Handwork Through the Year with Jennifer Tan

Donna: Welcome to the Waldorf connection online expo. Thank you for being here with me tonight. I hope you are getting some valuable information from this expo series that you can take back and apply to your home schooling lessons.

When we think of planning, sometimes they can seem overwhelming and how can we get it all organized. So to give you one piece of the puzzle, tonight, is a very talented fiber artist and Waldorf home schooling mom – Jennifer Tan. She’s going to go through her program, Handwork through the Year. So let me just tell you a little bit about Jennifer. Jennifer is a very multi-talented fiber artist, musician, aroma therapist, and home schooling mom of three children. She owns Gosh Yarn It, web store, and sells her amazing goods there and at her site – Syrendell. Featured on HDTV, Jennifer’s, creativity in many areas pour out into her Waldorf-inspired schooling and wonderful creations. Her family’s home schooling blog is syrendell.blogspot.com and also thewaldorfsway.blogspot.com. So, welcome back Jennifer Tan…

Jennifer: Thank You Donna for having me back. I appreciate it and I am absolutely thrilled to be speaking tonight about handwork which is one of my favorite topics being a fiber artist myself. And for those of you who can see on the slides, I’m going to be clicking through them, and the pictures that you will see on the slides tonight are real pictures from our home They are actual projects that we have made. Let’s see. Okay.

Donna: If you’re on the webcast and you need to start it. You can hit that little thing that says slides and you can watch it go through.

Jennifer: Okay. Just to start off tonight, I wanted to do a quick quote from Rudolf Steiner from his book called, Handwork Indications. He said that, “Children who learn while they are young to make practical things by hand in an artistic way and for the benefit of others as well as for themselves, will not be strangers to life or to other people when they are older. They will be able to form their lives and their relationships in social and artistic ways, so that their lives are thereby enriched. Out of their ranks can come technicians and artists who will know how to solve the problems and tasks set us by life.” Just think about how beautiful and says it all right there, by hand - that is so important.

So to get started, when we plan our handwork for the year, the very first thing I recommend is to create a calendar. I know some of you out there, probably because its summer, are already thinking about creating your home schooling calendar and I know you all do it in very different ways. So I’m not going extremely specific on how to do it because you will have your own style. There are lots of ways to approach your calendar; one is you can just start with holidays and celebrations. By celebrations, it could be birthdays or father’s day, or special things you do as a family. Holidays could also include the seasons, like summer solstice, like winter solstice, as well as religious holidays and ethnic holidays.

When you plug in those holidays and celebrations into your calendar, that automatically gives you lots of excited inspirations for creative projects and that’s are really good place to start. And to be honest with you, I know lots of families that is the only handwork that they do all year – it’s just for the holidays and celebrations because there’s a lot that you can do.

Another way to do it and is to tie in your handwork with your curricula and your blocks. So, depending on the ages of your children, you probably already have some blocks in mind for Social Studies, for Science and you can very easily tie in handwork to those blocks. I think that’s a lot of fun. Instead of coming from it like “Well, I want to teach knitting, this time of year,” you might come at it, “Oh, this time of the year, we’re going to be learning about ancient Greece and so let’s look at architecture and geometry and ooh, let’s use do drawings, and oh, let’s maybe make some clay vases, and oh ---“And it just kind of go on and on from there and you get really excited. Before you know it, you’re going to have so many handwork ideas that will tie in with your curriculum. You’re not even going to know what to do with all of them.

Another way to look at it is to look at your yearly Waldorf chart. So if you are a Waldorf-inspired home schooling family and you really want to stick to what Waldorf schools do, you can look at… “Okay, my child is in second grade therefore he/she should be crocheting this year.” And that is another way to work into your calendar, the handwork. But that is really up to you. I know some families who stick to that very rigidly and I know other families who look at it as a basis for maybe what we should do this year but maybe their children aren’t interested in crocheting or knitting at that point and maybe they’ll do it later. They might have older children that never learned how to do basic woodworking and so they may introduce it now. And that’s okay too but that’s really up to you and your family to decide.

Once you created your calendar, you can then purchase your supplies. And on your calendar, I actually put down dates for me to get the supplies because some supplies are easy to get during the summer. You can order them online, go to the bookstore or whatever that you need to do. Go on Etsy.com but other things, you’ll want to wait and get.

So it’s kind of good to sit there and look at the projects that you have in mind and say, “oh yeah, we’re going to do---” like let’s say you’re going to do pottery, but you want to make sure that the clay is really fresh. You don’t want it to sit around in your house the whole year. Then you might want to a month beforehand in your calendar, purchase some clay.

Make sure on your calendar that you schedule weekly handwork time. I get a lot of questions about this and this is really a tricky one because people say “Well, how often do I do handwork with my children?” And I don’t know if there’s one magical answer for it. I think you and your family are going to decide what works best for you and I also think that during some times of the year, you’re going to do a lot of handwork and other times you’re not going to do it much and that’s okay. But I do know this from my own experience: when I carve out the time every week, it does get done. And sometimes it might be a daily time and some weeks it might be more like twice a week depending on the project that we’re doing.

For instance right now, though it’s summer here and we’re not doing home schooling per se, we are working on a weaving project together as a family. Well, I know that if I just leave that loom out, it could take two years before it will ever get done. If I don’t make sure and actually schedule in some time for everyone to work on it and actually be there to remind each child, “Okay, you’re just do your weaving today.” And it might only take them 5 minutes, but if I stick to my daily rhythm of it, it gets done and it will get done, sooner rather than later.

So I do recommend scheduling a weekly handwork time. For me, if I’m teaching something brand new like knitting, crocheting, wood whittling, glass fusing - any of that, I definitely want to do it at least twice a week until the children have achieved a certain level of mastery.

So once you’ve created your calendar for the year, then you start to really delve in deep, and go ”Okay, now I need more ideas, patterns and inspiration” or you might have created your calendar and you feel like there some holes in it and you’re like “I just don’t know what else to do.” So here are some of my recommendations.

First of all, go to YouTube.com. As many of you know, YouTube is a wonderful resource for being able to watch people do things live. So for instance, when I want to teach people how to do a macramé, --- Well gosh, I haven’t macramé since the seventies and so I did not remember how. It was hard to find books and the books I found are really old and black and white. So I went on YouTube and there were really wonderful videos that were so easy to follow and I was able to watch them and after watching them and doing it myself, the next day I was able to teach my children.

Ravelry.com is a fantastic place to get lots of inspiration and ideas and connect with other parents who do handwork, in particular fiber arts. So on Ravelry, you find people who do knitting, crocheting, spinning, dying, weaving, and there are a couple of groups in there that are actually Waldorf-inspired families and there are some home schooling families as well. Ravelry is free to join. If you go in there, come find me. I’m called gyi - that’s my name on there and you can friend me and then you can even see some of the groups that I belong to. When you go into the groups, you can start conversations; you can get ideas or patterns from other people and see pictures.

