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Reflections on Making a Life, Blessed Are the Weird, Covid and 2020

December 19, 2020 · 12 Comments

Reflections on Making a Life, Blessed Are the Weird, Covid and 2020

What with all the pre Christmas busyness of Christmas, I thought I’d write a different kind of post this week.

I know lots of you have probably ended up here because of a tutorial. I love to make things and I also love to share the things I’ve made. Doing this as a tutorial means giving people ideas of things they can do themselves. 

But I want my little corner of internetland to be more than that, which is why from time to time I write posts about other things. 

We’re now in December of the weirdest year ever, and there’s lots of Christmas crafts flying about and everybody’s busy. Some people are pretty much there in their Christmas preparations. The rest of us are still panic buying pants for our nearest and dearest.

So we’re going to put all that to one side, make a cup of tea, find an armchair that doesn’t have stuff on it and have a bit of think about some other things.

I was recently reminded of a book I read last year. It was a book called Making a Life and I was sent a copy to review (the review’s here if you want to read it).

There are lots of books out there about making things, but this one was different, and I enjoyed it very much. It was about people who have, in one way or another, made making things a way of life.

When I read it, it made me think of another book I read at about the same time. This was Blessed Are the Weird by Jacob Nordby. One of themes in this book is how creativity was valued much more highly in the past than it is now, and how for the most part, we’ve lost this. Priorities have been redefined and the arts are now seen as frivolities. This kind of life is not doing us any good and we need to regain some of this that we’ve lost.

A common theme that runs through both books is the idea of being able to live the kind of life where creativity is a part of it. Not a part that gets squeezed in when the we’ve finished for the day at our important job, when the kids are in bed and the housework’s all done, but the kind of life where creativity and life go hand in hand.

This kind of life means slowing down. Any sort of creative process takes time. Sometimes we have to leave things for a bit for them to dry, or for the dye to take, or for the things to grow. Other times things need to be left so we can come back to them with fresh eyes.

During Lockdown 1 lots of us no choice but to slow down. Many people found themselves spending more time with their families. The circumstances made us re evaluate what was important to us. People talked about being stuck at home, like they were trapped in a prison, but in an odd way, we were made free. There was freedom from endlessly rushing about, commuting, being stuck in traffic, having to do things because of other people’s expectations. We were free from some of the pressures of modern life.

And lots of people, once they’d got used to it a bit, rediscovered the desire to make things. It provided an outlet for processing what was going on and a distraction that kept hands and minds busy.

So here are a few random thoughts about both books and the weird year that is almost over.

Being Forced to Slow Down

We know that living life at a million miles an hour doesn’t do us any good.

We have become human doings, rather than human beings.

Modern life pre covid could be held responsible for all kinds of things, including:
Stress related illnesses
Health problems caused by eating things that are not good for us
Intensive farming practices, leading to reduction of different species of insects, animals and plant life, inhumane treatment of animals and risks to health and the environment.
Fast fashion and a throw away culture
Consumerism and a focus on having more or better stuff, rather than what we actually need.
A preoccupation with stuff rather than relationships.
Unhealthy work practices where we work long hours to pay for the stuff.
Pollution caused by traffic we rush from one thing to the next, and by delivery vans bringing the stuff we’ve bought that we wanted yesterday.

Being made to slow down encouraged us change how we see some of things, at least for a short while.

2020 Has Made Us Re Evaluate Our Priorities

When we went into lockdown, things that previously seemed important suddenly  didn’t matter as much anymore. The foremost things in our lives became food, health, family and community.

Having money didn’t make any difference when the supermarket shelves were empty. 

People who could sort us out with food and take care of us if we became ill were suddenly the most important people in the world.

The coronavirus doesn’t care about your status. Having a big house or a fancy car or feeling important because of your job makes little difference if you catch it.

It will be interesting to see how life will look when we come out of this. I’m hoping that the world will have changed for the better. Remote working is definitely an option for lots of people, even if it’s just for some of the time. We’ve enjoyed the cleaner air and we’ve realised we don’t need half the stuff we think we do. And people have rediscovered the benefits of making things.

We’ll Attach More Value to the Things We Have

One of the reasons we don’t value things is because they don’t cost what they used to.

In the past, a winter coat was an investment, as was a pair of shoes. It was acknowledged that skill was involved in making them and the materials used were expected to last.

