Viking times

A few years ago, when our oldest turned 21, we had a Viking themed birthday party. Naturally we spent a lot of time researching and then making various Viking inspired garments, meals and weaponry and along the way found out about some other obscure little details. One of these was how to make a long, fairly strong cord on a small disc. 

Last weekend, when our dearly beloved but very busy 11 year old needed something to keep him suitably occupied while it rained, I remembered that I still had the wooden discs that we had made those cords with. Unfortunately, I didn't have the instructions, so after much searching via google and a few false attempts, I started the youngest two on a Viking cord each. After all that prolonged googling, I did discover that maybe it wasn't actually from Viking times, but rather from the Middle Ages and even then I'm not really sure about that. 

Anyway, here are the photos and hopefully enough of an explanation so you can make your own....

You will need:

- a small scrap of wood or thick cardboard, ours is thin plywood  

- wool, about 1 to 2 metres in length x 12 lengths. It not only makes a nice pattern but helps you to keep track, if you have 4 strands each of 3 different colours. 

Cut a circle of about 10 or 12 cm's diameter out of the ply or card (we have one of each of those sizes and both work fine), then cut out a hole of 1cm diameter in the centre. One of ours has a 2.5cm hole and it still works ok but was a bit harder to start off. 

Now cut 24 slots evenly around the outside edge. 

Put your 12 strands of wool together and knot one end. 

Poke the knot through the centre hole and space the wool around the disc as shown - each colour exactly opposite to the same colour. 

So now here's the tricky part - not tricky to do but tricky for me to explain! 

Hold the disc with the wool in place, in front of you. You should have one of the pairs of wool at the 12 o'clock position when you are looking at it - in the photo above it's the blue strands. 

Now take the right hand "12 o'clock" wool strand out of it's slot and move it down to the right side of the corresponding colour wool at the 6 o'clock slot. Use your right hand to do this and hold the disc with your left hand. Making sense? 

You now have three at the 6 o'clock and only one at 12 o'clock.

Swap hands so you are holding the disc with your right hand and using your left hand, take the left piece of wool up to the left side of the single strand at 12 o'clock. You should have two strands up there again and one step is completed!!
Sorry this photo is not straight on, but trust me it was straight for Fairy Girl and a bit tricky for me to photograph! (and if you have a really good look you will see that I've posted them upside down!) 

Move your disc slightly in an anti clockwise direction so that the two strands of wool to the right of the blue 12 o'clock now become the new 12 o'clocks (yellow) and repeat the procedure. 

With your right hand move the right strand (yellow) down to the right of the same colour. Swap hands and move the bottom left strand (yellow) to the left of the remaining yellow at 12 o'clock. 

Another step completed! 

You will keep working in a clock wise direction although the disc actually moves anti clockwise. Does that make sense?

If you have a close look at these (I think you can click on the photo and it comes up bigger) you will notice that on the small disc the light green strands look a different shape, and on the large disc, the yellow strands look different. Thats how you can tell which was the last pair of strands that you moved. One of each is over all the other strands on that side and I suppose that is essentially how the weaving of the cord is done. So if you put it down and come back later, just start again with the strands to the right of the "different' set and keep going from there!

And here again is the finished product - a lovely twirly cord that can be used for all manner of things! Ours are still on the disc but will soon be finished and I'll be sure to let you know what they end up as. The kids have been 'weaving' while I read aloud and bit by bit they are getting longer!

Oh and just so you have an idea of final size - we used lengths of about 2.5 metres long for one of them because I thought it would be great to make a long cord, but....it really was a pain to keep it from getting tangled up. I tried rolling the strands on old plastic thread reels which helped a little but it wasn't completely successful. Your wool needs to be about 3 times the length that you want your finished cord to be although thats just a rough guess! For the second one we used 1.5 metre lengths.

Even if the Vikings didn't invent this, I still like to imagine a sturdy Viking Mama in a smoke filled longhouse weaving one of these to use as ties for her warriors' new linen tunic!

I hope you have a go at this because it really is mesmerising to do and such a pretty end result! And if you do, let me know as I'd love to see how it went - and if you could follow my instructions!!    