There are lots of online tutorials and blogs out there, and I mean ‘a lot.’ It has really exploded over the last couple years. You can have something in your mind for handwork, type it in as a keyword and you’ll find a lot of information with pictures and how other families do it. So feel free to look out there at other people’s blog or ideas. Our blogs, we do feature handwork regularly, so you’re welcome to take a look at our blogs.

There are a lot of classes like yarn shops, parks and rec, and community colleges and college extension centers. So for yourself or if you have older children, that’s a really good opportunity to go and take a class together and learn together.

We have an Amazon book shop and in that book shop is a whole section on handwork and music, and you’re welcome to take a look there in case you’re the type of person that says, “I really want to have a book. I want to have a book on knitting; I want to have a book on woodworking or whatever it is.” We also offer some supplies through that shop and it makes it really easy. And the prices, of course at Amazon, they are always fantastic.

Flicker.com is a great resource and if you’re already in Flicker, then you know what this is. It is run by Yahoo, so you need to have a Yahoo account which is free and easy to do. Flicker.com is free to join and you can post up to so many pictures. If you want unlimited pictures, to be able to post then you have to pay something like $25 a year. It’s very inexpensive. The great thing about Flicker is, you can contact friends and other people out there who do home schooling, who do Waldorf-inspired home schooling, but you can also just go in there and look and see people’s projects. “Oh my gosh!” I mean there’s so much. You could sit there all day, and just “ooh” and “ahh” over the handsome yarns and all the beautiful, beautiful projects and there are some Waldorf groups in there as well.

Now a gem of a magazine that I highly recommend is called Living Crafts magazine. Donna, do you get this magazine?

Donna: Oh my gosh, I’ve gotten every single one from the beginning. So I love that.

Jennifer: Me too, I have every single one and they’re such a treasure. I keep them in this special little place in my home schooling area.

Donna: I do too. I go back and look at them. You don’t have to go “Oh okay, well I’ve seen it then I can just throw it away. I’ve gotten them back from a couple of years ago.” And when it’s like time for winter or something, I pull it out, and I’ll get inspiration because I can’t remember what was in there and they’re amazing!

Jennifer: I do the exact same thing. I go back and it is absolutely amazing. It is full of ideas, articles, crafts, projects, and lots of links to wonderful resources. And to subscribe to it is not very expensive. In fact, if you’re thinking to subscribe for two years, it’s cheaper. And it really is such a nice to have kind of a Waldorf-inspired end to it… I highly recommend it. So if you haven’t looked at living craft magazine, please do so.

For some of us, I know some of us like to go out there and create our own curricula and do well ourselves but some of us feel like “oh my gosh, I really just kind of want someone to tell me what to do each month and how to do it and give me the pattern and give me the idea so that you feel like you have the sense of consistency. There are very wonderful curricula out there and the one that I highly recommend is called, Earth Schooling. What I love about earth schooling, and I’ve used this myself up with, is that you could open up grade one- January.

Look at the month and the grade and in there will be handwork project that goes with the Math, that goes with the Language Art, that goes with the letters, that goes with the Social Studies, that goes with the holidays and it’s so nice. If you ever feel that, “Oh my gosh, I just really need to look somewhere, where someone’s going to tell me, this is what I should be doing this month.” Then there are definitely are a lot of curricula out there that can do that for you.

I offer a couple of E-books right now. One is called, Handwork in the Dell and in there are verses, songs, and stories mostly having to do with spinning, knitting, crocheting, and weaving. There are couple of little things that I have to make simple knitted gnome, how to set-up your handwork. There are articles about handwork and Waldorf education. There’s also a really nice chart that features year-by-year types of project and handwork and that’s available in our syrendellacademy.com site and our syrendell.etsy.com web store.

A brand new, in which I am really excited to talk about, is called Dyeing Fun with Children e-book. It is a funny name because I every time I tell someone, I am dyeing with the children, then they go, “What?” because they think I’m dying. It’s like, “No, no. I am dyeing with color, I am dyeing with yarn, I’m dyeing fibers. And this is such a little treasure of an e-book. It is written by a master dyer. Her name is Bjo Trimble of Griffin Dyeworks, who I know personally and I go to her dye and fiber retreat every year. She has put together this book of over 20pages. Its got all sorts of information on how to dye with natural ingredients including powder drink mixes and gelatin desserts; how to dye eggs, silks and yarns and there’s so much in it. And it’s really, really incredible. That’s also available in our 2 websites.

So you’ve made your calendar. You got lots of ideas and inspiration and you’re plugging it all in and you figured out your handwork time, and you might be sitting going, “Oh my gosh, it’s so overwhelming! It’s just too much” because we’re all trying to teach Math and Science and Social Studies and everything else, right? So, here’s a big suggestion from me:

I really suggest that you take a look at doing family projects especially if you have more than 1 child and especially if you have more than 2 children. If your children that are different ages, different grades, it can feel overwhelming if you’re trying to plan every single day, every single moment for every single child and you want handwork to be fun, right? Because if you are excited, the kids will feel excited. But, if you feel you’re bogged down, they’re going to know that.

So my answer to that is, make a family project. This is something that you would do together so that it’s just one thing you’re planning for and it might even last for many weeks or even many months. Earlier, I mentioned the weaving project that we’re doing right now with the kids. That really started off where we started spinning together back in about April. We went to the dye and fiber retreat in which we dyed our yarns, we came back home, we worked at the loom and now we’re weaving our yarns together. So, that started in March; this is June. We’ll probably be done by July. That was kind of like a long-term family project, but we do that once a year and it comes out great. It’s a lot of fun and not stressful at all because it is something that we do together.

Some other ideas for family projects I mentioned natural dyeing. Natural dyeing is really great to do and you can do it indoors or outdoors. If you like play silks or to use yarns or other fabrics, there are a lot of ways that you can dye those using natural ingredients.

Felting is a great family project and I find that even the older kids love it. There’s just something about jabbing with that needle over and over again. Oh, kids love it, adults love it. It’s difficult trying to figure out how young to start them because some people have different feelings about that. But as a family you can do ornaments for the Christmas tree. You can do gifts for Mother’s day. You can do animals and create a whole zoo. Maybe that python was one of your kids’ zoology block. Its okay for these family projects not to tie in every single child’s block at that moment. But if ties in to at least one, you’re going to feel like to have… hitting two birds with one stone …so to speak.

Another idea is woodworking and this one’s great because you can sit down with older children and actually draw the plan and do geometry and figure it out. Then you’ll go and buy the supplies and take a look at different types of wood, and then together you can build it, and the younger children might just be sanding and that’s okay. The older children might be using the tools. We made a sandbox earlier this year, a standing one and it was a great experience. And the kids did it with their dad and I know that out of all the projects that we did this past year, I know they really remember that one because we did it together as a family.