Now we can pick these things up for a few pounds, wear them for a couple of months then throw them away.

There are reasons why these things are so cheap. The two main ones are that the people who make them are paid a pittance, and they are made of cheap materials.

When there is still some use left in clothes that we have simply got bored of, we hand them off to charity shops as a way to relieve any feelings of guilt we might have. But the unfortunate reality is that a lot of what gets donated to charity shops still ends up in landfill anyway.

Making things ourselves gives us a sense of the skill and the effort involved.

If you’ve spent hours making a dress, it’s very unlikely that you’ll only wear it a couple of times before deciding that you’re bored of it or that you don’t like it!. 

Usually much more thought goes into making something than buying things often on impulse from high street shops. 

You get to choose the style, the colour, the kind of fabric and whether it’s a print or plain.

Every step of the way you can check that it fits, and if it doesn’t, you can adjust it. 

You can modify the pattern as you like, make the sleeves longer or shorter, add a contrast panel, change the length of the skirt. Ultimately you’re far more likely to end up with something that you like and that fits properly!

Even when it reaches the end of its life as a dress, you might decide that there’s still useable fabric there and turn it into something else.

It’s not just clothes either. Everything that we have made, cultivated or nurtured with out own hands is much more likely to be used because we know the effort that we put into them. 

So the ripe tomatoes get eaten and the unripe ones turned into chutney, the weird pottery bowls get used, the hand painted flower pots are given as gifts and tie dyed experiments are turned into cushion covers. 

This leads to less need for mass produced things, less waste and much more satisfaction at using things we have made with our own hands.

Creativity is at the Heart of Humanity

Countless generations of humans have made things. 

Our primitive ancestors made bowls and cooking pots and tools. There’s even a theory that modern day humans survived was because they learnt how to sew!

The Vikings travelled all the way to North America in beautiful boats they carved by hand.

Beautiful cathedrals have been built from stone and filled with stained glass windows and other works of art.

Even in the post industrial age, there is still skill and beauty in the things that humans have made. Steam trains are beautiful things. The Millau bridge in France is a wondrous feat of engineering.

The boys and I have been watching a series on Netflix about design. Our favourite episodes so far have included a guy who designs trainers and the architect who designed the Lego house in Denmark. There was another episode about a car designer, and another about a chap who makes funny little animations. 

One thing that is clear here is that humans are designed to make things. Some of us have never lost this, but some people were in danger of forgetting.

We know that making stuff makes us feel better. It makes us feel happier, calmer and less tired and grumpy. There’s evidence to suggest that it can help with depression and PTSD. 

We might not recognise this as a spiritual thing, but scientists have discovered that losing oneself in a creative project actually has a similar effect on the brain as mindfulness and meditation. If you’ve ever forgotten to eat because you’ve been engrossed in something, you’ll know what I mean! 

For some people creativity allows them to connect with their cultural heritage. For certain groups this is a big thing, often because they were in real danger of losing their heritage at the hands of other people, for instance the First Nations of North America. 

But white Europeans have a cultural heritage too, and there’s a very high chance that we will lose it because we don’t realise that we have something to lose.

To sacrifice our creativity in favour of a life of consumerism and mass produced junk means to lose touch with an essential part of our humanity.

Living a Life With Meaning and Purpose

The good news is there has never been a better time to be a creative person.

Government funding for the arts before the pandemic was already at an all time low. This includes school budgets for creative subjects, although there is still money for endless educationally dubious testing of children.

In spite of this, we are seeing a creative revival.

The fact that Etsy is as huge as it is now shows that there is an increasing interest in buying handmade. 

Upcycling has also gained in popularity. Not only does it offer an alternative to throwing things away when they still have life in them, it’s another option instead of buying everything new.

The wonder that is the internet means that whatever you want to learn, there are blog posts, YouTube videos and online courses.

And you have something to offer, you can. Anybody can write ebooks, start a blog, post videos on YouTube or sell things on Etsy.

It’s worth remembering that when it comes to creativity, there is a huge variety. Anything from basket weaving to growing tomatoes and knitting mittens to drawing mandalas. 

I’m going to let you in on a little secret: you don’t have to be an expert! Never mind about 10,000 hours of practice, you just need to be a couple of steps ahead of the people who want to learn from you, or be able to make something that somebody without your skills wouldn’t be able to.

There’s no avoiding it that 2020 has been a horrible year. But hopefully some good can come out of it.

We’ve had the chance to reconsider what is important and realised that health and family are more important than money and status.

Perhaps as a result of this success can be redefined as a life well lived, a life that allows us to exercise our collective human heritage as creative people. 

And maybe normal can be redefined so as to encompass the whole of the human experience with creativity at its centre.

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Textile Self Portraits

October 23, 2020 · 4 Comments

The Knitting and Stitching Show is usually held in various locations around the UK.

Obviously it’s not happening this year. But as we’ve found over the last few months, we are fortunate enough to live in an age where we can do things and get together without even having to leave the house!

Instead of hosting a large show in a location that might not be easy to get to anyway depending in where you live, plus the usual stress of parking, public transport and not knowing where the loos are, the Knitting and Stitching Show are hosting an online event instead.

This is going to run for a month in November. There will be online workshops, competitions and shopping discounts From their website, it sounds like they’re still putting it together, but you can sign up for their email newsletter if you’d like to know what’s going on when they’ve sorted it all out.

One thing that is definitely be happening is a textile self portrait competition.

Anna Baptiste, the Event Director of the Knitting and Stitching Show, says, “With the textile community unable to come together in person at our autumn shows this year, we have designed the next best thing – a creative, colourful way to see each others’ faces online. We can’t wait to see crafters sharing their lovely faces and smiles through their favourite textiles and techniques.”

textile self portrait competition knitting and stitching show 2020
Maggie Scott, ICU3, Nuno felted silk chiffon & hand stitch. www.maggiescottonline.com

I’ve included details included rules and things below, but there’s something else I need to say first!

You might not think of yourself as an artist, but if you are here, you are a creative person.

People talking about composition, mastery of techniques and execution and other arty terms always makes me very aware that I wasn’t good at art at school.

But there’s more than one way of doing things, and creativity takes lots of different forms.

textile self portrait competition knitting and stitching show 2020
Joan Eytle Kendall Soulweaving

The first attempt doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, the finished thing doesn’t have be perfect, because I suspect that it’s the little quirks that give individual artists their style.

I’m hardly an expert in these matters, but I would say that if you want to have a go, then do! The process is fun. Identify what you like to do, choose colours that you like and that reflect who you are. Think about what a self portrait could say about you, even if it’s just that you’re a knitter who likes pink!

Obviously copying another person’s work is never a good idea, but if you have no idea where to even start, looking at what other people have done can be useful. With that in mind, I have started compiling a Pinterest board of textile portraits, which you can find here.

If You’d Like To Enter, Here Are the Rules:

Any textile medium will be accepted. You could use embroidery, cross stitch, make a quilt, knit a jumper, it’s up to you!

Entries need to be 15-20 cm wide and 24-30 cm long. Life sized and 3D pieces are also welcome.

The self portrait can be from any angle, and should be of your face and/ or your head.

Abstract is fine, but it needs to be recognisable as a face.

Entries don’t have to be made specifically for this competition. It’s fine to enter something that you’ve entered previously in another competition or exhibition, as long as you didn’t win. If you have something that you’ve made already, you can enter it if you want to.

textile self portrait competition knitting and stitching show 2020
Cindy Stohn – My Big Face low res

The Judges

Entries will be displayed in an online competition gallery, and the portraits will be judged by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn, who are both textile designers.

There will be a public vote as well for The People’s Choice Award.

What Will the Judges Be Looking For?

A strong visual and aesthetic impact
Appropriate choice of thread, fabric and materials
Use of colour
Composition
Mastery of techniques used
Good execution

What Happens if I Win?

The competition is being sponsored by Pfaff and they’ve donated a prize of £1,000.

There will also be runner up prizes, and prizes for the children’s catgories.

textile self portrait competition knitting and stitching show 2020
Kate Jenkins self portrait

How Do I Enter?

The deadline is Friday 20th November, and you’ll be able to enter from the end of October.

You’ll need to fill in the online form on the Knitting and Stitching Show website.

There’s an entry fee of £10 for adults and children’s entries are free.