Weekend work

Another weekend has flown by...... some sun, a bit of rain and lots of out door activity! 

There was a bit of carpentry happening with a new style of guinea pig home! 

Some mowing - but only enough mowing to make a race track! 

A touch of weeding and pruning of currant bushes......

and a lot of admiring of tenacious little heartsease flowers that have kept on flowering all winter! 

I hope you all had a relaxing weekend too. Or if you are on 'the other side' of this big ball, then I hope you are having a great one!!! 

On my mind...

......... is Spring, and I am delighted to see the signs of new growth everywhere. This beautiful view is what visitors to our little town see when they first drive in or the last thing when they drive out - hopefully after having stopped and spent time here! In a month or two the silver birches lining the road will be in leaf and then Summer will be with us once again.... bliss!!

I am also thinking about the lovely visitors that pop in to my blog. Thank you to everyone that takes the time to read my thoughts and welcome to those that have chosen to add me to their regular reading list. It really is very gratifying to know that someone likes my rambles enough to want to read them regularly!

I've linked this to Down to Earth's Friday feature 'On my mind' - thanks Rhonda!!   

Winter swap

These cosily dressed little beings were recently sent off to my swap partner in the Southern Seasons Exchange. I hope she liked them as I haven't heard from her but I think they are rather cute!  

 The candle is locally made and has the most delicious smell of honey and all things nice and summery! And I added in the zippered pouch because the doily reminded me of a snow flake......

....which in turn, prompted me to use more doilies in the wintery gnome-y photo shoot!! 

I often admire the lovely pics on other blogs. It intrigues me to think that other busy mamas must have  the most awesome cameras and perfect settings! When I was fiddling around with these, I thought I'd take a photo of the setting with all the surrounds!! Taken on my kitchen bench with the morning sun streaming in through the window...... great backdrop, great lighting and it made me realise that for most of us, it just takes a bit of effort and a little ingenuity!! 

The things I can do......

........ now that I no longer have any children under 5 years old! 

Great title for a book, huh? It's taken me quite a while to fully realise and embrace this state of 'freedom' - until now I have still been thinking like a mama with ongoing littles, though I suppose thats to be expected! After all, I have spent 21 years with under 5's and my brain is programmed to be on the lookout for any potential child dilemmas! Perhaps I need to wipe the hard drive in there and reload a new program...... "Children almost self sufficient" or just "Relax"!!! 

So, I have been giving this some thought and have come up with a small list of changes in my life - not in any order of import just randomly ..........

- Scarves are no longer items of possible strangulation and can be worn without constant rearranging.

- I can go out without a large bag of accompaniments. In fact I can go out on a whim and all remaining children get dressed, find appropriate shoes and an apple or two without much input from me! 

- I can sit in a favourite chair and sip tea and read a book and get REALLY engrossed in the story knowing I will not have to get up in two minutes. 

- Lovely long strands of beaded necklaces can adorn my person without risk of being snapped and the beads rolling off in a dozen different directions. 

- Sunglasses can stay on my head and not be imprinted with sticky finger prints or worse, have a very loose fit from being used by chubby hands on chubby bellies. 

- I no longer need a weeks supply of snacks, in a box at my feet, when we travel further than 15 minutes from home. 

- I can plant seedlings in nice straight rows and know they wont get pulled out as soon as my back is turned - and hear someone say "weed, Mama?" 

And if I thought about it longer I'm sure there'd be a whole lot more! Funny thing is, it's so hard to break the habits of so long -and when all is said and done, I do miss those days with lots of young ones. Hard work, yes; never ending days, yes; satisfying, yes!! 

I would love to have added some pics of some of my long ago babies, but they are all on our old computer, so I had to content myself with leaving you with one of the whole family, taken about 2 years ago! Our one and only professional family photo shoot! 

Blue and white

After all last weeks rain ...... yes, yes I know you must all be heartily sick of me telling you about our rainy weather but truly it has been wet, wet, wet and I miss that Sun so much! Ahem... as I was saying, after all that rain, it was such a joy to wake up to a sunny clear Sunday - hooray!! 