Sewing is wonderful and it doesn’t have to be necessarily on a machine but it could be that your younger child is maybe doing some running stitches by hand with an embroidery needle. A little bit older child is actually doing embroidery...fancy embroidery stitches, maybe the older children take whatever the younger children did and put them on a machine and that becomes curtains for a room. Or there could be a lot of different things. It could be clothes; it could be a quilt which would tie in with American history. So, there are a lot of things that you can do and I think that the key here is, with a family project, just look at the age of each child and figure out “Okay, how will this child be able to be involved?” And you’ll know and it will be great. And if you ever get a sense that you over did it, and the one child doesn’t want to do that, that’s okay. It can be maybe a family project for part of the family, but maybe not the youngest and maybe its something that the older kid makes for the younger kid and we’ve done that before, as well.

Knitting and crocheting is great because in Waldorf Education, usually kids are knitting by about 1st grade when they’re around 6 years old. By 2nd grade, they are crocheting. So it is a wonderful project that you can start with the family with fairly young children. If you have really little kids that are just like finger crocheting, that’s great too. I’ve taken some as long finger crocheting that go on and on forever, and the older kids will wind them up and sew them together into little place mats or little snails or--- There are lots of different things that you can do there. As a family, you can make blankets, you can make pillows, you can make wash cloths.

Glass is a wonderful form of handwork as well and usually happens with older children. Stained glass is a lot of fun and pebble bowl and if you’re looking at the slides, you can see on the right there’s a pebble bowl there that my son made over the summer. That was actually up at the dye and fiber retreat. There’s someone who taught us how to do it and it’s very much like doing stained glass.

Donna: That is so beautiful! Look at that. It’s so amazing! I would love to do that!- a pebble bowl.

Jennifer: I know! Well what was so neat was, he was the one who signed up for the class, but the whole family got so excited about it that we all sat there together and we wrapped every one of those little pebbles with copper and then he did all the soldering.

Donna: They’re soldered together, huh?

Jennifer: Yes and it wasn’t very hard either.

Another tip is to learn some handwork yourself. I know a lot of you out there would feel like you’re very good at something, you might be master knitter but you might have never done woodworking, and you might love to sew but you might hate to crochet. You know it’s just depends. So one thing that I do when I create a calendar each year, is I look at it and I say; “Okay, what is it that I’m not comfortable doing or that I just have never even learned? But what is something that I really feel like the kids should learn because maybe it ties in to their curricula, it ties in to their block or something that they would learn if they were in a Waldorf School. Then I need to go out there, and I need to figure out how to do it myself. And it could be as simple as some macramé looking on YouTube.com, but it could be that I need to read some books, I might need to look at some blogs, and I might even need to take on a class. That’s okay, and sometimes that’s a lot of fun. In fact next week, I’m going to be at Steiner College for a whole week at a handcraft conference and I’m so excited to do that, because I feel like for myself, at least once a year, I need to go and be a learner and not just a teacher. Then I know that I will be able to come back to my children refreshed and energized with a lot of new ideas.

When you do the handwork yourself, before you do with your children, you also can create poems and verses and stories. I know that some people feel really comfortable doing that and other people are like, “No way. That is just so hard. It’s hard enough to teach how to do---, then I have to say a story at the same time.” But believe it or not, you can do it and if you are the type who loves to memorize, there are tons of ideas on people’s blogs and online. But if you aren’t, then you know what? Make them up for yourself. I have a whole story I made up about 4 little gnomes and they knit and weave and they even crochet, and there’s a dragon and the whole story goes on and on to where literally I can share a little of bit of the story and there are songs that goes with it every week while I’m teaching the children how to knit and then crochet.

A lot of it sometimes just comes to me after class and that’s okay and sometimes that’s the best. And when you learn to handwork to yourself, I always say, do, do, do. Do it! Keep doing it. Don’t stop doing it. Keep doing it throughout the year, otherwise you will forget it or you will lose interest in it and do it alongside with your children. Model it and sit there and I know that’s hard. We’re busy people, right? And now you got a laundry to do and food to prepare, and we’re answering emails and we’re doing a lot of other things in our lives, but I know from my own experience that when I sit down with the children and I actually do the handwork with them, even if that’s something that they’re very good at, it makes all the difference in the world. Their focus, their attention, and their excitement about it, and when they see that I have reverence for it, that I pay attention to it, and that they’re important to me, it makes them feel that way too.

So, you have your calendar and you have your goal of learning the new craft yourself this year and you’re getting together your supplies and you’re trying to get it all organized and be that home schooling parent, well sit down and make a list. Literally start writing. Writing out or typing what exactly it is that you’re going to do and by doing this, this might really get you even more excited to find out more. Now, for some people this is where they start. They don’t even look at the calendar. They just make the list and then they plug it into the calendar and for other people, they start with a calendar and then they make their list. So you do what works best for you. On this page, there are some pictures. There is my youngest son holding that felted ball that we made, there’s some glass fusing you see over there on the side that we did on kind of like a little home school call-up group and then there are my kids and there’s my husband who’s working on the sandbox that they built - that was earlier this year.

So just some quick Ideas, this was my list from the last couple of years and this isn’t the whole list, but just some ideas. There’s some puppets for plays, glass fused in the magnets or jewelry, felted advent wreath, la noir, quantum candle holder, hand-spun dyed yarns, crocheted, knitted into scarves, whittled carved scented candle holders, animals and frames, finger crocheted bookmarkers, spiral-packs, birthday rings, Ukrainian and natural egg dyeing, windows stars for holiday seasons and birthdays. Sometimes we forgot that paper crafting is handwork too. And it is, and it’s fun. Windows stars are great-

Soaps, oils, lotions, aromatherapy products for the home and for gifts. Felted balls for games, mats, garlands, polished stones for rock classifying in jewelry. You have to find someone who has a machine that will do the polished stone, but that’s a lot of fun. Woven placemats for special dinners and holidays or woven table runners origami animals which you can do use for story telling, woven baskets with reed or pine needles or cane. Of course, you can use those baskets from your home for further handwork. Metal forging, copper chasing, soldering and stained glass, leather working which could be sewn or stamped into belts, shoes, bracelets, ceramic bowls that you built by hand or on the wheel and that’s just a tiny little list.

Donna: Awesome, amazing!

Jennifer: That goes on and on. Yeah, and you know handwork is not just fiber arts. Sometimes, I know we focus a lot on yarn, and yarn is fabulous. I absolutely love it and it’s a great place to start. But handwork is a lot more than that and there are some great books on it. In fact one of my favorites that I have been reading, re-reading lately is Will-developed Intelligence. It’s called handwork and practical arts in a Waldorf School elementary through high school. So, if you have children of multiple ages, Will-developed Intelligence is a great book and it is in our Amazon bookshop. It’s wonderful because it just kind of goes year by year and gives you ideas and it’s not just fiber crafting. It has ‘build a canoe’ and ‘work with glass’ and ‘work with metal forging’ and things that we don’t always get a chance to think about.

But also recognize that sometimes when you really excited about those things, if you don’t have all those supplies or if it’s just too expensive to get all the supplies, its okay to look at other resources out there. Look for camps, look for workshops, look for that person out there who is a glass artist and ask him or her if he can come and take a lesson or maybe even put together a little group of homeschoolers to come over and do a workshop with them. You’ll be surprised at how many people out there want to share what they know with children when they get the chance.

Wood working too, and of course, always be careful with all of this piece of handwork because everything comes with a bit of a danger factor, whether it’s a pointing knitting needle, or a hot flame, a little torch, or whatever that is that you’re using. Always be careful, that mindful of that and especially if you take your children to someone else. It’s good if you’re there, and it’s good if you just kind of watch and make sure that the area’s safe and protective for your children.

So make that list, get excited about it, and gosh, every time I make a list I just get so fired up. I’m like, Oh yeah, I want to do that, I want to do that,” but on the flip side, be kind to your self and be careful. You may not be able to get through all of those and that’s okay. It might be that you get through so many of these this year, and some of it you have to save for next year.

For us as a family, there are certain holidays that we always celebrate and then there are certain holidays and seasonal activities that we rotate.

So for instance, this year we did a bunch of things for summer solstice, but last year we didn’t do it as much. I think we did more for fall equinox and that’s okay. So it might be that you just have to take a look at your calendar and say, “Okay, so I might not be able to hit every holiday, every celebration, in every season. Maybe it’s okay if I hit this one, this one, and this one this year. And save these other ones for next year and some of those decisions might be made just by literally laying out your calendar and saying “Ah, I can’t do that every single month. I’m doing it like every other month handwork projects or could be how it ties in with your children’s blocks. You’ll be amazed at how naturally a lot of it will flow. Sometimes I sit down and think, “Oh, this is so great! Yeah, let’s do some ceramics” and then I realize, “Oh! That’s tied in with my daughter’s whatever, whatever blocks that we did and it’s just beautiful that way.

So sometimes it happens a bit serendipitously and other times it really is very well-planned. But don’t hesitate to do that project that just comes out of the blue. Your friend comes over and says, “Oh, I was wondering if you want to build some origami with my kids?” Great! Go for it! Do it because you may not get that opportunity to do it again especially with someone else. It’s okay maybe if it didn’t tie in with everything at the very moment, but your children might really love it and I might want to do it more. So don’t hesitate to add in those little bits of things and sometimes you might have to let go of the bigger projects or the special projects that you thought you were going to be able to put into your year.

So, make sure you learn to love the handwork before teaching it to your children. That’s so important. And I know this from personal experience I’m the first one to admit, that every once in a while I will say “Oh my gosh! I want to learn how to do something and I sit down and do it right alongside with my kids.” Sometimes that works out great and sometimes it doesn’t. So everyone saw the “Oh man, I probably should have done this first before I shared it with the kids” because for some reason at the back of my mind, I just think that I’m going to be able to master it in about 2 seconds and then I realize, “Oh, this is a little harder than I thought” and so, if at all possible, even if it’s just the night before, try to run through whatever the project is yourself or at least make sure that…to have all those supplies, do I know what I’m doing, do we have enough time, do we have enough space? Kind of run through all those things in your head and then do it for your children and do it with your children and I think you will have a lot more success. And then the kids will really get excited about it.

Every once in a while, I even make a project ahead of time and then there’s like this big reveal and that’s always exciting. I do that when I teach handwork to groups of children too. Oh I tell a story and then you know “Voila! The silk and underneath it is a beautiful knitted ball!” or whatever it is. And people will go “ooh” and they’re all excited. Well that took some extra time on my part to make sure I knew how to do it, that I finished making it in time for when I actually want to a show it to the children before they would make it. I know that if they can see the project already done, for some handwork projects, then they will be really, really excited to get started. So, be sure to take classes, look at Youtube like I said earlier, take private lessons. Private lessons are great and I know that sometimes they can be pricey but you’ll be surprised, I know some people out there are willing to trade lessons for other things that you can teach or do. But I find like for instance with spinning, so we just had a heck of a time learning how to spin in the beginning. We just could not get it down. I finally went out and took a private lesson from this wonderful home schooling mom who had nine children. And you know what? I got it and my daughter got it in like an hour. We were so excited and what a difference! We just took off from that moment on. Had I not taken a private lesson, I’m not sure if I would really be a spinner like I am today. So don’t hesitate to go out there and take a private lesson yourself or to take your children with you and learn together.

Remember to look at the Waldorf recommendations. Look at the type of handwork per grade level. If you are the type who really wants to stick to that, then stick to that. Relate it to their blocks, related to their interests but really do take a look at that. And if you want, there’s a lot more reading. You can do that Wise Time. I recommend certain types of handwork for certain ages. And I do get a lot of questions about that from parents like “Oh gosh, what if I wanted to do this handwork project but the youngest is not really ready for it. Is it really okay if she sees it? It might be okay they see it but do they have to be involved in it? Maybe not. So, it’s naturally up to you and your comfort level and you’ll know… you know your children the best and you’ll know what to do. But it is something to always keep in mind is maybe not introducing handwork in other curricular areas too early to children.

Now on the flip side, if you have a 17 year old who never learned how to dye yarn, that’s okay. Teach it now. That’s not a problem. It’s never too late, right? Because many of us don’t know how to do a lot of handwork. It’s never too late to learn. But it might be a little too early. So you just keep that in mind.

Schedule your handwork time each week. Remember that some projects will take longer than you planned for. Work on your family projects together regularly – that is so much fun, very enriching, and such quality time together as a family.

Here is a good tip. Start your holiday and gift projects early. And by early, I mean away earlier than you think because every year without fail, when I go and I teach classes out at yarn shops, I’ll get people who come to my classes in November and they have a whole list of projects that they want to make for all of their relatives for Christmas or Hanukah or whatever’s coming up, and I always kind of laugh on the inside because I’m thinking, “Oh, good luck!” because that’s a stressful time of year… It’s quite a task

Donna: Every year I say we’re going to start in like August and start doing it when it’s hot. We don’t have really anything else going on but we’ve got to that. Maybe this year will be our year where we will do that because I think I’ve already started thinking, “Let’s start making some ideas and start working on some of these little projects like I said before, school gets started and we really just are kind of hanging out and it will give us something to do and then we don’t have to be all crazy like you said in December. Right

Jennifer: Right because the craziness doesn’t serve any of us well. We get stressed and then we’re not in the calm center, the happy home schooling parents that we are supposed to be. And yes, start now, start now. I think summer is a great time. It’s a little tricky, at least in the northern hemisphere because it’s hot and so we don’t always feel like maybe knitting, but maybe woodworking would be a nice thing to do. For my children, we kind of gotten into this rhythm of, at the end of the year we look at all of our old watercolor paper that we did, all the beautiful paintings, and we pullout the ones that we’re okay with cutting this and making them into something else. Then what we do is, we keep that in a pile so that it’s there and then we use that to make gift cards all year long, we use it for origami, we use it to make star candle holders and we also use it to--- I can’t think what the word is. It’s almost like from matting the back of a picture. So we’ll get picture frames and then the background will actually be a piece of one of the kids’ watercolor paintings and I blogged about that maybe a month or so ago and my idea was “What did you do with all those watercolor paintings?” I laughed over it.

