Monday, January 30, 2012

Can you be Ginger Bear?

My mum is a playschool lady (Hi Mum!) and she made a lovely story book to read to the children about one of the bears in the toybox, Ginger Bear.

Some of the children loved the bear so much that they were refusing to play with anything else. So Ginger Bear has gone on holiday.

Here's where you come in. Could you send a postcard from where you are to the playschool as Ginger Bear?

If you can, keep it simple with something like

"Dear children

Am having a lovely time on holiday in XXXX, I have been to see XXXX

Love Ginger Bear
x"

in nice big clear letters and post it to:

Daisy Chain Preschool
Methodist Church Hall,
Station Road,
Westbury,
BA13 3JL

Can you be Ginger Bear?

My mum is a playschool lady (Hi Mum!) and she made a lovely story book to read to the children about one of the bears in the toybox, Ginger Bear.

Some of the children loved the bear so much that they were refusing to play with anything else. So Ginger Bear has gone on holiday.

Here's where you come in. Could you send a postcard from where you are to the playschool as Ginger Bear?

If you can, keep it simple with something like

"Dear children

Am having a lovely time on holiday in XXXX, I have been to see XXXX

Love Ginger Bear
x"

in nice big clear letters and post it to:

Daisy Chain Preschool
Methodist Church Hall,
Station Road,
Westbury,
BA13 3JL

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Trying to do something about this

1327852700218

The second person this year implied I was pregnant. The first at my dance lesson just asked outright when the baby was due, and today someone asked if I was knitting for my baby. Since the ectopic pregnancy, my stomach has been bloated and hasn't gone back to normal. So I clearly need to do something, so we're on a major health kick. Tracking the calories, avoiding the booze, and doing as much exercise as my dodgy leg can manage. Here's me and the sunday gang on a 2hour walk.

Trying to do something about this

1327852700218

The second person this year implied I was pregnant. The first at my dance lesson just asked outright when the baby was due, and today someone asked if I was knitting for my baby. Since the ectopic pregnancy, my stomach has been bloated and hasn't gone back to normal. So I clearly need to do something, so we're on a major health kick. Tracking the calories, avoiding the booze, and doing as much exercise as my dodgy leg can manage. Here's me and the sunday gang on a 2hour walk.

Friday, January 20, 2012

Half the Sky

A lady at church let me borrow her copy of http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

I knew superficially about the horrors inflicted on women around the world. I knew that educating women lead to smaller healther families, and increased economic growth by increasing the workforce.

What I didn't know was just how brutally some women are treated, just because they are women. Rape being used as a weapon of war, culminating in rape with sticks or glass to kill the victim or stop her having children in the future.

I didn't know that girls married young cannot bear children as easily, and without access to good maternal healthcare, labour on their own, their babies die inside them.

In both instances parts of their reproductive system rot away, or tear, and then fistulas form so urine and feces leak through the vagina constantly. Making the girls outcasts for not saving their children, and because they are dirty and smelly.

Fistulas like these can often be repaired if the woman is able to seek medical attention, and projects throughout the developing world are trying to set up hospitals and teach local people how to repair them without the need for a surgeon.

I didn't know that paying for a girl's school uniform every year can help keep her in school for longer by relieving the financial burden on her family. She'll be better educated and the longer she stays in school the later her marriage will be, and so she will be older, and will find having children easier.

Some of these things are so small and simple and will make a real difference to lives.

I encourage you to read the book if you can, or look through the website to find out more about what we very lucky people in the western world could do to help. I've just sponsored a woman through Women for Women http://www.womenforwomen.org/, where I will be able to write encouraging letters to my sponsored sister. If you can spare the money to do something like this, please please do.

And if not, maybe you can donate a little somehting to a girls school uniform? http://www.womenforwomen.org/

And if you have no cash at all, could you spare time to publicise this? Or to write letters lobbying the governement to spend more money supporting female education and maternal healthcare?

