Little Cashmere Custom Order

 originally uploaded by Oast Mama.

Waldorf Wednesday: Nurturing Magic

Things are buzzing around here.  I feel the energy of creation around me as I plug away at my custom Waldorf doll sales.  I am just finishing off my last one for this week and am going to pop them in the mail.  This week our Waldorf Wednesday revolves around creating magic.  Laying the framework for traditions to come. Our neighbours recently moved out. Apparently the women who owned the house liked to do ceramics.  They left a pile of old gnomes, fairies and angels scattered around their yard.   They are really roughed up and somewhat on the tacky side, but where there is tacky, there can also be beauty.  While photographing some of my dolls, I came across a fairy.  In the right surroundings she looks beautiful.  I quickly brought it back to our house and placed it in the snowdrop flowers that were just starting to bloom.  I decided that I would move it around the garden during the year, depending on what was growing.  Every day when we go to the car, we pass the fairy, where I have made a point of saying hello or good bye.  Narina now does the same.  A few days ago when she was collecting rocks in a pot she stopped and ran to the front garden where the fairy lives.  She started to give each stone to the fairy, laying them in front of her ceremoniously.  It was quite special for me.  I can see how this will grow into more elaborate rituals as Narina gets older.  Perhaps this will be the fairy that puts little gifts for her in the giant mushroom for solstice... 

I am having so much fun being a mummy.

Exciting new community!

I feel very thankful to have been invited to join in the online community "Team Handmade UK".  Networking with different online community interfaces as a collective support is something I am looking forward to and am excited to be a part of.

The artists and crafters involved have beautiful work.  Please take a look!

On the Farm

 

We are so lucky to have amazing landlords.  They have such beautiful land and they are open to us enjoying it, which makes me very happy.  It is calving season here.  When we were told we could go see the two newborns I was pretty excited.  By the time we were able to get around to seeing them, there were four.  After giving birth to my own child, I couldn't help but feel a kinship to the mamas in waiting.  Full, big, slow. Except for one calf, the babes were shy and quiet.  The mamas kept guard.  We went with dear friends who were visiting. The kids loved it and loved being able to run freely around the farm.  

You can tell by the last photo, my daughter is smitten.

Our newest affordable Etsy project!

Waldorf Wednesday: Kinder Lyre Part 2, Creating Rhythm

As I posted last week, we have been slowly integrating the kinder lyre into our daily lives.  When we first received it, I thought we would be waking Narina up with the lyre singing our morning song.  I thought we would use it to summon the family to meals, and then again to put her to bed.  Well Narina wakes up five minutes before the alarm goes off so that didn’t work.  The family meals?  Yeah, we didn’t even try that one. Finally to go to sleep... I think this will work in the future but at the moment Narina is too excited about the lyre and wants to touch it herself.  So after bath time and before we go upstairs, Narina has a breastfeed.  The fire is lit, the lights are dim, and Dan plays they lyre for a few minutes while Narina feeds.  Our evenings have become so sacred and this aspect of them has only enhanced that. 

Bye Bye Baby Bunting

 Oast Mama.

This little one is in the air as we speak.  Enjoy your trip little cutie and enjoy your new home in Canada.  

Waldorf Wendesday... cold and achey

 I am curled up in front of the fire and will write this weeks WW in a few days.

Sharing the Love

Six years ago we made out for the first time. 
Now we have little Narina sharing lots of love with us on Valentine's Day. 
Time is funny but more importantly, love is magnificent.

Ahhh foot comfort!

I have been knitting a pair of legwarmers for three years now.  I have one done and one 3/4 of the way done but will they every be completely finished?  Who knows.  I wasn't sure I could follow through on a knitting project.  Although I love the idea of knitting my family sweaters and socks, there is something that had me doubting I could ever finish a project.  Then I got a knitting pattern for Christmas.  To knit then felt clogs.  After spending an arm and a leg obtaining some beautiful wool, I started.  I had some help from a friend (who is a fiber goddess), and was well on my way.  Then I missed a whole row of instruction.  I had to pull it appart and start again, but in the end it worked out and they are awesome!  I need to find some leather bottoms for them, but even as we speak I am sitting here with my toes warm and my fashion cool.  Well minus the sweatpants.

My photo quality isn't the best.  We haven't had any sunshine in this part of Kent for over a week so it was all done with artificial light, which is never good for bragging.

They seemed a bit big for my feet, which is a first

Oh the stitches I learned, oh the tensions I didn't. Thank god they were to be felted.

So where does my country fit into all this?

