It’s been a week filled with beauty, love, and plenty of challenges.  Like most weeks, basically.  Ella’s had a wicked chest cold for about two weeks, which wakes her in the night coughing (which wakes me int he night to comfort her).  I did manage to sneak in a bit of crafting while a babysitter was here (finishing a striped raglan for Ella and a Stella pixie hat – thank goodness I started them both long ago).  And I do think she’s almost better – at last.  I seem to have a re-occuring pattern that sickness lingers (in myself or my daughter) until I stop to ask myself what lesson this illness might have to offer.  Not just a complaining “Why me?” questioning, but a true wondering what the gift could be.

Today, I did not want to show up for work (meaning, life).  But I happened to reread Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa’s section in this article (it’s posted in my sewing room), and I thought, Of course.  I closed my eyes and asked to be shown how I could be of service.  I opened my eyes and there was a sick four year old, with all of her quirks and needs.  There was a husband with arms sore from erecting a huge hoophouse, who really needed a quick massage.  There were many chances to make extra cups of tea when I went to make on for myself, and endless chances to truly listen to someone talking to me, to offer a kind word, to ignore any unkindness.  I found myself singing This little light of mine, and tonight we lit two candles on our menorah.  I was so glad that I had truly been here today.

Wishing you wonderful holidays, and that the light we are all searching for finds you, wherever you are.  Blessings on you and yours.

It’s getting close to baby time now, and the days are both moving slowly and also very quickly.  After a few crazy days of doing too much, my midwife ordered me to do nothing, so I spent most of last week doing as little as I could.  I’m glad to say I’m feeling well again, and taking time, as always, to count all our blessings. On the farm, there’s a hoophouse going up, grains about to be distributed to our shareholders, insulation being slowly but surely added to every nook and cranny, and I did finally finish painting that hallway.  I swear, though, the hoophouse, insulation, and the grains are all Ben, and I’m mostly spending my days growing this big belly.  Really.

Joining Yarn Along: I finished all of the baby knits I most wanted to make, and even had time to do this sweet owlie sleeping sack.  I also have a hat secretly in progress for Ella’s Christmas present.   I’m really enjoying reading The 10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting, recommended to me by Tonya.   I’m also loving the book Natural Health After Birth by Aviva Jill Romm.  The fairies brought Ella Phoebe’s Sweater, and also Hello Baby (great for homebirthers!).

It’s definitely feeling like time to turn inward for winter, and I can’t think what I’d like to do more than snuggle with a brand new babe (and my huge babe!) in front of the woodstove.  Ella discovered in my sewing room a waldorf doll-in-progress (originally intended for last Christmas) and got really excited about making it together.  I realized that would be a great project to work on together in those first days when I’ll be trying to stay in bed as much as possible, since it’s all hand sewing.  And then, of course, there will be doll clothes to make, which will stretch it even longer.  Excellent.  Time to put some soup in the freezer, rearrange the living room to make room for the tub, and make a few simple, simple gifts for the holidays.

(Ella eating chestnuts with her Nana on Thanksgiving.)

I hope these days find you well, friends.

I’m almost done with my Shalom cardigan – only one more sleeve to go! (And how fitting that this is called Shalom, since peace definitely seems to be a theme in my life these days). I am really excited about this sweater. Honestly, I would have finished one or even two months ago, but I had to rip out my first two tries, as they were too small. But at last, it fits, and this yarn (Beaverslide Fisherman weight) is so beautiful. I’m not sure the photo captures all the little flecks of gold, but they are lovely.
I’m re-reading one of my favorite books, Meditations from the Mat, by Rolf Gates. Truly, I think this is one of the best spiritual books ever, and even if you don’t practice yoga I highly recommend it. I’m also reading Hypnobirthing, which is really interesting and I’m excited about it.
It’s been so long since I did a Yarn Along post, I wanted to also tell you about some other good reads from the past few months:
Ten Habits of Happy Mothers - I really loved this, it was so thoughtfully and lovingly written, and doesn’t make you feel bad about all that you’re not doing, just illuminates a lovely path to follow.
Handmade Beginnings – this has such cute projects, I’m sewing myself the Mariposa dress right now, and hoping I have time to make the sweet hooded jacket for baby.

