' start to our homeschooling year after our December holidays. Jenna is busy with Physics, she studied all about colour today using a triangular prism to experience the rainbow spectrum of colour, the experiments were wonderful! (I will blog these this week) Caiden is busy with time and measurement and Erin began her Grade 6 Geometry Block, I have included some of Erin's work.

Resource Books: Geometry

Geometry Lessons in the Waldorf School by Ernst Schuberth

Nature, Number and Geometry by Live Education

A Path of Discovery, A Steiner-Waldorf Mathematic Resource, Grades One to Eight by Eric Fairman (Wonderful!)

A Wonderful Grade 6 Waldorf Geometry Video by Eugene Schwartz:

 

I am having a yarn giveaway (above photo) at the moment, if you would like to enter, just leave a comment here.
xo
(I am looking to buy some of the Childcraft How and Why Library Books, I do have a few of them, if anyone is willing to part with theirs I would be so grateful if you would email me, lindadawkins@mweb.co.za I did manage to find some of them on Betterworld Books.)

Thanks so much:)

Colour, weather and craft...

This past week we did experiments with colour mixing in a tub of water, this was beautiful to see, colours dropped into a tub of water and then slowly mixing together... Red and blue becoming purple etc...

Jenna's painting of the colour wheel...

We have been learning about weather, this a Barometer that Erin made to measure air pressure. It is so easy to make, stretch a balloon over the top of an open tin can, put a little vaseline around the top to enable the balloon to move and then put an elastic band around the balloon. Tape a straw to the middle of the balloon. Put a piece of cardboard next to the can with high at the top and low below. Now you will be able to tell when you will have fine weather and when you will have rainy weather. AND it really works!

Jenna and Erin's needlepoint. This was such a fun project for the girls... They drew a picture on paper, transferred it to their callico and then embroidered around their drawing...

Garden Images and Unicorns...

We were out in the garden early this morning, the dew was still fresh on the grass, nature bursting forth with all her glory...

Cady very proudly holding his new wooden sword for Michaelmas....

Jenna's charcoal drawing for her Physics block, showing how form is created by using light and shadow...

My custom order for Talia... knitted in the most exceptionally soft Mohair...

My custom order for Angela... knitted in Rainbow Merino...

I am so happy to be creating these mystical creatures...

Happy day to you....

Spinning...

Life has been really busy over the last few weeks, I love being busy but alas I have not blogged but now that I am almost through all the orders and custom orders for my shop I have a chance to do some blogging and visit all your lovely blogs that I have been missing :)

We have been busy with:

Jen built and oiled my new wheel, she just loved the process of putting this wheel together for her mama and she has been inspired to launch in to a project all about wool and fiber, she is having so much fun learning about the wool process from sheep to finished spun product, I will blog about this when she has finished. It has been a totally self motivated research project and I am so thrilled about this...

So here is my wheel with some BFL and Tussah silk roving on it from New Zealand, what a lovely roving.... My first spin on my new wheel...

Here is the finished spin, I plied it back on itself :)

We celebrated Michaelmas, sang songs, read stories and made swords and shields and dressed up as knights... Kye especialy loved this day and wearing his cape...(which he still wears).

Jen is also learning about Physics at the moment, here she is playing Do RE Me Far... with water in glasses and performing an accoustics experiment. She is trying the see if she can play the tune, Do Re Me Far... by varying the amounts of water in the glasses. She did get it right and this was a lot of fun. If a glass has a small amount of water in it, the sound is high when struck gently with a fork, if more liquid is added it will deepen or lower the sound coming off the struck glass :)

I have also finally opened my local South African online wool and knitted Waldorf inspired toy shop, it is called Pure Wool, besides my own handspun yarn, I stock yarn spun and also naturally dyed by many talented spinners and dyers around South Africa. If there is a yarn on this shop that you like and you live overseas, please email me to purchase, I do have Paypal avaliable for overseas buyers.

Here is the link, www.purewool.co.za

Have a great weekend everyone,

Warmly

Linda

Roman Mosiacs and a Giveaway...

It is still very cold here in South Africa and Erin and Caiden were very excited to discover that the bird bath water was frozen the other morning, so Erin brought it inside to show me and then returned it to melt for the birds.

I have also been knitting up a storm over the last few days and here is Kye's wool hat, so warm and I used the Soule Mama pattern, it fits him so snugly. I am almost finished Caiden's, he wants me to knit ear flaps on the sides and I am almost finished....

We are still enjoying Ancient Rome and the Romans made the most beautiful mosiacs'. We found some old tiles in the garage and made some of our own mosiacs', the children really enjoyed this art project and are still busy with more...

Jenna made an aqueduct:

Erin made a flower:

Caiden designed a man and a house...

We used:

An old tile to build on.

Broke different coloured tiles to design our mosiac with.

Glued the mosiac to the tile with glue.

We will grout the mosaic as soon as the glue is dry.

We have felt very fortunate this week, because last Sunday a very kind wonderful woman gave these two sewing machines to Jenna and Erin! She no longer sews and when she heard that our girls loved to sew, she phoned my mom-in-law and told her she wanted to give them to my girls, wow! We are planning something very special for her indeed to thank her...

I Was Featured on Squidoo...

It has also been a very exciting week for my knitted toy shop because it was featured on a Squidoo Lens. Thank you so much Ann, I am so grateful to you for writing about my shop... http://www.squidoo.com/Fiber-Arts if you just page down on the link, you will see Mamma4earth under knitting...

YARN GIVEAWAY:

The winner is:

pumpkinhaus said...
Beautiful yarn!!
July 18, 2009 6:13 AM

As some of you know, I have opened a yarn shop http://www.mamma4earthyarns.etsy.com/

and I am enjoying this very much, I am having a giveaway marking the opening. I am giving away this beautiful Rainbow Yarn, this skein holds 100 grams / 3.5 ounces and it is so beautiful and soft .... It is a handspun, hand dyed skein. Don't forget to leave me your email so I can reach you when you win. This giveaway is open to the whole world...

Just leave a comment to enter and if you have a chance, would you mind mentioning and linking to it in one of your blog posts. Thanks so much...

Have a wonderful weekend everyone...

Warmly

Linda

Jenna's Knitting Project

Jenna has decided to start her new knitting project, it is a pair of Hand / Wrist warmers (fingerless gloves). She is knitting from a pattern from 'Last-Minute Knitted Gifts' by Joelle Hoverson.

She is having such fun because she has never knitted in the round before and now she has knitting on 4 needles, down pat. (I think she is going to knit all of us a pair for winter, Caiden and Erin have already chosen their colours, Yay!).

More Geometrical Drawings Grade 6

An Arum Lily Leaf



A Water Lily Leaf



A Snowflake

Well done Jen, they are beautiful!

Wishing everyone a wonderful week....

Grade 6 Geometrical Drawing

Happy New Year Everyone!

Well we are off into our school year already, the children actually asked if we could begin our work for the year.....

Here are some of Jenna's geometrical drawings that she has been busy with this week so far: