Our Waldorf Homeschool Journey

One thing I don’t often blog about, is our handwork…Now I love sewing and knitting and crafting in general so I don’t find this hard going at all. Before I started homeschooling the kids, I used to help out with the Grade 1 and Grade 2 Handwork classes at their Waldorf school. Which looking back on it…I seem to have spent hours finding dropped/vanished stitches, and threading needles and undoing knots! I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat.

Anyway…sanguine temperament constantly distracted, bear with me!Waldorf Grade 5 Knitting… This year Juliette needs to knit a pair of socks using 4 needles (not a round). It’s a standard part of the curriculum but my daughter doesn’t enjoy knitting at the best of times. She’ll cross stitch until the middle of the night,but wool and needles are not her fave activity. So she has scheduled handwork times and we work on things together.

At the moment, she is on the first sock (which she might finish when she turns like 30!), it’s a soft pale blue. I always want to laugh, but keep it tucked up inside, as she hauls out her needles in a  typical melancholic - poor, long suffering me - attitude, and then knits so beautifully and then is so proud of her finished item.

Well for this knitting project I had to do a bit more preparation then usual! You see I’d never knitted a sock before!Why? I have no clue. I’ve knitted jerseys, shawls, an endless number of animals, but no socks. Quite frankly I was a touch nervous - it looks tricky with all those needles flying…Well, a did 1 sample sock, to work out the heel part and then adjusted the pattern and knitted a pair for StJohn, in surprise, surprise - Orange!

They came out so cute. He loves them and wears them every second day. I’ve taken to handwashing them in between.   So now I’m knitting a pair for myself and then another pair for StJohn (he’s asked for white this time-go figure) and John has requested a pair for his hiking boots. This I was thrilled at because when he first saw them he was a bit, ummhh, no thanks. I think he had visions of wearing rainbow socks with his fancy work suit.  But I will make him a conservative green, possibly olive…but boy do I itch to make a royal purple pair with orange ribbing!

Thank heavens for this easy knitting pattern! If anyone needs a simple knitting pattern for Grade 5  Waldorf Socks then please just email me, susan@ourhomeschooljourney.co.za and I’ll send it to you. I must have gone through 8 patterns until I found 1 that worked with a bit of adjustment. It’s easy and Juliette is even managing it with ease and a lot of “poor me” sighs.

Now St John has been working on a rabbit for ages now. It looked easy but turned out to be quite a bit of knitting. Easy to do but time consuming. He finished it last night. All the knitting was done by him including the casting off, the purl for the ears and the increasing and decreasing. He sewed it up last night and then stuffed the little bunnys’ tail with dried lavender. Then he took it to bed with him.

 

I think he did really well, he’s only 7 years old. He was so happy with his bunny, he took it to show his Grandmother today, and told her,”I even finger-knitted his bow!” Next on his list of handwork is a knitted pair of fingerless mittens, in orange to match his socks, he tells me!

Filed under: Waldorf Grade 5, Waldorf Grade 2, Waldorf Toys, Handwork & Crafting, Waldorf Homeschooling on September 23rd, 2009