For nighttime, it’s so wonderful to have a waterproof mat for the bed.  With Ella, we had some but they were too small, plus they were plastic on one side, so they made awful crinkly noises all night long.  Not so great for, you know, sleeping.

I remember someone saying a year or two ago that they had felted down a wool blanket from the thrift store to make a water-resistant sleeping mat, and I thought, Aha!  I’ve never found a wool blanket (who are these lucky thrifters?), but I did have a pile of sweaters that were worn out/shrunken, and a few I got from the thrift store just for this.  I cut them apart, felted them (on hot in the washing machine – it took two cycles for some of them), then squared up the biggest body pieces, and sewed them together.  Viola – a water-resistant, absorbent, not-crinkly sleeping mat for baby.  Nice and big, too.  (A quick aside here – when we started ECing with Ella at five months, we really focused on the nighttime, and it was amazing.  Within a week or two she stopped waking to pee in the night, and would only pee while sleeping when she was coming down with an illness.  We used, and I highly recommend, the book Diaper Free.)  I’ll use the sleeves from those sweaters to sew some wool pants.

Lastly, these booties have nothing to do with being diaper free, but that’s alright.  This is the fourth pair of these I’ve made, but the first for my own baby.  I’m in love with this colorway, it makes me think of raspberries.  Yummy.

Some of you might remember that Fair Isle yoke I was adding into the Hourglass Sweater.  Well, it turns out that I can knit Fair Isle, and that the pattern is every bit as beautiful as I hoped.

It also turned out, when I tried the sweater on, that the whole thing fit perfectly right up to the yoke, which was about 3 sizes too small.  In meshing the two patterns I got my decreases wrong, and so there was nothing to do but rip it out.  I put in the fair isle because I was worried that I wasn’t going to have enough yarn to finish the sweater (the first I’ve ever made for myself!), but after ripping out all those stitches, I found one last ball in my yarn basket.  Hooray!  And now, I’m just three rows and some sewing away from being finished.

I’m super excited.  I already ordered some yarn from Beaverslide (mule spun!  How could I resist?) for my next big project.

Oh yes, and for books – I’m reading (and really enjoying) Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, plus A Journey Through Waldorf:  Kindergarten as I prepare ideas for the year to come with Ella.  Her plans, apparently, include covering herself with bandaids, “to look like a fierce cat.” Awesome.

Most exciting of all, the winners (chosen by random number generator) are:

#20 Amy said:

I’d love to win the copy of Fix Freeze Feast

# 14 Caroline said:

Wow, what a wonderful book giveaway! I’ve been really wanting to learn to knit two-at-a-time socks, so I’d love to be entered into the drawing for that book.

I love reading your blog – checking for new entries is one of the highlights of my mornings.

#23 Katie said:

Wow, that looks to be rather complicated knitting. Good on you for tackling it! I’m hesitant to try Elizabeth Zimmerman.

Thanks for the chance at the giveaway! If I am one of the lucky chosen, I would love to have Toe-Up 2 at a time. Thanks so much!

Thanks for entering everyone!  Winners, please email me at wheatberryma(a)gmail.com with your mailing address.  Katie and Caroline – we may have to toss a coin to see who gets the sock book!

Have a great week, everyone.

Hello everyone!  First, I want to say that your comments on my last post have been so amazing to read, and I hope everyone takes a moment to go back and read through them.  I find myself both a little sad that so many of you share this struggle, and also so hopeful to hear how many of you are similarly naming and moving past this urge.

For Yarn Along today, I thought we’d do something a little different – a book giveaway!  I have three lovely books that Storey Publishing sent me over the last six months, and I’d like to pass them along to some of you (the book is thanks to Storey, and I’ll cover the shipping costs).  So, to enter the giveaway please leave a comment below (if you get this blog via email, you’ll need to click through to the Fields & Fire website to leave a comment).  And let me know which book would be your top choice – I’ll choose three random winners!  Comments will close on Sunday morning.