Donna: Yeah, because they’re so pretty. You’d hate to just throw them away. But I have too, made gift cards out of them because they are thicker and they are so pretty. You can just write over it and they come out really well. Punch a hole and put a ribbon through, and they are really nice.

Jennifer: It’s so easy and I know a lot of parents who do paper crafting, they do scrap booking so hold on to all of those things. Summer is a great time to kind of… you’re cleaning out everything from the year before, look at some of the kids’ old projects, toss what maybe needs to be tossed, keep the things that you want to keep forever, and then all the things that are kind of in between maybe can be repurposed into something else such as the watercolor paintings can become another handwork project.

Donna: We also made bookmarkers with them when the girls were kind of young and they didn’t really know how to do a whole lot. I mean, I still have them and they’re beautiful. I mean, you just do like a long bookmark. Punch a hole and put a pretty ribbon through it and they made a nice bookmark.

Jennifer: That’s a wonderful idea and you can do that now and then you already have a gift for holidays and birthdays, and everything coming up, which is great. So, yeah. Start early.

Get involved in swaps and exchanges. There are some different swaps and exchanges online. Ravelry has exchanges. There are yarn exchanges. There are gnome exchanges; I did a little gnome exchange with someone in Denmark. It was great. She knitted gnomes for me and I crocheted a gnome for her. You can also do swap. There is one called bits of goodness and they have a Yahoo group and a Flicker group and if you do search, you will find it. And those are full of homeschoolers and Waldorf parents and other parents who just want to be able to make handcrafted projects, share them with others, and get projects from other people. It’s so much fun. It’s so rewarding and you can do it together as a family depending on what it is. Sometimes the topic is more appropriate to do with your children and sometimes they’re just something you’re going to make yourself. But we have made quite a few beautiful items. We just got a beautiful rainbow swap in the mail the other day and some people did woodworking and some people sewed, and some people did knitted items, and it’s just amazing. Then it also inspires us to want to make some more as well.

I recommend having a room or area set-up with the materials that are easy to reach and to use. So, when you’re planning your calendar, and you’re figuring out all your supplies, take a look at your house or if you have a craft room, or if you’re like me, where we use our dining room, and our kitchen, and our--- we kind of use a lot of different areas for crafting, take a look at it and ask yourself, “Is this area set-up in a way that it’s comfortable, where I can reach everything, where the youngest child can reach what they need? Is it safe?” If you have a soldering iron or something else, you want to be mindful of those things. And if there’s some kind of handwork that you do such as knitting or crocheting that are on-going, place it in a beautiful basket that is on the floor where every child can reach it.

So just be mindful of that and as you plan out your year, take a look at your space and figure out what is going to be the best. And of course, if you’re home schooling--- we all live in our homes, right? And we are home schoolers in our homes and it can get a little crazy-looking sometimes but you’ll keep that in mind, “How do I make it beautiful and useful at the same time?” And I’ll tell you one little hint that I do right now besides using baskets--- We naturally dye silk scarves and I have dyed some really huge, long scarves lately, and what I do is, when we have handwork projects going on, sometimes they’re not always pretty just having everything out, I will cover it with a scarf. And you know what? It looks great! You walk through the house, the house looks neat and you’re like, “Ooh, look at those pretty scarves and no one would ever know that underneath it are just like tons of bits of supplies, or whatever it is you’re beading, or whatever it is that we’re working on at that moment and yet, it’s easy to take the silk off and get right back to work on what we were doing. So you’ll come up with it for your own home what works but definitely take a look at your space.

Remember to sing and say verses with your stories, play games, even to your older children. If you say things and do things that help them to remember, then they will remember and you will too. And that could be as simple as like knitting verse, or could be a story, could be a Norse myth that you tell and then along with that comes a handwork project and that it’s all tied in together. The children will remember it and they will enjoy it more when you can make it more than just let’s sit down and do handwork. It should almost be more like a whole entire experience that happens with your family.

And another thing to do sometimes you can do is play music in the background. And sometimes they take advantage of that and play music that goes with the time period during that we’re studying Social Studies or something that relates to… if you’re doing Celtic designs with your cross stitch, you can play Celtic music. So there’s a lot that you can with that just to make the ambiance really special when you’re doing handwork.

And please come follow our blog if you can. We do feature handwork projects regularly because it’s my love. And if you can come get one of our e-books or come take a workshop with us. If you live in California, we offer workshops regularly and we also travel to do workshops. We love traveling. And you are always welcome to email me anytime. I also do consulting online and not only for handwork but also for all different types of homeschooling as well as Waldorf-inspired home schooling.

On our last slide here are links. There’s our blogs. The Syrendell Academy site is more information on consulting and on workshops. Our email is there. If you’re on Ravelry, could you please come find us? We’re called GYI. On Facebook we’re called Syrendell and you can fan our page and see what we’re up to. And please come check out our Amazon bookshop. There are lot of books in there for homeschoolers, not only for handwork but also for some other categories that you might enjoy. So, Donna are there any questions out there?

Donna: I do have a couple questions. That was amazing! Thank you Jennifer. so much information here. I’m just…I’m making notes and my head is like, “Ooh, I can’t wait to start planning out our projects. You give such a great idea of a way to kind of weave those in. But, let me see what we’ve got here for some questions. Okay. Let’s see Christy Richardson was asking “Can you provide details on the dyeing fiber retreat that you mentioned?”

Jennifer: Oh good question. Yeah thank you for asking. If you go to griffindyeworks.com, you’ll find information on the dye and fiber retreat. It’s held every year in Castaic, California. Castaic is kind of located in the mountains just north of Los Angeles. And people come from all over other states and we do have people from other countries come. It’s usually just for adults to come. If you have children who want to come, just…you have to talk to the owner about getting permission. But it is an incredible experience and one that’s not to be missed. I mean really, really incredible. You’ll learn so much in this very low key and very inexpensive compared to--- Oh, I won’t name names, compared to going to other fiber arts retreats that are out there, that I know can charge you extra for every single class and everything. So it’s griffindyeworks.com. Also go to them if you have any questions about natural dying or if you need natural dye supplies.

Donna: Ok great! And I can post it up. That’s griffindyeworks.com

Jennifer: Correct!