I went outside to see blue sky, green, green grass (that our little tribe of guinea pigs are getting quite fat on) and best of all, sweetly scented snowy white plum blossoms! I could smell spring just around the corner - at least for today! These wild plum trees start flowering so early - in fact right behind the daffodils and snowdrops - and so early sometimes that the blossoms get knocked right back with the frosts we still get in September. 

Right now though, I am so thankful for the lovely show they are putting on!

Oh, by the way, the small white garment on my washing line, is not a strangely shaped pair of knickers - although you'd be excused for thinking that - it's actually a sports bra .......truly!!! 

Wheel of the Year

Our focus this week has been on the Seasons. Outside, for most of the week, it's been raining but in our tiny home we've seen a whole year of weather - from sunny seaside days, brightly coloured falling leaves and spring lambs! It's been a fantastic way to spend our mornings! 

I used ideas from the maths main lesson on 'Time' from A Journey through Waldorf Maths by Melisa Nielson and then just incorporated my eclectic approach from there.  The chalkboard drawing idea was borrowed from here (she has some good stuff happening at her place!) but I needed to tweak it to suit our seasons and our life. 

Of course, in usual Steiner style there was a beautiful verse to memorise, but also as usual it was only useful to those in the Northern Hemisphere. So whats a mama in the south to do?     

Well this mama, who likes to utter words of wisdom in poetic form from time to time, (yes they do roll their eyes!) thought she'd have a go at 'fixing' it to suit her little dears. And I would like to share it with any other mamas out there on the Southern end of the globe. 

January brings swimming fun,

Picnics, flies and lots of sun.

Flowers droop and creeks are dry,

When February passes by.

Yellow turn the fields of grain;

With March sun and March rain.

Aprils fruit is good to see, 

On pear and plum and apple tree.

Cool Mays leaves come fluttering down, 

In shades of russet, gold and brown. 

Cold Junes gift is rich and rare, 

There's beauty in the branches bare.

July makes noses bright and red;

Puts scarves and beanies on our head.

August winds bring ice and snow;

But hark, the roots begin to grow.

September brings sweet flowers bright;

Daffodils all yellow and white.

Octobers blossoms - pink and gold;

Posies for small hands to hold. 

Novembers here, and warmth abounds, 

Paddocks greening all around.

December, season of Christmas cheer: 

Gifts, good food and ginger beer. 

The original verse is from The Crowning of the Year by Juliet Compton-Burnett and is very lovely but just didn't work for us down under! I hope this was OK to do..... but it's done now and we are very thankful that she wrote such a nice original!

Pictured below are our Main Lesson books complete with drawings that suited the words. 

Oops, I just noticed that my little man forgot to add the 'beanies'!! 

Even Miss Elli joined in because after all who doesn't enjoy a spot of colouring in on a rainy day - as opposed to doing regular book work! I'll let you in on a little secret - I'm really loving the excuse chance to do all these colourful drawings. With this Steiner curriculum (I'm mostly using the Christopherus curriculum but with my eclectic bent) I get to do loads of drawing and colouring....bliss!! 

This verse is designed to suit us here in Tasmania but if you are in Northern Australia or some other southern hemisphere country, maybe you can tweak it again and add what ever happens in your area in any given month. I had a lovely time working it out and then drawing pics to match. 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Cauliflower in the raw!

We like to eat raw foods as much as possible. Now thats not all that easy over winter when the garden isn't producing much in the way of salad veggies; or when the produce at the local fruit and veg shop is just so pricey and the folk at the Farmers Market are only selling cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and potato - well, it feels like that anyway!! 

I do have a couple of salads that use some of those healthy cruciferous veg and we do eat them rather often in the cooler months of the year. Lentil Dahl and rice or Potato Bake is just so much nicer when there's something fresh and appetising on your plate as well! Don't get me wrong - I like both those dinners a lot but I enjoy them a lot more with a bit of fresh, green, crunch beside!! 

Yes, this is a caulie - I bought it at the Farmers Market last week. It's called a Broccoflower and is a cross between the two. I don't normally buy any of those odd looking veggies - you know the ones that look like they have been genetically mutated, but just this once I couldn't resist ...it did look so fresh and delicious and vibrantly green. It wasn't as good as a real cauli though and I will be sticking to the real mccoy again!  