As for knitting, I am very very very slowly working on the Fair Isle yoke I mentioned – an alteration to the Hourglass Sweater pattern.  I’m using Zimmerman’s yoke pattern from Knitting Around – all I changed are the colors.  So, I’ve had to learn how to knit with two, sometimes three colors at once (ack!) and this is not something I can do while doing anything else.  So, it’s slow, but I think it’s coming out nicely.

Here’s the pattern chart – I made the colors a little more extreme so you could see them.

And there you have it!  Have a great week, friends.

On the needles, I’ve got more projects started then I should probably admit.  This week, I’m finishing this Five Hour Baby Sweater.  I started this, as you can probably guess, when I was pregnant.  After I lost the baby, I buried this in my yarn basket and didn’t think I’d ever want to see it again.  But time passed, and I found myself wanting to feel this yarn and these stitches again.  Now I’m about to cast off at the bottom and stitch up those wee little sleeves, and I was sad that it’s almost done.  It is, I think, a way to remember, and to keep hope.  And then, I remembered Zimmerman’s February Baby Sweater – sure looks like February outside my window.  Time to cast on!

Today, the Spring edition of Rhythm of the Home is live with an article by yours truly about the importance of working with our hands in the home.  Be sure to check it out for lots of amazing inspiration from all sorts of folks!

Also, I’m joining Ginny and others today for Yarn Along.

The second sleeve for my Hourglass sweater is almost done.  After that, I have just the yoke to go – which will take a little while because I’m going to change the pattern to include a Fair Isle pattern found in Zimmerman’s Knitting Around.  I’m running short on yarn, and when I saw her gorgeous Fair Isle yoke, it seemed serendipitous.  Knitting Around, by the way, is amazing – lovely patterns as always, and Elizabeth’s incredible life story with fabulous old photos.  Love it!

Also this week, I’ve been reading The Natural Knitter and The Knitter’s Book of Yarn.  My friend Sarah and I have been busy cleaning fleeces (remember last year’s shearing?) and so I’ve been learning about what weight yarn I want, and how many plys .  . . really exciting.  I can’t wait to have Molly & Curly yarn.  Hmm . . . which reminds me, that I need to order some shears.  Anyone have some to recommend?

Thank you, dear friends, known and unknown, for all your incredible words and emails these past few days.  You’ve touched us so deeply, and I am so grateful.  I was really, really nervous about that post, and you could not have been kinder.

Here, I am taking care to work harder than usual to be grateful, to choose joy.  Or, if not joy, then at least contentment.  At least, a kind of peace.  There are plenty of moments in the day when I find myself in tears, which I am also grateful for, that what has happened doesn’t vanish ungrieved.  But I am mostly thinking of blessings, and I wanted to share some with you here.  I’m thinking a lot of this favorite quote (which I encountered in the book The Happiness Project).  I suggest reading it a few times; it’s deceptively simple (italics are mine).

“For the love of God and my Sisters (so charitable toward me) I take care to appear happy and especially to be so.”
— St. Therese

I meant to point you in the fall to Kyrie’s wonderful series of posts on Warmth, and kept forgetting, but please do hop over and read them, they’re wonderful.  She also had an amazing post about the joys and value of housewifery (after being bedridden with a broken ankle).

I’ve been wanting for months and months to frame these embroidered dish towels (made by my great-grandmother, I think), and at last I got the embroidery hoops and they’re ready to be hung!  This little bear never fails to make me smile.

I also got a swift at last, and a ball winder.  Simple joy.  Ella couldn’t wait to wind up a ball – a perfect job for little ones!  Lucky for her, there’s plenty to be wound.

And tonight, it’s homemade pizza night, one of our favorites.  Last week was canned tomatoes from last summer’s bounty, local feta cheese, and greens picked a few minutes before.

Simple joy, ready to be chosen.  Today, it’s snowing outside (more snow!  ack!), but there is a friend’s birthday to celebrate, rooms to paint a peachy color, a few stitches will be knitted here or there, we will go on with the good work of this life.  May it be so with you as well.

Blessings,

Adrie