Donna: Okay. I think you repeated this again. Claudia in Mexico was asking about your Ravelry name which I think you said was “gyi” is that correct?

Jennifer: gyi- yeah, and it’s all lowercases, it stands for “GoshYarnIt” which is one of our web stores. I wanted to use “GoshYarnIt, but someone snatched it before I got it.

Donna: Oh no!

Jennifer: It spells “gyi”. That happens.

Donna: Well.

Jennifer: You know I’m not free everyday. So if you ask to friend me and I don’t respond right away, I will…I will get to you. I’m on there at least once per week. I haven’t updated my projects in a while but I absolutely love being on Ravelry. It’s a lot of fun.

Donna: Okay great! I have to check that out. Okay, we’ve got Chris and Juno is saying, “Where do you start when you are beginning with older children?”

Jennifer: Mmm! That’s a great question. So if you have older children, I would go about it a couple of different ways. The first thing I would do is, I would take look at their curriculum for the year. I would take look at those blocks and I would see what I could weave in to those blocks especially for the older kids because they might really get a lot more out of it if you can have let’s say a leather-working project that goes along with some kind of Social Studies up there that they’re doing.

If you have older children who are starting out from scratch like for instance they’ve never knitted, they’ve never done woodworking, they’ve never done any of this, it’s okay to feel…I mean you might feel like you’re starting over but they’re not going to know the difference unless someone came up to them and said, “Oh kids at the Waldorf school have done that when they’re six.” They’re not even going to know. They could be 15 years old and learning how to knit for the first time, that’s ok.

So first I would look at their curriculum and see what you can tie in because the curriculum’s going to be, the older they are, the heavier duty - the Math and everything is that they’re learning. And the second thing that I will do is maybe see what their interests are and take a class together. The older they are, the easier it is when you go to take classes together, do ask ahead of time. Some yarn shops and parks & recs do not allow children under 18 to come, but if you ask and if you tell them you’re a homeschooler, a lot of times they will make an exception for you.

We do workshops and sometimes our workshops do include the children and we do that based on people asking. So with the older children, I would just start with the curriculum and then second of all, I’d see what their interests are and I would maybe take some classes with them together. Do it along with them even if it’s something you already know how to do so that they feel like they can master it. Be aware that because they are older, they may not take to certain things because some things may be a little easier to catch on to when they are younger, and they may just not really want to do it. So for instance, I’ve tried to teach crochet to 16-, 17-year olds and they really weren’t into it, but they might get into it when they’re 25. You never know. It’s just exposing it to them might be enough. If you think they can attain mastery at it, that’s even better. So play it by ear and see how it goes and if you have more questions on that you are always welcome to email me, maybe tell me some specifics about your family too. Donna: Okay, great. Well hopefully Chris that helps you get started. Let’s see here. Well this sort of goes along with that. Stacey from Ohio is asking, ”When you have a child starting Waldorf in third grade, where should you start? She has never knitted.”

Jennifer: Okay. So I would start with basic knitting. So yeah, that’s a great question whether your child’s in third grade or tenth grade. If they didn’t already learn how to knit, then I would start off with basic knitting. A great website is knittinghelps.com. I say that it’s a great website for you if you’re not a great knitter or if you have never knitted before, because you can watch little video tutorials yourself and then you can teach your child. What you do is, you start with casting on and then you do the knit stitch and then you purl and you can do a lot just with those basics, you can make a lot of different projects. That’s where I would start. I would start by going online, taking a look at that yourself and then once you feel like you can do it, then sit down with your third grader or your tenth grader, whomever, and start doing it alongside with them.

When they’re younger, it’s especially nice to be able to do the verses and in my e-book, there are some verses and songs that go along with for instance casting on. And when you do the knit stitch, there’s a little verse that goes along with each one. You’re welcome to borrow those verses and use them. That’s why they’re in the e-book. But you can also make them up yourself. I found that sometimes the ones that I make up myself make more sense to me and to my own children. So when you’re getting started, start with the very basic, get… you go online when you need help, take a class if you need to learn yourself, and start at square one with your child. Don’t worry about the fact that they’re older and they could have learned when they’re younger. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Lots of people learned when they’re--- I know people who learn when they’re 50, 60 years old. That’s okay.

Donna: Yeah. I just learned about 2 or 3 years ago how to knit. So that’s okay.

Jennifer: You did? Yeah. That’s a great example. And to be honest with you, I know a lot of kids who learn when they were very young and they don’t pick it up again until they’re 30 years old, and that’s okay too. So just treat it like it’s something that’s exciting and that you’re doing together and I think that’s the very best place to start. And if you feel like, ”Oh gosh, my child really has had no experience with it.” Don’t worry. Let go of those feelings because they’re going to pick up on that. Just let go of that and just jump right in and do it. If it is something like knitting that really takes some skill and practice, that would be a good example of when I talked earlier about carving out handwork time every week. You want to do that at least 2 or 3 times a week. Otherwise, they’ll forget it. Whereas if they already know how to knit, but maybe they’re working on a project, it will take a few months, they might not need to do it every other day. But if you’re starting with knitting, you’re starting with crocheting, you’re starting woodworking, whatever that is that you’re starting to do from scratch that they’ve never been exposed to, make sure you carve out some weekly time for them so that there’s some consistency.

Donna: Alright. Maria from New Jersey is saying, “Hi Jennifer & Donna, can you provide information on the week-long workshop at the Steiner College?”

Jennifer: Oh, great. Go to SteinerCollege.edu and that will take you to Rudolf Steiner College’s website. Somewhere on that front page, you’re going to see a link or maybe like a little calendar that will show you, and you will see it – the handcraft conference is found there. It starts Sunday night. It’s like 7:15 but I think some people might actually come on Monday. And it goes Monday through Friday. It’s like 7:30 in the morning until like 9:00 at night.

Donna: Wow.

Jennifer: Yeah. It’s pretty hard core and people come over from Ruskin Mills in England and that’s a whole separate story for another time. If you’ve never looked into what Ruskin Mills does, it’s kind of a Waldorf-inspired school system over there. It is incredible where they teach children handwork, really, as practical arts for life. So these people will be coming over and they will be doing lectures and then there’s also…you can choose to do felt-making or silk-making or iron-forging or woodworking. You kind of go back and forth I think, between the practicum and the lectures all week long. So I’m excited and if you want to come, go on there and you will see the different things on how to register. You can do it right online.

Donna: Great! Sounds amazing for you. I’m sure you must be like, “Oh, I can’t wait!”

Jennifer: Yeah. And if any of you are coming, make sure you come find me because I’d like to meet you in person.

Donna: That will be great! Well, I have a question. I want to get in now. My girls are just finished first grade and are going into the second. So I know it says they should start crocheting and luckily I learned crocheting from my grandmother when I was probably, I don’t know, about 9 or 10. So, I am kind of excited about that. But now my question is, do we continue to knit and just add the crocheting on, or does it something like, “Okay this year, we’ll just do crocheting,” or how do you work that with the curriculum and with just working that into the school year?