The competition gallery will go like on Friday 27th November, and the winners will be announced on Friday 4th December

Full rules and terms of entry can be found here: www.theknittingandstitchingshow.com/self-portrait competition/

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Things To Make And Do In The Autumn

October 11, 2020 · 2 Comments

things to male and do in the autumn

If you’ve been here before, you’ll probably know that I love autumn.

I actually have a hard time choosing between the seasons! Lots of people like the summer best. It’s nice not having to wear a coat and people’s gardens smell nice and you can go to the seaside, but there’s a lot to be said for coming home as it’s getting dark, putting the lamps on and lighting the fire.

Here in England, warm sunny weather often persists into September. Even in early October, the afternoons are sometimes warm enough to not need a coat. I should say though that this has not been the case this year and so far October has been mostly wet!

In the last 3 years, we’ve also managed a trip to North America in October, so I’ve been able to enjoy beautiful foliage that we don’t really get here.

There are plenty of other things to like about autumn too! Here are some of my favourites.

things to make and do in the autumn

Apples. I remember as a child my dad being very particular about the apples he ate in the autumn. They had to be russets. I’ve no idea why! We’ve lost the seasonal thing with fruit and veg a bit, so it’s nice to remember that we get apples in the autumn. I put them in cake, make apple crisps (my boys love these!) and chop them up and put them in porridge.

Blackberry picking. My boys and I do this every year. This year I’ve discovered that other berries are edible too! We’ve collected whitebeam berries, hawthorn and rosehips (leaving plenty for the birds of course!), and turned them into hedgerow jelly.

Pumpkin spice. In cake, pancakes, coffee, warm milk. It’s the smell and taste of autumn.

Going to the woods. I like doing this in all seasons, but especially in the autumn. A flask of hot chocolate and a muffin makes it even better, especially if it’s cold.

Making the most of being at home. This is something most of us have got quite good at over the last few months! Autumn offers us lamps, blankets, candles if you don’t have a fire and a chance to work on projects we haven’t got round to finishing yet.

Christmas. Still some way off, like a twinkly village at the other end of the valley, it feels alright to think about Christmas once the colder weather sets in. Vague plans about where the Christmas tree might go, and when to make the Christmas puddings are enough to make us feel warm and fuzzy but not enough to stress us out.

So as a celebration of autumn, I have written an ebook! I’ve given it the title Things To Make And Do In The Autumn. Perfect for the autumn loving homebody, it’s full of ideas of things you can do to make the most of autumn.

Sections include things to do at home, in the garden and in the kitchen, things you can do for yourself and things to do to start getting ready for Christmas that don’t feel too Christmassy. There are recipes, craft ideas and patterns and templates are included.

I’ve designed it in such away that it feels like a treat! I’ve made title pages with beautiful images, and the other pages have autumn themed backgrounds. It’s the kind of thing that you could read on a tablet, in an armchair with a mug of tea or coffee or sweet apple cider.

I had a lot of fun putting this together and I hope you’ll like it! You can find out more here.

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What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us?

March 29, 2020 · Leave a Comment

What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us_

It’s time for a random post about something that’s nothing at all to do with sewing or making stuff!

You probably know already that I have 4 boys, and you might also know that I home educate the younger 2. I did have the 2nd one at home last year as well, but he went back to school in September for the start of secondary school.

Some people make the decision to home educate their children when they are babies. It wasn’t like this for us! My boys were all at school when we decided to take them out. Home education isn’t as common in England as it is in the USA, and everybody we knew with school aged kids sent their kids to school.

It was only when the third one, Barnabas, was having problems that we started to think about home education. I’d tried unsuccessfully to get them into a different school. The academy system in England means that lots of schools in one area will be run by the same people, and living in a rural area there wasn’t much choice anyway. Home education was the only other option.

So we removed them in September 2018. Aidan had just started in Year 6, Barnabas was in Year 4 and Cosmo was in Year 1.

It has been the best thing! Barnabas is a different child now, there are no homework battles and I don’t have to do the school run! There are no tests or extra classes. They’re learning all the time so there’s no need!

Aidan went back to school in September 2019 for the start of secondary school, and having a year of home education has done him no harm at all. In fact, he’s coped better than his older brother, probably at least partly because home education gave him the more opportunities to develop as an independent learner.

People often have questions about home education, and never more so than at the moment with most British children being at home instead of at school. Here are some of the questions I get asked all the time!

What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us_

Do You Have to Follow the National Curriculum?

No, thank goodness!

I don’t rate the English National Curriculum at all. There’s too much emphasis on tests and rote learning, and the expectations put on young children are too high . I don’t believe that it’s providing our children with the skills they will need to thrive in the modern world.

Being able to do what we like means that we can follow our children’s interests, and encourage them to learn things that might actually prove to be useful, like computer programming.

It also means that things don’t have to be taught as discrete subjects, and we can take more of a “whole of life” kind of approach. Subjects often overlap, and things frequently make far more sense if they are seen as part of something larger.

Maps are a good example. I got the maps of Norfolk out last week for some maths. The boys were learning about ratio and proportion at Barnabas’ request, and I wanted them to understand that scales and ratios have a practical application.

I didn’t set them things to do. Maps are interesting and I didn’t want to take any of that away by making it like school! I did make some suggestions, like “Ooh, King’s Lynn! Can you work out how long it would take for us to walk from the bus station to the dentist instead of catching the bus?”

They were happy looking at the maps for about 45 minutes, and in that time we covered not only maths, but English, History, Geography and life skills as well.

What About Phonics?

What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us_

Mercifully we don’t have to do this either.

I should probably say that I don’t have a problem with phonics. What I have a problem with is phonics being promoted as the only way to learn to read.

I think that reading should start with books! Unfortunately in English schools at the moment, the mechanics of reading are taught so that children can pass a test at the end of Year 1. The pass mark for this test is 80%, and as part of it, children have to read words that are not real words. This is to test that the teachers are teaching phonics exclusively.

After a year at school, Cosmo could barely read. Now, with a little bit of help, he can read easy first chapter books. We’ve done some phonics, word families and sight words, but I suspect that the thing that’s made the biggest difference is that he’s part of a family where reading is normal and he has unlimited access to books.

How On Earth Do You Teach Your Kids When Mine Won’t Do Anything I Tell Them To?

This is a big one.

Lots of us who sail into home education with the idea that it’s going to be like school with us being the teacher find very quickly that that ship is full of holes!

This is particularly true if you have a child for whom school just didn’t work.

Let’s just think for a sec.

If school didn’t work for your child, why would it work if you recreated the same thing at home?

And even if school was, or is, fine, why would you want to make home like school? Maybe we need to make education like home!

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of what goes on a school has more to do with managing large groups of people and government expectations than with education and how children learn.

What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us_

In home education, we are parents first and foremost, not teachers in the school sense. But our children still learn so much from us!

By the time a child is 5, they can walk, feed themselves and dress themselves. They can use the toilet. They can share and take turns at least sometimes. There are so many things they’ve learnt about the world around them already. And they’ve mastered language, which is a huge thing!

Children are not taught most of these things, but they learn to do them anyway. Cosmo wasn’t taught to do any of them! I didn’t even do toilet training with him because I suspected he’d do it himself when he was ready, which he did.

As they get older, children’s learning still happens all the time, not just in school. Learning happens without classrooms, worksheets, writing, a curriculum, tests or rules. It happens without qualified instructors. It even happens without adults!

So lots of home educating parents see themselves as facilitating their children’s education, rather than running a kind of school from their kitchen table.

Being a facilitator is about providing your children with opportunities for learning rather than actually teaching them.

This can take the form of finding documentaries for them to watch, books that you have already or from the library and materials for them to engage with as they choose. Put them where the child can find them, perhaps draw attention to them, then allow the child to choose. Some things will go down well, other things will not. Sometimes things will take a totally different route to the one you were expecting!

I should probably say at this point that my children don’t have total freedom over what they do. They can learn whatever they like, but they need to have basic skills like reading and writing. In the end, I want them to own their learning. If there’s resistance I find another way and they always have a choice and a say in what they do.

What About Socialisation?

Ask any veteran home educator about this and you will probably met with laughing and maybe some eye rolling!

Think of the most anti social person you know. For me, it’s myself, ha! That anti social person probably went to school.

Now think back to your school days. How many times did our teachers tell us, “You don’t come to school to socialise”?!

Some kids love school and have masses of friends. Some adults have lots of happy memories of having lots of friends.

But this isn’t the case for everybody. School can be a horrible place if you’re sensitive or different.

Some children spend break and lunchtime on their own. Others will be kept in to finish off work and don’t have a chance to play with the other children. Some are bullied. Others are excluded by other children. School is no guarantee of positive interactions with other humans.

For home educated children, there are lots of groups for them to attend. Some of them are structured, others are freer. If the children don’t enjoy a particular group, you can cross it off the list and try another! Unlike school, there’s the freedom to choose.

My boys go to drama classes, forest school, roller skating and another group that’s like mums and tots but with bigger kids. They also do karate and Cubs and Beavers, they meet other kids at the park and when they’re out playing Pokemon Go. One of my boys didn’t really have any friends when he was at school. Now he has lots.

So How Does Home Education Look At My House?

What is Home Education and How Does It Look For Us_

The best thing about home education is that you can do what works best for you and your children. Somebody else’s home education might look very different to ours, and that’s fine! This is what’s working for us at the moment, and it changes and evolves as my boys grow and change.

Monday

On a Monday we’re usually out. The boys attend drama classes in Ely, or we go to forest school. We usually get back home from drama just after 2pm, and the boys will either opt to play, watch a documentary or do stuff on the computer.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays we’re often at home. There are groups on but they’re not every week.

I usually start by reading to them. At the moment we’re enjoying The Secret Garden. I made the decision to read classics because I want to expose them to children’s literature that they might not necessarily pick up and read for themselves. I’ve read them The Railway Children and The Children of Green Knowe, both of which went down a treat! And I’m enjoying revisiting these old friends from my own childhood.

After that we usually do some English and Maths.

With Cosmo, he does a little bit of spelling, handwriting, reading and writing with me. We use the National Geographic levelled readers for reading, but sometimes he’ll read a bit from something else instead. He’s also got a couple of sticker books, and sometimes he’ll read the page to me then do the stickers.

For spelling we use Words Their Way. I was very happy to find an ex library copy on Ebay for £3.75! It focuses on word families rather than phonics and there are lots of suggestions for word sorts and games.

We use Brave Writer for writing. Cosmo has a writing project to do each month. There’s enough flexibility for him to choose what he wants to do. The project for March was a photo journal. Cosmo took some photos and we printed out his favourites. He decided on an order for them and we wrote a caption for each picture. He wrote about half of them himself and I scribed the other half for him. Then we made them into a book.

I wasn’t sure about using a curriculum for writing, but I can’t rate this highly enough. There are samples and other free things to try before committing to anything, and there’s a podcast too. So if you’re on the hunt for something, I’d recommend this!

Barnabas is an avid reader, so getting him to read isn’t a problem! A few weeks ago, he read all 4 of the Mortal Engines books and The Hunger Games in 1 week! And this wasn’t even all he read!

Writing has proved to be an issue. We’re now at a point where he will write if he uses the computer, and I’m in the process of getting him an assessment for dysgraphia. We use a handwriting program called Speed Up which focuses on building up muscles and co-ordination.

Barnabas has a writing project each month too, and he chooses what he wants to write about. He’s currently writing a newspaper report about aliens.

what is home education and how does it look for us

I’ve recently started taking a different approach to Maths. Lots of people have difficulties with Maths, and I’ve been wondering whether it’s because Maths has traditionally be taught as lots of little separate bits of arithmetic. It takes a long time to get to the point of being able to see the bigger picture, by which stage most of us have given up!

So we’re starting with bigger bits of the picture, and I’m calling it Playing With Maths.

We have a theme for the week and we see where it takes us! So far we’ve done paper aeroplanes, patterns, triangles, and ratio and proportion. Areas of Maths covered in this way have included measuring, various kinds of graph, interpreting data, making predictions, number patterns, shapes, algebra, angles, Pythagoras, square numbers and square roots, symmetry, addition and subtraction, fractions, multiplication, ratios in baking and scale in maps and models.

We also do some hands on Science, a poetry teatime (at lunchtime in my house!) and visit the library.

Any time that’s left in the mornings will be filled with other things the boys want to do. They both like making little games in Scratch. Cosmo likes drawing and painting. Barnabas has recently chosen to learn about the Soviet Union, and he’s learnt a little bit of Russian and some Latin. He’s learning to play the piano using an app.

After lunch the boys are free to do what they like. Sometimes we go out for a walk or to the park. They might choose to watch a documentary, do something arty or make something, or play.

Friday

Friday is our grace day. If there’s anything we haven’t managed to do or that needs finishing, we’ll do it on Friday. Otherwise we might go to the library if we haven’t already been that week, or go to a museum. Or we’ll do something arty, or play board games.

At some point this will probably change, but it’s working for us at the moment. My boys are happy and healthy and they’re learning, so that’s good enough.

Some Tips if You’re New To Home Education Or You’re Having To Because the Schools Are Closed

If it’s all going well, that’s great. But if it’s not, if the kids are resistant or the school have stopped sending stuff, here are some suggestions.

Remember that learning doesn’t have to look like school! Younger children learn best through playing. We all learn better by doing rather than being told. We can learn from reading books and also through watching television. Reading and Maths are things we do all the time. Worksheets are not the only way.

Just because something isn’t on the National Curriculum or won’t turn up on a SATs test, it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth learning. If your children what to learn something, then that’s a good enough reason. And if you’re worried about English and Maths, it comes up in everything, even Minecraft!

Lessons in life are useful ones to learn. This includes tidying up, cooking and doing laundry, as well as sticking to a budget and understanding why people pay taxes.

Remember that even at school, children don’t just do English and Maths. Physical exercise is important. Playing with a ball or on some play equipment helps them to develop gross motor skills, strength and co-ordination, as well as wearing them out so that they sleep well.

Art and the arts are valid. Imagine if somebody had told Leonardo Da Vinci that he shouldn’t bother with drawing because times tables are more important! The arts encourage children to develop motor skills, observational skills, language, self expression and fine motor control, not to mention that people can and do earn a living doing these things!

There doesn’t have to be a clear distinction between home and school. The whole of life is learning and if the lines are blurred, that’s fine. Your kids aren’t at school, so lets not make home like school! Lets make ongoing learning and education part of life at home, complete with a snack, a blanket and a favourite pet if it helps things along.

Strewing is one of my favourite things. It basically means leaving things lying about for your children to engage with. This could be books, or little trays with science bits in them, magnetic letters, art materials, anything! It helps if the table is clear apart form the things you want them to do. If it’s yet another thing in the mess they might not notice (guess how I know!).

Another version of strewing is sitting down to do something yourself. Maybe some art things or a microscope that plugs into your phone, or a project of some sort. Your children will probably want to know what you’re doing and will want to join in, especially if you pretend to be a bit precious about it.

Find out what they want to learn! Growing stuff, a foreign language, how a car works, whether Bigfoot really exists and what did actually happen to Amelia Earhart! As I’ve said before, there’s lots of learning in all kinds of things, and it’s much easier for everybody if the children are learning things they want to learn.

Sewing is a fun thing to with children and there’s plenty of maths involved! They might like to make their own trousers, or they could try a drawstring bag from a pillowcase!

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Filed In: Blog, Other Stuff / Tagged: children

Book Review: Making a Life By Melanie Falik

December 10, 2019 · 1 Comment

Book Review_ Making a Life by Melanie Falick

Book Review: Making a Life By Melanie Falik

I was sent a copy of this book to review. All the opinions expressed are my own.

About the Book

One of the things I love as much as making things is reading, so when I was offered a copy of a book about making things, of course I said yes!

And I’m glad I did because I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it.

Making a Life is an interesting, beautiful and inspiring book.

It is not a “how to” kind of craft book or one of those aspirational “Look at my space” kind of books (thankfully because I don’t really like those!).

It’s about why people make stuff as well as what they’re making, how they got to where they are, why it matters and how it affects their outlook.

In some ways it’s similar to Jacob Nordby’s book, Blessed Are The Weird, which I read last summer. Both authors talk about the important role played by craftspeople in times gone by, and how and why things have changed and the impact this is having on us as human beings. 

book review making a life melanie falick

The Journey

Melanie Falick begins by talking about her own journey and how the book came to be written. She’s previously written books about knitting, but wanted Making a Life to be a different kind of book.

She also refers to the journey she undertook to find out about different cultures via their making traditions. Travelling changes a person’s perspective, and learning about handcrafts and how they fit in to a different culture affects the way in which we see our own.

Like Jacob Nordby, Melanie Falick talks about the journey of how we’ve got to where we are here in the west.

