A Giveaway

Adrie, of the blog Fields and Fire, has generously offered a copy of her new book, The Salt, a collection of her poems, to one of you.

In addition to the book, the winner will receive one of our family's handmade birch tea light candle holders.

To enter, just leave a comment with an email address and I will be drawing names from a basket on Sunday, the 2nd.

Closed

Reading and Knitting Today

As far as reading goes, I definitely prefer nonfiction to fiction and even when I really enjoy a nonfiction book, I seldom read it cover to cover (front to back) at least at first.  

Usually, I will first pick up the book, skim through, stopping to read something that might catch my eye and then read back through the book.  Depending on how interesting I find it, I do occasionally read every word from start to finish but more often than not I have a pile of books by my bed that I change out each night, or for a week or so before another topic draws me in.  Does anyone else read like this?

Lately, I have been especially interested in unschooling or interest-led learning and then how that might look as more of our children enter adulthood.

DIY U by Anya Kamenetz is one such book.  The subtitle is Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.  There is quite a bit of history of higher education which I did skim through, but I am enjoying every word of the chapter, Independent Study.  

This is a great quote from this chapter by Henry David Thoreau -

"Students should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports

them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to

end...

Which would have advanced most at the end of a month, -the boy who

had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much

as would be necessary for this, - or the boy who had attended the lecture

on metallurgy at the Institute in the mean while, and had received a ... penknife from

his father?

Which would be more likely to cut his fingers?"

Much of this chapter focuses on how the internet has changed everything and how accessible knowledge is and that it is available through everyday people living what you want to learn about.  Collaboration is a huge aspect of real learning and the internet makes it possible, for example, to "talk" with someone anywhere in the world.

I am also reading Bill McKibben's,  Hope, Human and Wild .  I love that it is not a series of doom and gloom essays about the state of our earth, but instead offers positive solutions that are being put 

into place in various parts of the world.

As far as knitting, like my reading habits, there are many projects in the works. But one I am more focused on than the others is a gift for a new-to-be-born baby boy.  I am using the Two Needle Blocks Baby Booties and Hat pattern.  (Still avoiding double pointed needles as much as possible.)

Joining in today with Ginny and so many other inspiring knitters.

Not So Pretty Pictures

So things were pretty chaotic yesterday.  At one moment in time the following was going on:

Isaac was wiring trying to get our very old television (we use it to watch DVDs) hooked up to a digital converter box and all sorts of other paraphernalia to see if he could get something to come in.  All of the parts he brought home from recycling.  There were wires going from the TV up through the ceiling to the upstairs  out through the skylight to a wooden pole attached to our roof.  

Abraham was taking rubber mats brought home from recycling making a ramp on the couch.

Abby was up in her room watching a downloaded you tube craft video and creating something.

Nolan was replacing a hole between two closets upstairs and had plans to make a speaker from found materials.

Sarah had everything pulled out of the closet she and Abby share to re-organize.

Emmy had just taken out the watercolor paints and asked to paint.

My head was spinning and I definitely felt overwhelmed but at the same time each was engaged, doing a kind of meaningful work.

Natural Dyeing with Red Onion Skins

The other day when I was chopping up red onions for soup, I saved the skins and put them in a pot, covered them with water and heated them on the wood stove for a couple of hours and then strained the skins and kept the dye.

(This picture made the yarn look lighter than it is.)

In the meantime, I soaked a bit of wool yarn in an alum bath.

Next, the wool yarn was added to the dye bath in a pot and heated to very warm and let sit for several more hours.  Finally, the yarn was rinsed out.

I love the color that resulted - a rusty brown.

Using the red onion dyed yarn in the middle, some natural yarn next, and then finally some yarn I dyed with bracken last summer, I made a granny square.  Next I made a square the same size as the granny square, all in the single crochet stitch.  Finally, I attached the two squares using the red onion dyed yarn with the single crochet stitch around adding a loop for hanging.

I am excited to continue learning and experimenting with natural dyeing.

Finished the Crocheted Cardigan

Finished:  I am generally don't really like the look of crocheted clothing, but this pattern persuaded me to give it a try and it was very simple and the pattern was easy to follow.

It is the Fair Isle Style Kids Cardigan from this Etsy shop.

I used itchy wool that I had on hand for my first attempt.  It is a couple of sizes too big for Emmy but I think it will make a good play sweater.  I am planning to start another using some soft fingering weight wool that I bartered with a customer in a pretty pink which should result in a size to fit an infant.

Reading:  The Big-Little World of Doc Pritham by Dorothy Clarke Wilson - a nonfiction read about the life and times of an old Maine doctor.   Our little rural library has held on to many older books such as this one.

Listening:  Anne of Green Gables that I downloaded from Books Should Be Free .   On a morning such as this morning, at -23 degrees, we listened to a couple of chapters while sitting as close to the wood stove as possible.

Joining in with Ginny today.

More Related to Nonconformity

This is a great video about unschooling - worth the watch.  It is long but excellent.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwIyy1Fi-4Q‎

Martin Luther King, Jr and Nonconformity

Martin Luther King, Jr's writings and life are inspiring.

From his book, Strength to Love, I have quoted below a section from one sermon.

"Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." - Romans 12:2

  "Do not conform is difficult advice in a generation when crowd pressures have unconsciously conditioned our minds and feet to move to the rhythmic drumbeat of the status quo.  Many voices and forces urge us to choose the path of least resistance, and bid us never to fight for an unpopular cause and never to be found in a pathetic minority of two or three.

    Even certain of our intellectual disciplines persuade us of the need to conform.  Some philosophical sociologists suggest that morality is merely group consensus and that the folkways are the right ways ways.  Some psychologists say that mental and emotional adjustment is the reward for thinking and acting like other people.

     Success, recognition, and conformity are the bywords of the modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority.

     In spite of this prevailing tendency to conform, we as Christians have a mandate to be nonconformists.

     When an affluent society would coax us to believe that happiness consists in the size of our automobiles, the impressiveness of our houses, and the expensiveness of our clothes, Jesus reminds us, "A man's life conisteth not in the abundance of the things he possesseth."

     In spite of this imperative demand to live differently, we have cultivated a  mass mind and have moved from the extreme of rugged individualism to the even greater extreme of rugged collectivism.  We are not makers of history; we are made by history.  Longfellow said, "In this world a man must be anvil or hammer," meaning that he is either a molder of society or is molded by society.  Who doubts that today most men are anvils and are shaped by the patterns of the majority?  

      The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists, who are dedicated to justice, peace, and brotherhood.  The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.  ...... In his essay "Self-Reliance" Emerson wrote, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist."  The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a nonconformist.  Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave."