Heirloom Strawberries

I just can't stop thinking about strawberries lately.  Maybe it has something to do with all the wooden ones we carved this spring, or maybe it's my desperate attempt to hang on to summer for just a little bit longer.

Whatever the case, I found myself knitting up some little lovely berries the other night.  Unlike the wooden ones, these ARE big enough to share with the littlest ones in our lives.  And I'm truly happy to be able to share this pattern with you.


Heirloom Strawberry

Materials

• US #4 (3.5mm) DPNs

• small amounts of worsted weight yarn in red and green

• small amount worsted weight yarn in contrasting color for seeds (optional)

• stuffing material

Strawberry

CO 9 stitches and divide evenly on 3 dpns.  Place marker and join to knit in the round.
Round 1: Knit
Round 2: *Kfb* repeat to end (18 sts)
Round 3: Knit
Round 4: *K3, kfb* repeat to end (24 sts)
Rounds 5 - 8: Knit
Round 9: *K4, k2tog* repeat to end (20 sts)
Round 10: Knit
Round 11: *K3, k2tog* repeat to end (16 sts)
Rounds 12 - 14: Knit
Round 15: *K2, k2tog* repeat to end (12 sts)
Round 16: Knit
Round 17: *K1, k2tog* repeat to end (8 sts)
Round 18: Knit
Round 19: *K2tog* repeat to end (4 sts)

Cut yarn and thread through remaining stitches to close.  Stuff strawberry body through the top and close hole.  Embroider seeds if desired, and weave in ends.


Leafy Top

With green yarn CO 6 stitches and join to knit in the round.
Round 1: Knit
Round 2: *Kfb* repeat to end (12 sts)
Round 3: Knit
Round 4: *Kfb* repeat to end (24 sts)
Round 5: Knit

The following round creates the leaf-tip shaping through decreasing and binding off certain stitches while leaving others live on the needles.

Round 6: BO the first stitch (k2, pass first stitch over), *k2tog, k1, BO 1 (pass the decreased stitch over)* repeat to one stitch from end of round, k1. (9 sts)

Cut your working yarn leaving a 12” tail. Keeping your live stitches on the dpns, place your top on the strawberry.

Using a yarn needle, sew into your last stitch and remove it from the dpn and secure it to the upper side of the strawberry.  Bring your needle up through the top of the strawberry to secure it, then bring your needle down into the side of the strawberry where you want your second stitch to attach.

Slip your needle into the next live stitch and attach it as you did the first live stitch.  Repeat until you have secured all live stitches to the strawberry.

Bring your needle up to the center of the strawberry top and use the remaining yarn to cinch together the first row from your CO edge to form the stem.  Weave in all ends.

Enjoy!


If you prefer, this pattern is also available as a PDF download both HERE and on Ravelry.  As always, if you knit one of my patterns, I would love to see!

Seven!

It's official.  All of my children are into their second seven-year cycle.

Kitty Bill had a wonderful birthday filled with all of his favorite things, like pomp and circumstance and cake.

He had a few other things, too.  Vegetable stuffed crepes and tofu scramble for breakfast.  Phone calls and mail from the other side of the world.  And presents, of course.

He was delighted to see that the girls had made him things for the dollhouse.  Moonshine made him some bedding -- a pillow, woven blanket, and woven rug.  Sunburst made him a doll.

While Kitty Bill was thrilled with these gifts, what he wished for most of all for his birthday were two specific Kinderkram castle pieces.  That was all well and good when we lived in Switzerland and wooden toys seemed to drip from the trees, but now we're in England.  The natural toys that fall from the trees on the continent are then subjected to shipping fees, customs and taxes.  So by the end of it, the purchase price for a lovely piece of shaped wood could feed a family of five for two weeks.  At least.

So Einstein and I decided to do a bit of woodworking.  This was our go-to method in the states for everything from play stands to dollhouses.  And you know what?  It feels so satisfying to be making wooden toys again.

Plus, we still had money left over to buy candles for the cake. ;)

Here's the castle defense wall I built from pine using only hand tools.  I used a standard saw to cut the pieces to size then cut the crenellations with a coping saw.  I sanded, glued, and clamped it together.  Then I took some watercolor to it and finished it off with beeswax.

Einstein built a catapult.  Kitty Bill has been drooling over the Kinderkram catapult for years.  Einstein and I drew out some plans to make a similar one, complete with an attachment for horses.  It's made out of a small block of hardwood, twigs, and dowels.  Einstein used a standard saw to cut the wood to size and a coping saw to cut out the pieces.  He drilled the holes for the dowels, and then he carved out the "spoon" with a chisel.

I watercolored the dowels and pre-made wheels to match before adding a beeswax finish.  Though it doesn't look exactly like the one in the catalog, it turned out beautifully.  And it works... perhaps too well.

So far no one has lost an eye.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.


Shared on Creative Friday.

Sunday woodworking

This past spring we seemed to have gotten into a groove of doing woodworking on Sundays.  I don't know why-- well, actually, I do.  All bursts of inspiration seem to come on Sundays at our house.  And woodworking is one of those things, for me anyway, that requires every bit of gumption I've got.

I'm not actually very good with a knife.  I have this inborn fear that I'm going to chop my fingers off.  I don't know where this fear came from, but it's probably not unwarranted.  I'm a bit of a klutz when it comes to pocket knives.  If I don't cut myself using them, I cut myself cleaning them.

The kids are undaunted though.  Both Sunburst and Moonshine have been well-schooled in the use of knives, thanks to Einstein.  That doesn't mean they don't have accidents-- they do.  But while the girls have been happily whittling sticks for years, we haven't done a ton of actual woodworking projects with them.  You know what I mean, the kind where you start with a block of wood and have a clear goal in mind.  It's something I've been meaning to rectify this year.

The first thing we did a few months back was to make simple cardholders.

The kids each selected a good width branch from the woodpile in the garden, at least 1.5 inches in diameter.  They used a small plane to remove the bark; planing is such satisfying work, they could happily do it for hours.  Once they were happy with the planing job, they took a larger plane and made a flat surface on one side.

They used a miter box to saw the end off at a right angle.  We let them decide how long to make it, which for them was anywhere from 4-6 inches.  Then we clamped the wood down very carefully, and they sawed the slit through the top.  This required some checking with a card to make sure the cut was even.

Here's the slit sawing work in action.  As you can see, we have only the most advanced facilities and equipment for this kind of work.  All joking aside, if you're like us, you just jump in and try things out without getting bogged down by the details, like decent clamps and flat surfaces.  Here you can see that we've got it clamped onto a slate bench in our garden.  It worked!

After the sawing was complete, the kids sanded and oiled their holders.  Even Kitty Bill, age 6, was able to complete this task without too much assistance.  I think they turned out so lovely!  I just love to see the grain of the wood coming through.

Another project we tackled was wooden strawberries.  We used the brilliant tutorial from the fabulous Katie Startzman of Duo Fiberworks; I just adore her work.

Because we didn't have the suggested wood, we opted to use green wooden branches from the garden.  This was great fun for us girls!  It definitely required a lot more focus and skill than the cardholders.  Both Moonshine and I managed to cut ourselves, but we didn't give up easily.  In the end, we managed to make eight strawberries between us girls.  Then Einstein gave it a try and ended up making ten of them, in less than half the time it took us.  His cuts looked nicer, too --of course they did.

Nonetheless, the girls and I were pretty proud of ourselves.

We left them to dry and promptly forgot about them for over a month.  Thanks to Kitty Bill, we finally got half of them painted with watercolors.  We improvised some green felt tops, and rather than drilling, we used knotted yarn for the stems.

Because we used wood from the garden, ours turned out smaller than the ones in the tutorial.  Chokingly small, for anyone age 3 and under.  Realistically, they are the size of Swiss strawberries, which is a tad smaller than the standard US or British variety.  Nonetheless, they are incredibly cute.

The kids couldn't wait to add them to their play kitchen/store/cafe.  I love that all three children still adore this kind of imaginative play.  And to make your own toys from branches in the garden-- is there anything more magical than that?

Why imaginative play is bad

You know all those toys the Waldorf folks encourage you to give your child?  The kind that allow open-ended play and require kids to use their imaginations?  You know what I mean-- everything from the sticks and bits you salvage from the garden to the pricey, colorful playsilks and hand-carved whatnots in the catalogs...

Sure, they're all-natural and aesthetically pleasing.  They biodegrate and even smell nice.  Heck, they're probably even tasty, if you're into that sort of thing.  But seriously, have you ever seen what kids do with that stuff?

If you're a Waldorf-influenced parent, I know what you're going to say.  You're going to adamantly insist that they play with it.  You'll tell me how they turn their play stands into shops and houses and bus terminals.  They use their conkers and tree blocks as meatballs and pancakes, dog food and money.  And with fabric and string they transform themselves into silken-winged fairies and knights, saronged princesses and shopkeepers.

Unlike barbies and action figures, these toys are open-ended.  Undoubtedly, you'll say these toys give them the possibility to stretch their imaginations to their creative limits.  And you're right, of course.  They do all that.  With these simple toys children build an endless variety of castles and forts, worlds within worlds, and these toys become as much a part of the landscape of their childhood as the earth itself.

I can't argue with you when you say that open-ended toys grow with the child, sustaining the interests and fancies of an entire household of children, boys and girls alike, for years on end.  When you say these toys outlast childhood itself, much longer than the action figure of the week or this year's must-have, googly-eyed mess of faux-fur and plastic would have, I'll concede the point.

Though biodegradable, these natural toys are the ones you'll be saving in the attic for your grandchildren, you'll say.  You'll spend hours carefully wrapping your small, coveted collection of Ostheimers to pack away with the freshly-polished wooden kitchens, castles, and dollhouses.  That is, if you can bear to be separated from them yourselves.  Yes, I know how you people think.  You wish these were the toys of your own childhood, and you get all misty-eyed and wistful at the sight of them.  Somehow you think they heal your soul.

And I'm not here to argue that point.  I get where you're coming from.  Really, I'm one of you.  I covet the tiny wooden hedgehogs and chickens, sigh at the smooth contours of silk and polished wood, and collect my own menagerie of conkers and shells, acorn caps, stones and interesting sticks.  But I still have to ask.  Have you seen what your kids do with these toys?

I mean, when you're not looking?

All that open-ended play encourages them.  They start to think that they can pretend anything with a bit of stick and silk and string.  You might think that's a good thing, and before this morning, I would have agreed with you.  But I'm here to tell you, imaginative play is bad.  When your kids' imaginations run wild, anything can happen.  Eventually, this open-ended play will take them places that neither of you would expect.  Like the doctor's office.

I'm not kidding.

While I was doing some homeschool planning yesterday, some segment of my over-imaginative children got a bit carried away with their open-ended toys and came up with a game I'm going to call "Amputee Pirate Peg-leg."  That's right--  a stick, a string, and some silk, and voila!  I can see how they might think it was a fun idea.  I mean, who hasn't been fascinated by the idea of a peg-leg?!  How do they work?  Is it hard to walk?  Et cetera.

My clever children now know the answer.  After Kitty Bill's leg was tied up behind his back and a stick was firmly attached as a stump, he discovered that yes, it is hard to walk.  And when you fall over, it actually hurts.  A lot.  More than a lot.  In fact, even after removing your stump and untying your leg, it still hurts.  By the next morning the pain in your "previously-amputated" leg is so intolerable that your parents have very grim expressions when they drag you off to the doctor's office, naturally suspecting the worst.