In our earliest days, if nature didn’t provide exactly what was needed, then something had to be made. Craftspeople and makers of all kinds, had a vital role to play in the community and were held in high regard.

The author refers to the people who wove by hand the cloth that made the sails on Christopher Columbus’ boat, enabling him to sail to America.

Now the arts have been largely reduced to the status of an unnecessary hobby enjoyed by those with time on their hands.

This is reflected in the underfunding of the arts, both in schools and elsewhere, and also in the status and salaries of science related jobs. Science is valued; the arts are not.

Yet there is an increasing feeling among people who make things that maybe this is something we don’t want to lose. It’s part of out heritage and our history, and part of our humanity as well.

Some of these are the people in the book. They don’t just have creative jobs. They’ve figured out a way to live in a way that gives their lives authenticity and meaning.

making a life melanie falick book review

The Chapters

The rest of the book features interviews with 30 different makers, arranged into 5 chapters: Remembering, Slowing Down, Joining Hands, Making a Home and Finding a Voice.

Obviously there’s some overlap between them. Making something by hand involves slowing down, as anyone who has ever made anything by hand will attest! 

The second chapter refers in particular to slow fashion, and adopting a slower pace not just because the making process demands it, but to allow for family life as well.

The third chapter, Joining Hands, talks specifically about makers who are creating communities. There’s the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland, who through their quilts document African American history and cultural and social  issues such as gun violence. 

There’s also a shoe making collective in Brooklyn, New York, and an Englishwoman who runs crafting workshops at her castle in France.

But even the makers who are not directly building a community through their crafts, are still in a sense linking hands with the crafting community past and present. There’s a history and a set of skills, even if the makers use the same techniques to make something different. Annemarie O’Sullivan is a basket maker in the South of England. She makes baskets in the traditional way, but also uses some of these skills and techniques to make sculptures from willow.

book review making a life melanie falick

Threads Running Through Making a Life

Several interesting threads run through the book and through the lives of the makers featured.

The first is that not many of these talented men and women were on a clear path to a creative life from their early childhood, but came to their craft later in life. There are several women featured who took craft classes as a way of getting a break when their children were tiny, and these turned out to be the first steps on their journey.

Having said that, the seeds of creativity were often sown while they were children. Sometimes it was a parent, a neighbour, a family friend or a favourite teacher. Often it was a grandparent.

We live in a society that downplays the useful role older people have to play in passing on skills and knowledge. Lots of us can relate to learning all kinds of things from older relatives.

It’s also interesting that the sweet elderly ladies of the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland (the oldest member is 92) are not just sewing and chatting, but are politically involved through their quilting.

The second is the idea that making things and being creative is an intrinsic part of being a human being. It’s a thing we are designed to do, and to be. It gives our lives meaning.

Not being creative is to lose part of that that makes us human and somehow makes us less than what we could be. Ellen Dissanayane, the first interviewee in the book, says that the emptiness and dissatisfaction we often feel could be due to not satisfying a primitive need to create.

The third idea that runs through the book is that the creative process enables us to connect spiritually with the Divine, nature or the universe depending on what you call it. It is a way of connecting with the Something that is greater than ourselves.

What Now?

There was so much of this book that struck a chord. I’ve felt for a long time that there is something very wrong with the way that lots of us live our lives.

It’s making us ill. We’re stressed out, depressed and overweight, and dealing with the consequences of all of these. We’ve lost sight of who we are and what matters. We’re destroying the world around us. 

There’s a lot to be said for slowing down and reengaging with nature, the seasons, our creativity and our humanity.

These people in Making a Life are lights in the wilderness. They have slowed down. They have time for their families. They are forging new kinds of community, where people and the environment are not exploited at the expense of others’ success and are able to be creative and live in a way that give their lives meaning.

I don’t know at the moment how that might look in my own life, but I’m planning on spending a good chunk of 2020 figuring it out.

The book is here on Amazon (affiliate link).

You might also like this post about how sewing enabled the survival of the human race.

book review making a life melanie falick

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Filed In: Blog, Other Stuff / Tagged: why make stuff

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I'm Anna and I live in rural Norfolk in the UK. My mum taught me how to use a sewing machine when I was 10 and I haven't looked back! I love making all sorts of things and I hope you find inspiration here.

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