I was born and bred in Singapore and I am pretty much a tropical weather sort of person. I like bright sunny days, balmy breezes and the occasional rain. I am accustomed to comfortable, light clothing and being able to eat ice-cream any time I want.

When I was growing up as a child, I was curious about other seasons, particularly winter. I’d seen pictures and movies showing how beautiful – and fun! – snow can be, so I was quite pleased when I finally had my chance to experience it for myself. I moved to the USA shortly after my wedding with my husband, who was completing his studies. I remember it was early January when we landed in Chicago in 2001. My brother-in-law was there to meet us and his first words to me were, “As salaamu `alaykum … Welcome to America.” He then promptly handed his brother and me mufflers to wear. I thought then, how odd of him, but within minutes, I could feel the wind, so cold that it felt like angry little pin pricks all over my skin. Needless to say, I felt a great deal of trepidation.

Before driving to Indiana, where we were staying, my husband thought it would be nice for me to take a look-see around Chicago. Now, the only images I’d had of winter in the US were of the freshly fallen variety… of breathtaking landscapes and of children delighted at play. Let’s just say that Chicago cured me of my fanciful notions :P That day, I saw only grey sludge and people looking miserable as walked briskly, hands in pockets, trying to stay warm. Still, winter in the US was rather easy to bear on the whole – there was central heating after all… and I did get my fill of pretty winter scenes later on when we moved to Wisconsin :) Nevertheless, I would ALWAYS rejoice when warmer weather beckoned.

When we moved to Pakistan, my hatred for winter reached its peak. It had partly to do with difficulties in leaving my own home country. I would grumble about all the layers of clothes we had to wear and wash (there isn’t central heating here), the dull and dreary days punctuated by heavy rains (forget freshly driven snow!), the mess of blankets and duvets and what not and just the general discomfort that the cold brought.

I’ve begun to soften my stance towards winter though – I admit, I can be a stubborn wretch :) It’s peevish and petty to rail against change and to complain about how painful the cold is when I have a more than adequate roof over my head. Others have not and even have to brave the elements to eke out a living. This dry country which is very much dependent on its agriculture also needs the winter rains.

“And We send down from the sky rain charted with blessing, and We produce therewith gardens and grain for harvests…” (Surah Qaf 50:9)

I’ve begun to appreciate so much about this season and the blessings it brings. My daughters and I did a lovely lesson about how the Salaf viewed winter. We were were bundled up under our blankets after Fajr that day :) It gave us a totally new attitude towards winter alhamdulillah. (You can read the article here.)

Al-Hassan Al-Basri for example said: “How good winter is for the believer! Its night is long, so he prays in it; and its day is short, so he observes fasting in it.” Indeed, the the Prophet sallallahu `alayhi wa sallam said: “The cold booty is observing fast in winter.” (at-Tirmidhi) How easy it is to fast in winters because we don’t feel the thirst and lethargy of the hot summers.

I love Ibn Rajab’s words about winter – “Winter is considered the spring of the believer, because he revels in the orchards of obedience and goes in the fields of worship and his heart having the pleasure of strolling in the gardens of deeds which are easy during winter.”

I’m going to brew myself a cup of tea and sit by the window now to stitch. I’ll probably put on a lecture to listen to and get some soul food, in shaa Allah. It is cold, but the sky is clear … alhamdulillah. For all my friends out there experiencing winter, I hope you are enjoying it in all its goodness :)

(Image from Pexels)

… because I had to stop myself from cleaning out the store’s stash of Anchor 47 :)

The post office called us today and my rowdy ruffians went mad with joy. They knew that their long awaited books had arrived!

Lightbulb Lab friends, two boxes we had shipped from our home in Singapore are here, with a third due any day now in shaa Allah. These good reads await you :)

I must extend my gratitude to a lovely sister in Singapore who donated the books in the pic below to the Lightbulb Lab. She has discerning taste and uses living books in teaching her children too. When there was a library sale in Singapore (we were so sad that we weren’t there, crazy bibliophiles we are!), she remembered us and bought us a huge bag of books. I am overwhelmed by her generosity and thoughtfulness. Jazakillah khayran Sister Normini. May Allah reward you abundantly for your contribution, ameen.

For Umm Maimoonah and Umm Salam :)

My rowdy ruffians have really taken to sashiko stitching. They’ve always been interested in needlework, but they have never been as diligent they have been the past few days ma shaa Allah. Perhaps it is because sashiko is, as Charlotte Mason said about how children’s work should be kept, “well within their compass”. They love the designs that are simple yet pretty and are looking forward to tackling the more detailed ones.

From the little I know about this charming Japanese craft, sashiko literally means “little stabs”. It was used to reinforce or repair fabric and employs the running stitch. Traditionally, sashiko was done with white cotton thread on dark blue or indigo cloth – I love the contrast, but have not made anything on dark fabric yet. (I’m waiting for my order of transfer papers to arrive!)