Luckily, Kitty Bill gets to keep his leg, but what about next time?  It surely won't be the now-forbidden game of Amputee Pirate Peg-leg, but with these kinds of unhindered imaginations, who knows which of their dangerous games will do him in next.  Blind Horse Trio.  Food Chain.  Cliff Diver Hospital.  Runaway Horse.  The Librarian and the Plague Victim.  Rabid Wolf Family.  Siamese Triplets. The Princess, the Evil Governess, and the Crazy Guy with Daggers.*

Seriously, what is wrong with my children? It doesn't take much to set them off.  These open-ended toys stretch the imagination and almost beg for it.  With sticks and a bit of string, anything is possible.

Perhaps we should have just given them mainstream toys all along.**  I have trouble imagining how a child could come up with such willful games using Barbie and Spiderman, but children shouldn't be underestimated.  Ever.


*All actual games.  Yes, my kids are a bit strange.
** I'm joking... sort of.  ;) No, really, I'm joking.

Heirloom Carrots - a bumper crop!

I recently received a picture of the baby in Hamburg decked out in his new duds.  He's so beautiful, and the parents were very happy to receive our handknit goodness.  So happy, in fact, that they called us.  Twice.

The weather has been a bit gloomy and wet, no surprise there, so I've been spending time indoors knitting for the newest babies.  With Moonshine's help, I've been cranking out some little gifts for babies in hot climates and the new babies of Einstein's co-workers.  If that sounds like a lot of babies, believe me.  It is.

This past year has been a bumper crop of babies.  They are sprouting up all over the place.  So I had to think fast and knit fast.  What to give a bumper crop of babies?  A bumper crop of carrots!

Despite the overwhelming number of carrot patterns out there, I couldn't find one that was just right.  They were either too large or too flawlessly perfect.  I wanted something that looked a little more organic, like an heirloom variety.  So I made my own pattern.  Each one is knit with superwash wool and has a little rattle nestled inside.  They are so sweet I could eat them up!

I hope you enjoy the pattern.  If you make one, I'd love to hear from you.  You can also find this pattern on Ravelry or download a pdf version of this pattern HERE.

Heirloom Carrot

Materials
• US #3 (3.25mm) DPNs
• crochet hook, size US #G (approx.)
• small amounts of worsted weight yarn in orange and green
• stuffing
• rattle (optional)

Carrot
CO 12 stitches and divide evenly on 3 dpns.
Place marker, join, and knit one round.
Round 2: *K2, Kfb* repeat to end (16 sts)
Round 3: K even
Round 4: *K1, kfb* repeat to end (24 sts)
Knit even until piece measures 1.5 inches from CO edge.

Decrease 3 stitches evenly (or randomly, like a real carrot) on next round. (21 sts)
Knit 3 rounds even. Decrease 3 sts. on next round. (18 sts)
Knit 5 rounds even. Decrease 3 sts on next round. (15 sts)
Knit 3 rounds even. Decrease 3 sts. on next round. (12 sts)
Knit 3 rounds even. Decrease 3 sts. on next round. (9 sts)
Knit 5 rounds even. K1, *K2tog* repeat to end. (5 sts)

Adjust stitches onto one dpn, and switching to i-cord, knit one row.
Next round: K1, *K2tog* to end. (3 sts)
Then K 2 rounds even in i-cord.
Cut yarn and thread through remaining stitches to close.

Finishing and Greens
Stuff carrot body through the top, inserting rattle if desired, and close hole.
With crochet hook and green yarn, pick up three stitches across middle of carrot top. Slip to close, ensuring that the greens are firmly attached and making sure to leave one stitch on your hook.

Ch 20-25 sts and turn, sc your way back down to the carrot body, randomly skipping multiple sts to make the greens curl. The greens should be rascally and wild, so just have fun with it.
Slip to close in the carrot top, and repeat above two or more times, as desired. Weave in ends.

A note about gauge: Just make sure your stitches are tight enough so the stuffing doesn't show through.