Jennifer: That’s a great question and you know what? No one has ever asked me that but that is such a good question, Donna. Yeah, don’t stop knitting. Keep knitting. That’s great! In fact, in Waldorf Schools, definitely a handwork teacher would introduce something new each year, but the knitting doesn’t necessarily stop. In fact, first grade is more basic knitting stitches. They might make small projects. Second grade, they might do something sort of more advance. By fourth grade, they’re usually on four needles and making socks. So there is a nice beautiful progression that happens with all of the yarns.

And that book that I’ve mentioned earlier - the Will-developed Intelligence is great because it goes all the way through twelfth grade and really shows how the knitting or the wood working or whatever was done. In the younger grades, they’re spinning, weaving. Then as they get older, turns into something much more complex. And of course that makes sense for their soul development and their physical development and it also aligns with their curriculum. So, yeah, don’t stop knitting and same thing with crocheting. Once they learn how to crochet, keep crocheting and make something a little new and different each year. For instance like with spinning, you may want to start in 3rd grade with spinning on the drop spindle, but you may not actually get well proficient on spinning for another year or two and you may not want to do the wheel until ninth grade and that’s okay.. And every Waldorf school does teaching just slightly differently. It’s interesting to talk to handwork teachers because everyone’s got a little bit of their own take about when exactly to introduce each tool and each type of handwork but do know that when you teach something and you start it, there really has no end. Keep going, keep doing that, keep coming back to it because you don’t want them to forget, but also because there’s always something of a higher level, something that’s more enriching, someway to tie it to a lesson block. You know a Science block or Architecture block in twelfth grade or something that’s coming up that you can do and go back and go, “Oh yeah! Well let’s see if I can do something with knitting that ties in with that,” and you’ll be able to do that every single year. So, I would not stop. Keep going.

Donna: Okay! Great. I’ve got another question from Maria in New Jersey, alright. “My daughter will be six but we are just beginning kindergarten. Should I teach her to knit with needles or start with finger knitting? When we do handwork, my 3-year old wants to do it but he is so young. So what can I do with him to make him feel like he’s participating in the handwork?”

Jennifer: Oh, such a good question Maria. That comes up all the time and it’s a tricky one. If you want to stick to the way that a Waldorf school would do it, then kindergarten, you would just do the finger crocheting. Some people call it finger knitting. There’s also finger weaving that you can do but you wouldn’t actually introduce the needles until they were in grade 1, when they’re more like six turning seven. That’s a tricky thing because I know some parents are very good at knitting and they can tell that their kids are ready, they want to do it. If you decide to teach your little younger, that is completely up to you. I will be honest with you, being a fiber artist myself; sometimes my kids do learn some of it a little earlier than they would in a Waldorf School. I think it is important to be mindful about the physical and the soul development of the child. Look at their interest level and also notice if they’re frustrated. That goes kind of the opposite way too. You may feel like, “Okay, my child is in kindergarten. They should be able to finger crochet.” And maybe your child is really struggling. If it is really frustrating, hold off and wait. Put it on the calendar for later in the year. Scribble it off of August and put it on to April and try it again there or maybe try it the next year.

The beauty of home schooling is of course, you can wait and you can honor your child growth motor and fine motor development. Now as far as the 3-year old goes, that’s tricky. In general, I would not recommend giving the 3-year old knitting needle… [laughs]

Donna: Right.

Jennifer: …because it’s a little hard for them to hold [laughs], I know people who do it, but yeah, you want them to feel like they’re involved. So have yarn and have fiber in a basket where your 3-year old can reach, so that your 3-year old can just pull on the yarn and maybe wrap it into the balls and throw it around and play with it. They can feel and touch the roving and fiber like the unspun fiber, and pull it apart and mash it together and just let them really experience it from the tactile sense but not from the sense of, “Oh! My 3-year old is going to make a project with us.” More just, “Hey, you can play with this because this is what we’re working on,” and then your 3-year old will feel like he/she is involved. So having that basket with lots of supplies out, kind of for the multi-ages is really key, and I think and it’s seems to work really well for us. So good luck with that!

But yeah, for all of you out there listening tonight, I think when it comes to the ages and the grades, you as a parent and as a homeschooling parent, you know your child the best and you’re going to recognize, even with your beautiful calendar that you’ve just planned out, you’re going to recognize that sometimes you might have to wait on something, and some things you might be able to introduce a little earlier especially if an older child is doing it and the younger child’s watching. Just be really mindful about the whole picture and look at the recommendations from Waldorf Education.

Donna: Okay, Great! Hopefully that helps Maria. Let’s see. Dawn is asking, “Do you have some suggestions for projects that people could do if you’re working on a small budget?”

Jennifer: Oh, that’s a great question. Yes! Definitely, one of the first things that I like to do, is that I like going to goodwill and other types of thrift stores. You never know what kind of treasures you’re going to find. I mean, I have found high quality yarn. A friend of mine just found a weaving loom for like nothing, practically. Another friend I know has found a spinning wheel for like twenty bucks. So look at second-hand places, look on Craigslist. There are a lot of fiber artists out there, wood workers. I know a friend of mine just bought a ton of amazing pottery molds so that she could do ceramics at home from a potter who just needed to get rid of everything. She spent like a hundred dollars and she got huge amount. I mean, you should see her backyard. So check on Craiglist, get on--- there’s some Yahoo groups that have spinners, and weavers, and dyers and different handwork type of people, and just--- and on Ravelry as well. In fact on Ravelry, there’s a great group. I want to say it’s called something like…used spinning and weaving equipment. So get on those groups and watch, and you’ll be able to score some supplies very, very cheaply and in fact, sometimes if you even post and say, “You know what? I’m on a really tight budget,” and if they have any they want to give away, you might be surprised of what you could get.

So that being said, as far as projects go, you can do lots of repurposing projects. And by repurposing I mean, take something that was something else and make it into something new. Clothes--- Every time my kids are growing out their clothes, I say, “Okay, let’s go through our closets.” I get all their clothes out and we put them in a pile, some we give away, some we toss if they’re in really bad shape. But a lot of times, the ones that we don’t give away, we keep the material and we use that. We sew it into other projects. We make hats, we make blankets, we did quilting, we make doll clothes, hand sewing, sewing on the machine.

One thing that’s a lot of fun is you can take old t-shirts and cut them into strips. Get some nice scissors and just cut them in a long strips and then you can sew the strips together and then those strips, you can then braid, you can crochet them, you can knit them, and you can make wonderful rugs. And that doesn’t cost hardly anything because you’re just using supplies that you are already have at home, so that’s kind of a nice way to start. And if you go online and you search on people’s blogs, you’re going to see a lot of beautiful examples of people who repurpose items that they already have in their home and turn into beautiful projects. You would never know. You never know that those are bunch of t-shirts. In fact the other day, my daughter took my son’s old shorts and she cut out the waist band because I’m looking at them and they were really tattered. She cut out the waist band which had elastic in it and she used the elastic and the material that was over it to make a hat - the base of a hat.