This craft is both decorative and functional – it can be used as a decorative surface for things like mats, bags, sheets and table runners and as a quilting technique to bind layered fabrics like blankets, coasters, placemats and pot holders. It is especially useful in strengthening household items that go through a lot of wear and tear. We intend to use our kids’ sashikos to decorate our walls in shaa Allah – our place could do with some prettifying! Maybe we can move on to making some dastarkhwans for our meals!

Here are some lovely sashiko creations – coasters, a runner and a pouch – that I found online:

You can see more pretty stuff here.

I don’t have all the necessary materials so I contemplated purchasing some kits, but they are a little pricey. (Also, not all the patterns come with dashed lines – i.e., you’d have to figure out the length of dashed stitches yourself and I didn’t feel comfy with this.) Since I do have a stash of embroidery flosses and calico, I felt it would be enough for us to just do an adaptation of sashiko and to focus on just the technique :) I used this tutorial and this one to get us started.

Here are some of the designs we have saved. You can download them and transfer them onto your fabrics for stitching. Not all are very clear so you’d have to tidy up the dashes when you transfer the patterns. (The stitches should be as even as possible.) I hope you enjoy them and let me know what you’ve come up with!

The kids and I have been more homebound lately due to health and transport issues. I thought that we’d have been driven mad by cabin fever and clawed each other’s eyes out by now, but it has been surprisingly wonderful. Deliberately slowing and paring down has allowed us to pursue new interests, to rekindle old ones and to have many meaningful conversations. We’ve not been harried folks rushing in and out of home for activity after activity. We’ve been able to tackle our projects with a clearer sense of purpose and been able to complete them with greater attention to detail in a way that we have not been able to before. It has been so refreshing.

Alhamdulillah for silver linings…

One of the things I’ve wanted to instil in myself and my children is stickability… persevering and seeing things through. As I’d said in an earlier post, I wanted them to do more worthwhile craftwork. We had begun stitching a couple of years ago, but I found something lacking in our sessions… there wasn’t a sense of aspiration, if you will. There wasn’t an expectation of bigger things to come.

I think one of my many mistakes was that I did not guide them enough. When they saw a pattern they liked, however difficult, they immediately wanted to leap into it and I allowed them, thinking that their enthusiasm would carry them through. However, their lack of skill and experience often caused them a great deal of exasperation and it would not be long before efforts would peter out. When a project was completed, they would be so unhappy with the results and experience that they would be daunted to try again, even though they itched to create something pretty with their hands.

I ought to have done a little more planning and introduced projects that were challenging, but not frustrating. Dexterity and skill need time to be developed. My kids tend to want to do difficult things and achieve the same results that adults do. While I need not curb their spirit, I can help them see the value of learning things gradually and celebrating small successes along the way, rather than be overwhelmed part way and be forever discouraged.

Last Sunday, we started anew :) We embarked on a wonderful new project – sashiko. At first, the girls were a little hesitant, thinking it was an overly simplistic craft, since it uses only the running (or “tack”) stitch. When they saw how pretty the results could be and how there are varying degrees of complexity, they were all for it. Since we didn’t have white transfer paper (heck, we have NO transfer paper!) or blue fabric (traditional sashiko uses white thread on indigo cloth), we made do with blue carbon paper, calicos and assorted flosses.

I was really very heartened to see the gusto with which they stitched. Both of them finished their projects in two days and immediately asked for new patterns to work on, ma shaa Allah. Below is a pic of their completed sashiko stitchery… Forgive the horrid quality of the photo – I had only my mobile phone on hand :P

Their second patterns are a little more difficult, with smaller and more stitches required. Here is Bear, working on her second pattern (it’s a pic of cute handbags!) while waiting for her sister to be done with her Arabic class.

On another note, I did some stitching too :) Bear was enamoured by Made By Joel’s vintage fabric dolls and begged me for one. We dove into my stash of fabrics and settled on a cheery green and pink print. We made several adaptations – I sewed on a calico face (which we agreed to leave featureless), embroidered a bob hairstyle (Bear used to sport this Dora-like look!) and stitched on Bear’s choice of cute buttons. (“Put star buttons at the top to show it is night, OK?”)

It is a simple project – the doll is essentially an embroidered 18-by-9-inch pillow (but don’t call it that in front of Bear… she has a name and she is Choti) and stuffed with polyfill fibre. If you have a sewing machine, you can probably complete it in a couple of hours or less. I did this completely by hand – I am still afraid of sewing machines! – so it took me a little longer. Still, I loved the whole process and when I knotted my last stitch, I was truly excited to surprise Bear with it. She had just woken up in the morning and her look of pure delight is something I’ll treasure always.

(Notice the little peg doll? We made it a couple of years ago and it is wearing a purple kimono… Bear says it is Choti’s doll. Again, pardon the awful quality of the photo – my Nokia is just rubbish, so I tried posterizing the pic but my graphics skills are even more rubbish :P)

Bear adores Choti and won’t let her out of her sight :) I guess I did SOMETHING right, alhamdulillah!