A weft yarn: Six felt Santa ornaments finished

September 23, 2015

Six felt Santa ornaments finished

Date: January 2013

I finished the last of the felt Santas in October 2012 and told the story of their journey in this post.

These guys have adorned the tree, of which, for some reason, I have no photos.

What I can share though are the memories of the piano recitals. So, the Fat Red Santas and the Berry Blue Santas were stitched almost exclusively at the children's weekly piano lessons. Both children took lessons from a wonderful piano teacher and once a week for an hour, I sat at her kitchen table and embroidered my felt Santas while I listened to my children play their weekly accomplishments to her, and then she'd assist them, they'd play duets and she would usually finish the lesson by playing something herself. And I was happy. Of all my mother jobs, taking my children to piano lessons was one of my happiest.

If you ever feel inclined to read a truly exceptional tale of Piano Lessons, then I highly recommend Anna Goldsworthy's memoir of the same name. Anna Goldsworthy is an Australian pianist who is a daughter of a famous Australian playwright and novelist, Peter Goldsworthy. While she has used her talents for music, her memoir is a lyrical book which develops the story of the profound bond between teacher and student. It also has some fantastically lighthearted stories of adolescence and parenting of adolescents, which as you can imagine, I am going through, so I appreciated being able to laugh at this period of life.

Our teacher Rebecca organised piano recitals twice a year. We attended our first in December 2007, when Nicholas was in Grade 4 at St Matthew's Primary. In 2008, we moved to Kaleen Primary and then Tess, who was in Grade 1, joined Nicholas at Rebecca's home for weekly lessons. The recitals were usually in churches in Page, Waramanga and Ainslie. These below were taken at All Saints Church in Ainslie. Afterwards, there was cake and chatter with the other parents.