Sew here we go again..

Today marks a momentous occasion for me as I finally dust my sewing machine and pattern cutting equipment off!

Before moving house four years ago I had converted the garage in our rental to a little sewing studio where I made an array of bespoke dresses for myself and others, anyway we moved, one thing and another got in the way and I just have not had the chance to properly get going again 🧵don’t get me wrong it’s difficult trying to sew clothing where you don’t have anywhere to cut and keep things especially working in small pockets of time! But I’m looking forward to making the girls a dress each for holiday out of this beautiful linen and silk this week. I’m feeling motivated and excited to see the results, I absolutely love to sew, it’s like therapy for me!

Watch this space 😆I’ll post as I go in stories for anyone wanting to follow on any pattern

Shadow Theatre

Already enjoying our story from August’s Waldorf Magic “Worlds under water”. 🌊 🐚

This months guide has the silhouettes you need for the story as well as some other under the sea characters you can add to make more stories. It seemed so appropriate with the theme this month to have a shadow theatre which lends itself so well to an under the sea theme.

We made our shadow theatre from a box lid and then added some plants and shells behind it to add some scenery and interest. I can’t wait to see how you all interpret this story and adapt it!

The Soul life of the child

The soul diary of the child. The importance of a child’s drawing.

For a long time we have tried to understand the pictorial expression of human beings as a means to deeply understand an inner self.

When I watch the little one draw, she may scribble an image she may go to great lengths to produce an image that feels just right to her. She may randomly choose colour, she may take great care in colour choice. One consistency in her work and the drawings of every child is that children express many things in drawings, their hopes, dreams. wishes, expectations also their worries, hurt, anxiety and fears. Children draw their experienced reality linked to their past and future.

Edeltraub Wiebe, in “Kinder haben ein Recht darauf, verstanden zu werden! Ausdrucksformen der Kinder—sehen und verstehen” (PP) says

“The “purpose” of children’s drawing is simply the joy that children feel and in their wish to “express” themselves. To express themselves means to come out from under some kind of pressure. [In the German, there is a play on the words “Druck”—pressure, stress, and “sich ausdrucken”—to express oneself.'] The perception of stress is not necessarily to be equated with an experience of being burdened! More often it is due to the wish of the person to free himself from feelings or thoughts, to be able to be open for new perceptions and activities. One could also say: Children’s drawings enhance and free [the child] from feelings, unburden one from thoughts that have not been worked through, and help create the possibility to be able to confront one’s actual living situation with renewed forces

Children’s pictures are an extremely valuable document to help enable one to understand the child’s environment, to discover the child’s inner values, and to infer pedagogical arrangements that might be called for. We should always meet all pictures of a child with appreciation and respect, as he is entrusting us with his “soul diary.”

At home we honour this expression, with lots of writing materials, with notepads and sketchbooks available all the time. Materials outside such as chalk allow expression to take place when needed