A Very Crafty Vella

Since the beginning of my reignited excited about knitting I have had some storage problems. The first and most pressing was what on earth to do with the hundreds of balls of wool I have already acquired. A quick Google search and a trip to my local storage shop later and the problem is solved. It's a shoe storage bag but works very well for wool in my opinion. Only problem is its already full and there's not that many doors in my house! Better get knitting...

I love making Iris Folding cards. The website is really badly made, there are patterns available from each year since 2007 but there's no home page where you can get to them all. Regardless, they are really cool patterns and available for free! They even have some finished examples that people have sent in to give you colour ideas.

My knitting needles have been driving me nuts for ages. I have heaps and they're strewn all over the house. So today with the help of a little googling and the sewing machine my parents bought me for my birthday, I made my own knitting needle storage. I think its quite cute really. It didn't take me long either.

If you're looking to replicate, you should check out these sites. This one has a design that requires fabric that is double sided. This one uses two pieces each of two different fabrics. I kinda joined the ideas together. Next time, I'd make sure I sewed my backing piece on last so that it covers up all the lines from the needle pockets I sewed on the inside. I thought this blog had a particularly cute and colourful needle pouch but she didn't include a pattern. I think she's going to sell them if you can't be bothered to make your own!

Now I just need to go and find all those knitting needles and file them away.

It was my Dad's birthday a little while back and I made him a card. I took my inspiration from PoppyPaperie's Site and Bobunny's blog (see the Dad card right at the bottom of the page). My card isn't even close to as good as the examples but Dad still liked it anyway. Who doesn't love a homemade card?!

As an aside, I have the best Dad in the world. I know many of you will disagree but you would be wrong. In the talk on Sunday, Geoff said that many girls go through their teenage years longing to know that their Dad loves them. I'm not sure whether that was true for me or not but looking back, I should never have been in any doubt...

I just have to write a book review on this book because I'm so glad I've finished it! So here goes:

Engaging with God by David Peterson. Intervarsity Press 1992 ISBN-10: 0-8308-2697-1

Intro: Why did I read this book? My prior assumptions.

I decided to finish my Moore College Preliminary Certificate in Theology by completing my final unit: Christian Worship. This is the "additional reading" for the course and since I am a postgraduate student, additional reading is compulsory! I must admit I was not looking forward to reading it, my husband said it was tricky and he reads very tricky books so that's saying something. I also didn't expect it to say anything I didn't already know and judging by the size of it, it was going to take a long time to do that!

1. Background of the author

The Rev. Dr. David Peterson was a student of Moore College. His many qualifications and work experiences are neatly presented on the Moore College website.

2. Description of the purpose

Peterson begins by reflecting on his purpose for the book. His major question is "What after all, does the Bible mean by 'worship' and how does it relate to the other great issues of the Christian life?" He seeks to "grapple with a broadly based Biblical Theology of Worship". In his opinion, "We have enough "how to do it" books and not enough reflection on worship as a total biblical idea".

I'm not sure I fully agree with the claim that we have enough "how to" worship books, there are plenty of books out there but in my experience most of them are not useful. Worship Matters would be an exception to that, although I still haven't finished it.

However, I do agree that we have a greater need to understand what worship is, in particular, what does God mean by worship, what does He expect from us when we worship. God has revealed Himself to us primarily in His Son Jesus, and in His Word and so a careful study of the Bible should shed some light on these questions.

3. Evaluation of the book - did the author meet his purpose?

Based on the purpose above I was expecting a "Biblical Theology of Worship". Unfortunately, I had no idea what that was! It turns out, for Peterson that involved carefully working through the Old Testament and then the New Testament texts searching for all references to "worship". ALL of these references were then carefully analysed in their literary and situational contexts and then conclusions about worship were drawn from that.

As a result, this book is difficult to read. It is very detailed as it carefully pulls apart different passages of Scripture. I must admit, some nuances went straight over my head, however I did choose to try to understand Peterson's point and the implications of those little technical details. It was hard work.