So, here's our way of eating a whole cauliflower in the raw, in one sitting!! This recipe is one I've been making for quite a few years...... mmm, over 10, at least ...... and I cant remember the cookbook I first found it in. (I still own the book but it's packed away with most of our belongings in a storage bay in NSW, but thats another story!) No doubt I've changed it from the original but this is how we make it now. Remember to tweak it so it suits - I've written it as best I can because, really I don't measure anything, so add or subtract anything you like! 

RAW CAULIFLOWER YOGHURT SALAD

1 medium cauliflower

2 or 3 shallots or spring onions sliced

Small bunch red radish, sliced

1/2 to 1 cup green olives with or without pimento, sliced 

Yoghurt Dressing

1 cup plain yoghurt, Greek style or what ever you normally like

1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Juice of 3 lemons

2-3 cloves garlic, crushed (or less - we love garlic)

1/3 cup of olive oil or your usual oil

1 teaspoon salt

Break the cauli into florets and slice finely.

Add finely sliced radish, spring onions and olives. 

Mix all dressing ingredients together - in another small bowl is good.

Toss veg and dressing together to combine. 

Do a taste test to check the salt levels as I"m just guessing here. 

Enjoy! 

I've made it with cucumber or capsicum in place of the radish and red onions instead of the shallots but I am never allowed to leave out the olives! 

And because there were less of us at home and I am used to feeding a small army, there were leftovers! This was lunch the next day - toasted sourdough with Dahl and cheese and nicely marinated salad! 

Do you have any fresh ways of eating cauli's? 

Or any ideas to add to this recipe? 

Purple Pocket Power

Nothing spectacularly exciting happened here this weekend, so I'm going to show you the purple corduroy dress I cut out for my Fairy Girl a while ago. As usual, I used an old op shop pattern and tweaked it to suit, so I'm pretty happy with it - in fact it was all thrifted, even the zipper! I had just enough of the cord fabric but had to cut the front one way and the back another, which means that the 'nap' of the fabric is different from front to back and is noticeable in certain light. It's only an everyday dress so it's not drastic but generally I like to keep my pattern pieces all going the same way. If you automatically do this every time you cut out a garment , then you wont have any problems with the patterned fabrics or those with a 'nap' like corduroy or velvets. 

You can see in this photo what I mean about the 'nap' or 'pile' of the fabric - not terrible but not something you want on a dress for fancy occasions! Oh and excuse the wrinkles..... she was in a hurry to wear it with those shiny red shoes!! 

Just thought I'd show another little hint - about pockets. Starting on one side with the opening towards the back of the machine, stitch down about a centimetre (1/2 inch for any US readers) then angle it slightly and stitch again going backwards as shown. Then down again and backwards back up to the beginning to stop anything from unravelling. When you get to the other top side do the same. This gives the pockets a little extra strength when small hands stuff treasures into them !!! 

I'm just rereading this and it is a bit hard to follow, but try it on the sewing machine and I'm sure you'll work it out! Let me know if this was a help. 

Karate kids

 Humour me, please..... I am about to have a proud mama moment! We'll be back to "normal" blog posts in the next few days but right now I just want to show off my current teenagers a teeny?(ha ha) bit, ok? 

As you see, three of my lovelies do a martial art - Budokan Karate, which is simply one style of many different styles of karate. They have been training for almost two years and loving it. All three have focused and practised and trained diligently and today they graded again.

Lovely Layla and Elli both earnt their green belts and Remo is two belts ahead on his purple one. When we arrived home after grading, we had a celebration photo shoot on top of our pile of wood chips and because it was quite a chilly day, they didn't mind showing off some of their moves!! 

Nothing like a bit of help from your sisters, is there!!

So, my sweet clever children - Congratulations!!!!! 

Crochet beanies

Another awesome late winter-with-just-a-touch-of-spring day!! Aaahh I'm in love! I really, really wanted to spend all day outside, weeding and digging over some of the garden beds, but it was not to be. Earlier in the week I had crocheted a funky beanie for myself (yes, something for me!) and naturally the girls wanted one too, so what could I do? I did get to sit in the sun and soak up some warmth while madly crocheting and I did get to supervise some grass raking, so all is well! 