This is about all human beings being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. This is about equality and looking after our worlds future.

Half the Sky

A lady at church let me borrow her copy of http://www.halftheskymovement.org/

I knew superficially about the horrors inflicted on women around the world. I knew that educating women lead to smaller healther families, and increased economic growth by increasing the workforce.

What I didn't know was just how brutally some women are treated, just because they are women. Rape being used as a weapon of war, culminating in rape with sticks or glass to kill the victim or stop her having children in the future.

I didn't know that girls married young cannot bear children as easily, and without access to good maternal healthcare, labour on their own, their babies die inside them.

In both instances parts of their reproductive system rot away, or tear, and then fistulas form so urine and feces leak through the vagina constantly. Making the girls outcasts for not saving their children, and because they are dirty and smelly.

Fistulas like these can often be repaired if the woman is able to seek medical attention, and projects throughout the developing world are trying to set up hospitals and teach local people how to repair them without the need for a surgeon.

I didn't know that paying for a girl's school uniform every year can help keep her in school for longer by relieving the financial burden on her family. She'll be better educated and the longer she stays in school the later her marriage will be, and so she will be older, and will find having children easier.

Some of these things are so small and simple and will make a real difference to lives.

I encourage you to read the book if you can, or look through the website to find out more about what we very lucky people in the western world could do to help. I've just sponsored a woman through Women for Women http://www.womenforwomen.org/, where I will be able to write encouraging letters to my sponsored sister. If you can spare the money to do something like this, please please do.

And if not, maybe you can donate a little somehting to a girls school uniform? http://www.womenforwomen.org/

And if you have no cash at all, could you spare time to publicise this? Or to write letters lobbying the governement to spend more money supporting female education and maternal healthcare?

This is about all human beings being treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. This is about equality and looking after our worlds future.

From the Sartorialist - Dries Van Noten

Media_httpimagesthesa_dlrob

Love the live art at the show along with the boldness of the art on the jacket.

From the Sartorialist - Dries Van Noten

Media_httpimagesthesa_dlrob

Love the live art at the show along with the boldness of the art on the jacket.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Resolving to create things for you

Hello all and welcome to 2012. A few weeks in, how are you feeling?

I like the fresh feeling of new beginnings. In the last few days I feel like I must have knitted a hoard of tiny baby things for friends. That thrill of the cast on new and full of potential in your hands.

I seemed to go through this last year. How lovely it is to have a blog where you can chart your personal life rhythms and know you're not going mad.

I often find myself resolving to eat less and move more this time of year, and I am trying, I am really trying. 40 star jumps, 30 sit ups, 20 squats and 10 press ups on the days I can't manage more, and wii fit and the gym when I have more time.

I'm resolving to be quiet and silent again more, and to create more, and to be happy.

So, given this is how I feel about knitting,

Knitting and Safety

Sat here knitting, writing, watching bad yet good telly I am surprised at how well I multitask. It's like my brain is so full of energy and noise that the only way I can concentrate on what I need to get done is to channel all the excess into other outlets until nothing is heard but the history noise. Slowly but surely I'm typing the words, knitting good rows and learning about lives I never lead.

Knitting is so soft and natural to me. It takes up my hands and fills both of them. I've been experimenting with crocheting, and the spinning with one hand, reaching in and out of chains drips slowly out my fingers. It's both frustrating and fascinating. I'm not sure I like the dense fabric of it much. I think knitting will always be my go to craft.

Some thing in me wants to knit primeval simple warm things to look after people. Blankets for babies, rugs for floors, simple sweaters for my friends to wrap them in my love always. I want to loop tales with hopes and prayers and make smiles. If only I had the money for yarn.

and I can sew, and paint, and make websites and cook and flower arrange, and that I enjoyed my making 5 things for people last year, can I make something for you this year? I can advise on email marketing and organise events and design flyers too.