However, it was very rewarding. In particular this book really helped me to think carefully about the difference between Old Testament and New Testament worship. How is it that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament sacrificial system? Why is it that we don't have to sacrifice lambs anymore, or worship at temples? For many years now I would have been able to tell you that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament system of worship but I would have struggled to tell you why, how or what evidence there was for this. Hebrews is a key book in answering this question, but what surprised me was that the Old Testament already pointed to a time when the system would be done away with and the gospels, and other New Testament passages also speak of Jesus fulfilling this Old Testament sacrificial system.

This book also helped me to see what use the Old Testament has in informing our worship today. The Old Testament describes worship as homage to God, service to God and reverence for God. It also very clearly outlines that worship is given by redeemed people who God has revealed Himself to and they will worship Him acceptably in the way that He outlines. We cannot just make this stuff up. God tells us how He is to be worshiped and its very important.

I'm not sure whether it was the Moore College Course or this book or both that prompted me to start thinking carefully about what I believe about communion. I've enjoyed wrestling with the question, "if I could rewrite all the rules and traditions for communion what do I think the Bible says it should look like". In one sense this is purely hypothetical, however it is fun nonetheless. It was interesting to look at Jesus Last Supper carefully and consider what His intention for that meal was.

In summary, this book certainly gives an extensive, detailed description of what the Bible says worship is. I'm not convinced it was clear about who worship relates to the other great issues of the Christian life however I suppose it ended up arguing that worship encompasses all of the Christian life and so perhaps it did. This book did not seek to be practical but I could certainly see areas where some practical outworkings could be established.

4. Topics not yet covered

Well this book is ridiculously detailed, I doubt Peterson missed a single verse out of his analysis so in terms of investigating what the Bible says about worship, Peterson left nothing out. However, it does lack detail about what worship should look like practically in our daily lives and in our meetings together. Particularly in how the Lord's supper should be celebrated today, or how we reconcile our various traditions with what the Bible says about the topic.

5. Place in the literature of its subject

Ok so admittedly, your average Jo Blow Christian is not going to read this book. I'm not saying they shouldn't read it, its just full of very minor details that are tricky to understand or see any practical implication of. It's the kind of book that unless you have to read it to pass an exam, you'll never make it to the end. So perhaps we should be encouraging more people to do the "Christian Worship" Moore college course so they have to read this book!

However in my opinion, this book should be the first port of call for people who are about to write a "how to" book/seminar/talk on worship. If you don't have this stuff ingrained in you, then your "how to" book is just going to be another addition to the myriad of other useless books on the topic.

The book is helpfully broken up into chapters on different sections of the Bible. So the teaching of Acts on Worship is all contained in one chapter. This at least means that if you were looking at one particular section of Scripture, you could just read that chapter of the book. However I think ideally someone would write an "Engaging with God for dummies" book. This material is useful and would help inform our worship, but needs to be presented in a clearer way so that it is more accessible to the average person.

Conclusion: My personal reaction to the book

Some time back I was stuck inside on a rainy day with a bored 1 year old who likes making lion noises. The obvious thing to do was to make a lion mask.

Here is the result. We painted a paper plate together, let it dry and then added the paper mane later on. Rolling the paper was a little tedious for the 1 year old but the gluing part was fun! Attach a ruler to the back and voila! A lion has been created!

Dino the dinosaur is my latest creation made from wool left over from the Union Jack cushion I knitted and a little bit of green I found at my favourite wool shop. The pattern was in a book I borrowed from the library called "Kitted Dinosaurs" by Tina Barrett.


This particularly creature is apparently a Spinosaurus, the largest meat-eating dinosaur. They had a sail running down their backs to disperse heat, attract mates and intimidate other dinosaurs. I have my doubts about dinosaurs in general, but we shall leave that for another blog post and just accept the above as doctrine - it was printed in a knitting book about dinosaurs after all!

I'm hoping to knit some more dinosaurs if the library will let me keep the book long enough. In the mean time, I hope the little boy who received this dinosaur for his birthday finds it to be lots of fun. When was the last time you received a knitted dinosaur for your birthday?!

Today I thought I'd share an idea I stole a while back and have found really helpful. It's not a craft idea but its my blog so it turns out I can blog about whatever I want!