Our three youngest girls got the job of modelling (I did ask Master 11 to join in but he not so politely declined) On the left is mine, then The Fairy and Miss Layla - and yes we had a lot of fun during our photo session! There are quite a few out takes though!! 

The pattern is from lovely Linda at Natural Suburbia. I saw it a little while ago and when I read that it was doable in a couple of hours, I was hooked - ha ha, love that pun! Remember when I bought these skeins of locally spun wool? It was a while ago and I had thought I'd knit them into something nice. Well, I'm not a knitter so they hung there on the corner of our bookshelf until I realised I'd better use them for something other than knitting. Something I could do quickly and with far more skill!!  

Linda did a great job of writing out the pattern and I didn't 'tweak' it at all other than crocheting a row less for the littlest one. I did however, add a couple of chains at the beginning of each new row and I will attempt to show how I did it. Please bear in mind I have never written a tutorial before and am not an expert crocheter and will be speaking in layman's terms! 

Here goes.......

Right at the beginning, after you have joined your chain and before you begin crocheting, you need to make two more chain stitches. The reason for this is so that it gives a square start to the new row of double crochet. 

In the photo's below (and please excuse the well worked mama hands, at least my nails are clean today!) I've already made several rows but it's the same each row so just pretend its the first one - as you see, it gives a nice 'tall' start to the new row and you can then do your first double crochet into the next stitch, although I forgot to take a pic of that - sorry. 

These are the two chain stitches. 

Below you see the end of the row of dc's where I am just about to join them up and finish off. 

And here I'm joining up into the second chain stitch just using the following - yarn over hook and pull through both stitches. Then you make another two chain stitches and continue on with your next row.  

Not sure if thats explained really well, but if you can work it out it does make a nice beginning to your new row. Of course if you are using treble crochets you would make three chain stitches and so on. 

Once again, many thanks to Linda for her great tute - I am a bit inspired now to have a go at making another sort of crochet hat, a rasta hat, for my Golden Girl who likes a bit of hippie chic!! 

Let me know if this made sense - or if you already knew how to do it and I was only thinking that I knew more than you!!!   

Sunshine and Ginger Biscuits

Today was a most spectacular day! Sunshiny, almost windless and beautiful!! Just the sort of day that inspires me to go outside and sit and ponder the garden - what to plant, where, and how soon. I do get a little bit excited when we have a day like this, especially after all that rain and wind - I tend to get loads of grand ideas which never seem to come to fruition because there are just so many of them, which of course, puts me into a temporary slump! 

But today, I didn't ponder alone. No, indeed, the Best Man came and sat under the half finished garden shed roof with me and we pondered together. We didn't come up with any grand ideas, but just sat and chatted about this and that and enjoyed the sun on our faces and the sound of little birds singing. 

We also ate and drank - but didn't get too merry - and worked out a rough plan of our new garden area and where to put the proposed polytunnels. 

Earlier this week I posted about some Ginger biscuits that I had made and Hinterlandmama asked if I would share the recipe, so this morning I thought I'd just bake another batch to make sure they always turned out okay (not because I wanted to munch bikkies in the sun, okay!) They did. And we enjoyed them out there in the springish air along with a frothy hot chocolate. Let me just warn you that these are not a health conscious biscuit - but best saved for a rare occasion as there's plenty of sugar in them! 

Ginger Biscuits 

50gm butter

1/2 cup golden syrup

1 large egg yolk, beaten

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 cup plain flour

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda

Preheat oven to 180C. 

Grease baking sheet.

Melt butter and golden syrup over gentle heat.

Transfer to mixing bowl and mix in egg and sugar.

Sift in flour, ginger and bicarb and mix well to form a paste. 

Place rounded teaspoons of mix onto baking sheet leaving about 3cm between.

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes.

Transfer to wire racks to cool.

I always make a double batch and just use half a 250gm block of butter - it's a bit extra but seems to work just fine. The recipe says to roll into walnut sized balls but my mix is usually too soft, probably from the extra butter, and I just use a teaspoon and drop it on. 

I don't think we really ate all those by ourselves...... I'm sure we had help from one or two littles while our mind was wandering over the new garden...... I think....!!