What little thing would give you a lift this year, what would you like?

 

Resolving to create things for you

Hello all and welcome to 2012. A few weeks in, how are you feeling?

I like the fresh feeling of new beginnings. In the last few days I feel like I must have knitted a hoard of tiny baby things for friends. That thrill of the cast on new and full of potential in your hands.

I seemed to go through this last year. How lovely it is to have a blog where you can chart your personal life rhythms and know you're not going mad.

I often find myself resolving to eat less and move more this time of year, and I am trying, I am really trying. 40 star jumps, 30 sit ups, 20 squats and 10 press ups on the days I can't manage more, and wii fit and the gym when I have more time.

I'm resolving to be quiet and silent again more, and to create more, and to be happy.

So, given this is how I feel about knitting,

Knitting and Safety

Sat here knitting, writing, watching bad yet good telly I am surprised at how well I multitask. It's like my brain is so full of energy and noise that the only way I can concentrate on what I need to get done is to channel all the excess into other outlets until nothing is heard but the history noise. Slowly but surely I'm typing the words, knitting good rows and learning about lives I never lead.

Knitting is so soft and natural to me. It takes up my hands and fills both of them. I've been experimenting with crocheting, and the spinning with one hand, reaching in and out of chains drips slowly out my fingers. It's both frustrating and fascinating. I'm not sure I like the dense fabric of it much. I think knitting will always be my go to craft.

Some thing in me wants to knit primeval simple warm things to look after people. Blankets for babies, rugs for floors, simple sweaters for my friends to wrap them in my love always. I want to loop tales with hopes and prayers and make smiles. If only I had the money for yarn.

and I can sew, and paint, and make websites and cook and flower arrange, and that I enjoyed my making 5 things for people last year, can I make something for you this year? I can advise on email marketing and organise events and design flyers too.

What little thing would give you a lift this year, what would you like?

 

Sunday, January 08, 2012

A tiny norwegian baby jumper

1326051491028

Made following instructions in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears.

A tiny norwegian baby jumper

1326051491028

Made following instructions in Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Without Tears.

Epiphany galette and the ninja game

Here is my galette. It was tasty.

Tonight was family party night, and at midnight we went on to Charley's birthday do. They are playing the ninja game and having pen fights.

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Epiphany galette and the ninja game

Here is my galette. It was tasty.

Tonight was family party night, and at midnight we went on to Charley's birthday do. They are playing the ninja game and having pen fights.

Friday, January 06, 2012

A first sonnet for Epiphany | Malcolm Guite



Epiphany
It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.
Today we're going to have an Epiphany party to end Christmas. We're going to eat Galette du roi, and have broccoli for bitter myrrh, spicy curry for fragrant frankincense and satsumas for gold. Whoever finds the bean in the galette will be the king of the party.
So when I saw this shared on Phil's Tree House - http://philipstreehouse.blogspot.com/ it touched me, and I thought I'd share it on again here.

A first sonnet for Epiphany | Malcolm Guite

 

Epiphany

It might have been just someone else’s story,
Some chosen people get a special king.
We leave them to their own peculiar glory,
We don’t belong, it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when these three arrive they bring us with them,
Gentiles like us, their wisdom might be ours;
A steady step that finds an inner rhythm,
A  pilgrim’s eye that sees beyond the stars.
They did not know his name but still they sought him,
They came from otherwhere but still they found;
In temples they found those who sold and bought him,
But in the filthy stable, hallowed ground.
Their courage gives our questing hearts a voice
To seek, to find, to worship, to rejoice.

Today we're going to have an Epiphany party to end Christmas. We're going to eat Galette du roi, and have broccoli for bitter myrrh, spicy curry for fragrant frankincense and satsumas for gold. Whoever finds the bean in the galette will be the king of the party.

So when I saw this shared on Phil's Tree House - http://philipstreehouse.blogspot.com/ it touched me, and I thought I'd share it on again here.