 

Every now and then it just hits me that I am foreign.  I have spent the last 15 years, minus a blip, out of my own country.  I identify as Canadian, but wouldn't think of one part of Canada as my home over others. I have sentimental weight placed on Calgary, as that is where I lived my formative teenage years.  The last time I went to Calgary I would not have known how to drive from my old house to my old school. So what?  Honestly, it doesn't cross my mind much.  That is until I realize my daughter may only know Canada as the place mummy is from.  She will only know it from holidays and books.  She won't *know* it.  Perhaps that is ok.  I'm not really sure how I feel about it.  I just know that it is strange and surreal.  That things that make me who I am because of the society I was raised in will not be my daughters, makes me question my own response to culture.

This Moment: Within Arms Reach

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. 

Waldorf Wednesday: Kinder Lyre/ Pentatonic Lyre Part 1

For Narina's first birthday we were given a Kinder Lyre.  I didn't know anything about lyres prior to having a child and now have only learned a smidgen through different websites and books we have bought.  I will spread the ways that we use our lyre over a few posts.  Some cool things about a kinder lyre, also known as a pentatonic lyre, is that you don't need to know how to play any music and you will still sound beautiful.  Not just sweet, but full on running over the English countryside in a white gown beautiful.  This is because the 7 strings are tuned to a 5 note scale.  It is very calming and even when Narina strums just one string over and over, it is peaceful.  Both Dan and I have learned a few songs and have our own songs that seem to be played over and over.  Two famous examples of  songs played in the pentatonic scale are "I'd like to teach the world to sing" and "Amazing Grace".  Dan busts out the first every now and then and I can't help but think of Coke commercials.

The pentatonic scale is used in a lot of traditional folk music from around the world.  Sometimes when you are playing it you can hear a glimpse of Celtic, Indian, or even Chinese traditional sounds.  It is an expensive gift and one that seems like it should have a special place in our home.  Instead it sits on the back of the couch within reach.  There is nothing better than having it in the background while breastfeeding or hearing Narina strum with vigor and smile with pride.

What exactly is an Oast House?

oast [əʊst]n Chiefly Brit

1. a kiln for drying hops

2. Also called oast house a building containing such kilns, usually having a conical or pyramidal roof

From Wikipedia:
"They consist of two or three storeys on which the hops were spread out to be dried by hot air from a wood or charcoal-fired kiln at the bottom. The drying floors were thin and perforated to permit the heat to pass through it and escape through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind. The freshly picked hops from the fields were raked in to dry and then raked out to cool before being bagged up and sent to the brewery. The Kentish dialect word kell was sometimes used for kilns ("The oast has three kells.") and sometimes to mean the oast itself ("Take this lunchbox to your father, he's working in the kell.")."

For Us:
Our View....

Toast Tips!

Butter too hard?

Try using a cheese slicer to give you really thin and quick melting wisps of butter!

My husband calls it something fancy, indicating that these very common slicers (in Canada) may not be so common here in the UK.  You can find them for cutting thin slices of cheese, and now butter, in most high street housewares shops.

This moment

 originally uploaded by Oast Mama.

A Friday/Sunday ritual inspired by SouleMama. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Reality Check: Waldorf Wednesday that couldn't wait

We had gone to a toddler group in the morning, nap time was a success (meaning she had one) and after a quick stroll around the farm, I had decided we would do our Waldorf Wednesday project for next week.  I had bought Stockmar paints late last year and have used them to do wet on wet painting  for star votives and price tags at the Steiner school fairs I have had tables at.  I thought it would be a great way to have a special moment and make my business card background for the next sale I am going to be at in a month.  I mix the paint as directed.  I don’t have a fancy wooden holder for my sweet little jars, I have baby food jars from a friend of ours.  They still have the glue stuck to the sides.  I put them on the table and go to get the bucket of water to soak the paper in.  Fill it, put Narina in her chair, bib on.  We have the brushes in the old yogurt tub of water.  We don’t have/ can’t afford/ haven’t made yet painting boards so I use plastic place mats.  We don’t have natural sponge to wipe off the surface then wipe off the paper, so I use a baby cloth.

I go to pick out a piece of paper for Narina and I see a white clump of what looks like soap floating in the water.  The last time I used this bucket was to give myself a pedicure.  It was during this pedicure that I noticed half my big toenail was coming off.  I panicked, raced to the internet to see possible causes, left the water to cool, realised I wasn’t going to be going back to that pedicure any time soon.  I dumped the water and raced onto the next thing.  Without. washing. it. out.  So in my peaceful tranquil moment with my daughter, with half the “right” equipment, it dawned on me that a callous was floating on the paper.  I took it off, ignored the rest of what was floating in the water, and we painted.

The moral of the story?

    1.    We are doing our Waldorf experience on a budget
    2.    Man am I on a learning curve
    3.    Don’t use pedicure basins for crafts with children until disinfected first.
    4.    Don’t read other amazing and beautiful waldorf blogs right after you fish callouses out of your water

           because it can make a really amazing and funny experience seem like its corners haven’t been rounded.  

I think she is looking at the callous