Wildflowers Handwork

I ordered marigolds for my fifth grade class at the school I teach some classes for. I was able to get some marigolds locally free, so I reached out to cancel the marigold portion of my order with . I explained that I was cancelling it because the school is a scrappy little school and where we’ve I can save them money, I will. When I got the rest of my order today, look what I found. Such a lovely surprise - it really touched me. I can’t wait to give them more choices for their socks!

My intention was to post about Martinmas this week. But, then, on Sunday, learned that the father of one of my students had died. This class is ten and eleven year olds, they’ve been through the nine-year change. They are a small, but tight-knit group. They would have hearts that need healing as well as their classmate.

Handwork can bring healing in many ways, the act of doing of handwork is healing for our brains and our hearts and the act of giving something you have made to someone who needs to know that people care heals both the giver and the recipient.

My students, yesterday, all stitched a quilting square that will get sewn into a pillow for their classmate. While they stitched they talked. Talked about what they knew about the situation, about what their classmate might like, about their own parents who had struggled with cancer and might have died. They also laughed about silly things that happened while they were stitching. They acknowledged their classmate, his pain, themselves, and their pain.

What a gift it was to be there with them, to share in this with them, to provide them a channel for their love. And, in some ways, this post is about Martinmas as these children bring their warmth and light to someone in need.

In Waldorf handwork, we look to what is local. If, for instance, wool is not a common fiber for your area, you knit with other fibers. In addition to materials and practices being focused regionally, I also pull so much inspiration from the natural world - its colors, shapes, and textures. Sea stars, anemones, and sea w**d are my inspirations for this week.

Tomorrow is my daughter’s 12th birthday and I am just finishing up the final star that she’ll find under her pillow tomorrow morning. It will join the eleven other stars that she has already found in the eleven mornings leading up to her birthday. Every year this project takes me one day longer, but I use the time to really meditate on her, on our journey. (and, as she gets older and all the feelings get more complicated, the extra day is helpful!) It’s a beautiful and slow practice in this busy world.

Beautiful felt from

Tomorrow is my daughter’s 12th birthday and I am just finishing up the final star that she’ll find under her pillow tomorrow morning. It will join the eleven other stars that she has already found in the eleven mornings leading up to her birthday. Every year this project takes me one day longer, but I use the time to really meditate on her, on our journey. (and, as she gets older and all the feelings get more complicated, the extra day is helpful!) It’s a beautiful and slow practice in this busy world.

Beautiful felt from