Good evening friends and followers. It has been rather an ordinary day, but I will give you a glimpse into the ordinary.
My little homeschoolee, otherwise referred to as Little Sister in these Bay tales, was half dead this morning with a bad case of Mondayitis. "I hate today", she said several times from her bed, and when I finally entered with breakfast, her body and head were entirely under the covers save for a skinny white arm, which I linked up with said plate. Her groanings recapitulated back to the theme of it actually being the last day of holidays and how unfair it was that I was homeschooling her today. I hearkened again and again to the fact of school being very brief today, a mere three or so questions on each topic followed by joining up with a knitting group to make wraps in the afternoon. Source of Main Gripe Two. She hoped it wasn't full of old people. Old people are 'creepy'.
A phone call. A friend in crisis. Little Sister was lifted out of herself by the plight the whole family but especially her friend. She spoke articulately about grief, her own and others, and was in a moment changed into fresh clothes with bright face, wielding a paintbrush to decorate a shoebox with the name of her friend. It was subsequently filled with yarn from my stash for her friend's 'knitting kit'. A fine fluffy lemon kid mohair, indigo denim cotton, handpun cream mixed with gold thread... a box of tactile pleasures.
We picked up Little Sister's friend to join us for knitting group. I drove at a snappy pace to town, then back (found out two streets from our destination that said friend suffers car-sickness; oops) to the little hall where Knit2 Chat2 takes place. The red door was bolted. It appeared to be the wrong week. There was relentless propaganda from the backseat re jetty jumping in winter, but I diverted my little fish by setting them off on a walk along the jetty while I fixed my headache with a takeaway latte. Minutes later I found the imps standing on the hull of a large boat. I had to wrestle with some ropes to pull them close enough to the jetty to jump back onto it. Charlotte gave a poor imitation of being unable to lift her leg from the boat, so I had to pull her forward before the boat ebbed backwards again. She was 'experimenting with the forces of the boat' she said.
Home. Chicken schnitzel burgers. Settling and coaxing. Big sister on the computer. Little sister and friend opposite me on the soft couch, curled up with Sudoko. The plan for term 3 is to start each day the same way: with Spelling, Maths and Grammar or Writing. This is to be followed by a break and then Literature or Science on alternate days. We are going to cover some delicious artistic subjects this term too (or so the plan goes): Painting, Mixed Media Sculpture (lots of clever teaching ideas from Polish artist and teacher Karla Cikanova) and Sewing. Monday as I already mentioned will be Knitting, on alternate weeks. History is daily. We both love it, and reading from our Jackie French book or our high school textbook is heavenly, like one big storytime. It is a delight to enjoy the same subject. Wednesday is our 'Art and About' day, after the rudimentaries are covered. We may visit local galleries or even brave The Big City for the Art Gallery of NSW, which is open till 9pm on a Wednesday.
We had a short satisfying session, though Little Sister's questions poured forth at the peril of continuity. The downside of a curious child. Her friend finds her funny, a fact I'm sure did not escape Little Sister's notice and spurred on her tonne of verbiage. We read an excerpt from Dear Zoo, a book of true stories about famous animals, in this case Jumbo the Elephant, from whom the English adjective 'jumbo' is taken. Our aim was to draw out only one grammatical concept, to keep our first day back short and simple. Homophones were thus the order of the day. Little Sister and friend scanned the passage for examples of same-sound pairs. They also answered a number of questions on the text. These were written by Libby Hathorn, who is herself a children's writer and collated the stories. They are not stupid, mindless questions like some comprehension exercises set for children. We covered spelling in the text with 'ph' words such as 'homophone'. Maths: uproar, professions of incompetence etc which I ignored. I set her a page or so addition using rounding off one of the numerals and subtracting the small difference later - the riot act! - I deferred to division. I am not sure why maths is such an issue for Charlotte, except that she was left behind at same stage of her schooling and feels incompetent. I might review tomorrow's maths and see if I can't present it better. Or resort to old-fashioned strictness!
Knitting Update
* Indigo cotton cushion cover finished. The quatrefoil lace looks very pretty. Am contemplating a cornflower blue linen lining to show off the lace.
* I have started a bolster cover to extend the blue theme, a really pleasurable to knit springy wool, in mid- smokeyblue.
* The Little Sister scarf is still at a friend's house. I must retrieve it so I can finish it before winter is through. It was such fun to knit with the Addi turbos and tickly mohair yarn in random stripes, and soaking up the saturated colours as I went, sating my 'blue' obsession.
* Four soft and lofty balls of alpaca lie dormant waiting to be knit up into a second ruff, or "corrugated scarf' as Lion Brand patterns have it. It will be much more understated than the purply variegated one.
Sewing
* I am thrilled to be back at the machine after a ridiculously long hiatus, and am the happy seamstress of an Alannah Hill inspired skirt in a vintage lightweight wool crepe. It is fun to switch on my design brain again and think about how I might embellish it. Three rows of gathered organza frills around the bottom? It is quite a 40s skirt, with a 'drape' over the hipline. I must finish the drape, sew the pinned up hem and handsew the zipper (infinitely preferable to machining). I have this awful habit of sitting on my sewing laurels before I finish an item (perhaps because I can visualise the finished product?) which I shall try my hardest to defeat.
Little Sister and Friend are playing a game in Toy Town. Big Sister is in bed with a Christian romance novel. I definitely need a cup of tea and to rest this weary back. Then a few more rows of diamond pattern lace. The thrill of knitting lace lies in watching a pattern emerge beneath your fingers.
J.
A yarn on family, knitting and literary addictions, vintage clothing, home school and yarn itself.