My inspiration comes from a friend of mine who lives in India. I met David in 2003 on a mission trip. David's father is the pastor of a church. Last count, David has memorised 1000 verses of Scripture and his father, Gali has memorised 4500. Apparently, Gali recites 1500 verses each morning during his personal time of praise and prayer. I'm not exactly sure how long it would take me to read 1500 verses aloud, let alone recite them from memory but my guess is its longer than I currently spend studying my Bible. I think some of their devotion to memorisation would stem from the reality of the lack of access to the Bible in their country. However, given that they both have copies of the Scriptures this is not all there is to it. Their motivation stems from their love for the Scriptures and their firm belief that it has the power to change lives. It has bugged me ever since I met David and his family that I have memorised so little Scripture and devote so little time to this practise. So late last year I began to change...

I've long thought that memorising large chunks of Scripture would be more helpful than memorising individual verses all over the place. Remember the context of verses helps us understand what they actually mean - if I had a dollar for each time I have heard Jeremiah 29:11 quoted and interpreted in fairly dubious ways I'd have enough money for a new deck by now!

So given that my husband's favourite passage is 1 Corinthians 15 and I heard some excellent talks on that chapter at Engage 2011 I thought I'd start there. By the way - download those talks by Rory Shiner and listen to them here - they are life changing!

I found a system for memorisation that I have since discovered is genius. I stole it from Carrie Gaul. It's really simple and easy to get started and so far, it works.

The principle is as follows:

Practise each verse once a day for seven weeks

Then,

Practise the verse once a week for seven months

Then,

Practise the verse once a month for seven years

So in week 1 you start with one verse and you write it down each day. The next week you add a new verse to your list and write down both verses each day. The third week you'll have three verses and so on. After seven weeks you'll have seven verses but that first verse you'll have done once a day for seven weeks so its now ready to move to the once a week chart.

I always practise my "once a week" verses on a Monday, so Monday gets to be quite a big day - potentially 28 verses if my maths is correct! I type the verses instead of handwriting those days so that its quicker!

Then Tuesday to Friday are easier, usually only the 7 verses I've got on the "Once a day for seven weeks chart". I hand write the verses for Tuesday - Thursday and then I say the verses aloud on Friday. That can be surprisingly challenging because it doesn't give you time to think ahead as much as when you are writing.

As an aside, if I miss a day, I leave the tick box blank and at the end of the seven weeks I keep practising them once each day until I've filled in all the blanks. Only then do I move them onto the once a week pile. I think this just ensures I actually know the verse really well before graduating onto the next level! It does mean my list each day gets longer, if I find its getting to long I just don't introduce a new verse on Monday for a week so that I can get everything back under control again!

So far I've memorised 1 Corinthians 15 v 1 - 19 and another 11 random verses I wanted to learn for my Moore College exam. If I keep going at this rate its going to take me 20 years to learn 1000 verses, but that's ok! It's kinda ironic that I'm writing this blog this week since I haven't got back into my daily memorising since my Moore College exam a few weeks ago. Hopefully this blog encourages me to get stuck back into it on Monday.

I've made up my own charts because I didn't like the ones Carrie made - if you'd like a copy, just let me know :)

Anyway, that's all for today folks :)

Another craft day at the Velladrome.

I had an extra child so I was keen on "no-mess" craft. This was perfect. I really like that there is no glue involved. Apart from when one of the kids decided it'd be fun to throw the whole tub of little bits of square tissue paper all over the floor we were completely mess-free!

I used tissue paper instead of cellophane, worked just as well.

The most frustrating part is trying to keep the kids entertained whilst separating the contact from the protective covering but apart from that it was really fun and I was surprised how well the kids managed it (16 -18 months).

Check it out at: http://www.craftscope.com/stained-glass-window/

So today I begin a blog.

Since the Internet is already cluttered with the opinions of people, most of which are not particularly useful or interesting I feel that it is essential to be clear about the purpose of this blog. That way, if you end up reading something un-useful or un-interesting I cannot be held responsible because I have warned you of the purpose from the beginning. The purpose of this blog is as follows:

To collect ideas that I find on the internet that I like and store them in one place so that they are easy to find later. These ideas will predominately be craft ideas. 

I would like to make the following abundantly clear from the outset:

1. I am not starting a blog because my husband told me to
2. I will blog when it is convenient to me and only when it is convenient to me. I am under no obligation to blog on a regular basis.
3. If no one ever reads my blog I will not be offended since it is mostly created for my own benefit.

So far so good...