Donna: Wow!

Jennifer: I would never have thought of that. Yeah and then she crocheted and knitted up from the base, and she used leftover yarns from other projects so it didn’t cost us anything. I mean, I did not have to go and buy anything. So start thinking about that. Look around your house, ask your neighbors. We have a wonderful neighbor; she gave us candle dipping supplies, calligraphy pens. I mean, it’s amazing what people want to kind of get rid of if you just tell them that you’re home schooling.

Donna: Right. Even like yard sale or garage sale. We have a lot of that. People start to do crafting and then they decide they don’t want to do it. So if you can scour around some neighborhood yard sales, -- It seems like I always see different half-started projects and then they may have a lot of, like you said, candle dipping or yarn or something that they didn’t finish and you can use that, or even fabric.

Jennifer: Fabric, yes! Yeah, why go to a big store and buy fabric at $12 a yard if- -- Think about how much fabric is sitting in all of our homes right now. They were not even used yet. Oh, my gosh! So there are a lot of ways to do it on a small budget and yeah, just be creative, look for ideas online, and don’t hesitate to ask out there. You might be surprised to what you might get. So I hope that was helpful.

Donna: Very helpful. Okay. We’ve got one more question here from Claudia in Mexico. She says her 7-year old girl wants to sew but older and younger brothers won’t. So she’s trying to…she’s looking for a couple of suggestions for projects, just to get an idea what she might be able to do with her 7-year old girl.

Jennifer: Oh, okay. Just for her. Well, that’s a good question. Gosh, there’s so much--- Where to start---? With the 7-year old girl, it kind of depends on how much exposure she’s already had to sewing. I think if she already knows how to hand sew, one thing that’s a lot of fun is just to get out all of your scrap materials or old clothes and cut them up, and put them out in front of her and see what she wants to make. Like I say with my own daughters, sometimes they come up with way better ideas than I ever do. If she is a creative type, she might just get really excited and start cutting and sewing things together, and who knows what she’ll make.

But if you want to actually plan a specific project for her--- In 2nd grade, like let’s say you are telling a fable. There might be a stable that has--- I’m thinking like a crow on the picture and has--- So you’re thinking, “Oh, a crow. Oh! I have some black material and maybe together you can work on drawing the crow on to the fabric and cutting it out, and she might be able to stitch some of it by hand and you might have to help her and she’ll stuff it and then you have this beautiful crow, or maybe you’ll want to make it into a puppet - a finger puppet or a hand puppet, and then you can actually use it to tell the story. So there’s a good example of kind of tying in the handwork with the curriculum for that age level…

Donna: Hmm, got that.

Jennifer: …and so easy with the sewing, so easy. You don’t even have to follow a pattern. You can make your own pattern. Now, if she wants to use a machine, I know some children do want to use machines young, I recommended at that age that you do it a long with her and if she’s really advanced, of course she can start making clothes for herself. But I find that at 7 years old, a lot of little animal, little blankets for dolls are fun and easy to do because you can cut out squares and rectangles, and you can review your shapes, colors and doing hand sewing, you can do embroidery on them or you may end up doing some of the final stitching yourself on the machine. Those are some good places to start for sewing Go on the blogs. I’m telling you, there are so many ideas out there. So many more than you could imagine.

And then with second grade of course, there is crocheting. So one thing I like to do too is, I like combining handwork. So you might want to sew a cute little quilt for the doll and then maybe crochet a little lace border to go around it or crochet a matching pillow that goes with a little quilt.

Donna: Hmm, that’s a good tip. Yeah, so one project could have several different types of handwork within it.

Jennifer: It could and for each age, you’re going to know kind of what your child likes. If your child likes dolls then doing sewing for dolls, is great! If your child likes to be outdoors and nature then maybe you’ll get together and sew some placemats that you can use and have a picnic outside. It’ll depend on kind of what your child’s interests are or relate it to the curriculum like the crow puppet or the pet crow.

Donna: Okay! I think that pretty much wraps up our questions. This have been amazing, Jennifer. I wanted to talk about your websites again. If you are on the webcast, still you got the links right on that webcast page to check out Jennifer’s amazing websites.

She’s got Syrendell Academy which is syrendellacademy.com and then her Etsy store which is, there’s a link there too, which is etsy.com/shop/syrendell.com and I will post those up on the replay page so everybody can get that, who’s listening to this later. And if you want Jennifer, you can tell us about the special offer that you are doing for the Waldorf Connection participants.

Jennifer: Yes. So if you listen tonight, thank you so much for listening and if you’re interested in one of our handwork E-books, I would like to offer them to you for half price. They are normally $8 and if you want to order them on Etsy or straight through Syrendell Academy, they’re also on our blogs, you’re welcome to do that.

The only thing is, when you pay for them, you’re going to pay $8 and then I have to refund you the $4. So that’s a little strange, but that will get your $4 back. Just be sure that in the notes when you do PayPal, that you say that you listened to the Waldorf Connection then that way I know that we’re refund you.

The 2 handwork e-books that we showed earlier, the one is Handwork in the Dell and the other one is Dyeing Fun with Children, either of those I’m offering now for 4$ and I’m also offering sale 15% off of any home school consultations or workshops that have to do with handwork. If you would like to set one up with me and you can go to syrendellacademy.com to see more information about that, and always you can just email me at [email protected]. Tell me that you listened and then we will do some special pricing at 15% off for you.

Donna: Great! And that goes through the end of July 2010, right?

Jennifer: Thank you for remembering. Yes, it goes through the end of July, yes. And for the consulting, it could be that you want to consult all year, but as long as you book before the end of July, then you’ll get that 15% off.

Donna: Okay, great! And again, I will post all the information about Jennifer’s special offers on the replay page so everybody knows what she’s offering. So, this has been wonderful! Thank you again Jennifer. I appreciate you spending the time talking with our community and giving all your tips and ideas on handwork. It’s such a great subject. It’s just like, “Ooh, I really love all that yarn and all that fiber and everything. It’s so much fun but it can be a little bit overwhelming.

Jennifer: Yeah, start simply and just and… just really do what you love, do that calendar, and it will click. It will happen. Let go of what you need to let go, focus on what works best for your family, do these family projects and enjoy it. Really, really take it on to end. I just want to say Rudolf Steiner said that all teaching must take an artistic form and that’s so important to remember because everything we do with teaching, we can tie in to some art form including handworks.

So, thank you so much for having me Donna, tonight. I really appreciate it and everyone out there; I hope that you enjoy your handwork adventures as a family this year.

Donna: Yes, thank you so much. Okay everybody, talk to you later. Good night and thanks again, Jennifer. Bye .

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