Author: Robin Chartier

MWF Christmas lunch

A year ago the family and I were partying with a camel at Maadi House in Egypt.
This December 12th I was at a beautiful mansion on the Arabian Sea with our Muscat Women’s Fellowship group. We met at the house of American missionaries (he was a doctor and she was a teacher) who originally came to Oman with their three young children back in the 1950s. The story of their relationship with Oman and their relationship with the Sultan is incredible. After they retired from their decades of work here, the Sultan gave them this property and built them a home right on the water. He also granted them Omani citizenship. They were gracious enough to let us meet and have lunch at their home.

Can you imagine waking up to this every morning? 

In the early years they used to have to sleep on the roof at night under wet towels. It was so hot the towels would dry out and they’d have to re-wet them in the middle of the night to be able to fall back to sleep.

A guy fishing in the cove — he had a spear and a mask and would paddle along the surface with his face in the water looking for his catch.

Last year was camels, this year it’s goats.

Mountain (of) goats?

Even in December it’s so hot that the goats all retreat to the shade in the middle of the day. Mom and Dad, this is why you’ll be glad you’re not coming in April. January will be plenty warm. 

“traditional” stockings

The sewing project that I’ve been working on for the last few days is almost completed. All that’s needed is a little ironing, a little hand sewing and some loops to hang the stockings.

Yep, I made “Omani” Christmas stockings. I was at a fabric and notions store where they sell all the beading and trimming for the abayas that the women wear here when inspiration struck. I decided to make abaya styled stockings for Camille and me and dishdasha stockings for the boys.


I taped a few pieces of printer paper together and cut a stocking shape out to use as my pattern. Then I cut out and sewed up the black fabric, applied the trims and embellishments by hand and then created a second plain stocking to use as a lining (the abaya fabric is lightweight so it would droop without a lining to help hold its shape). 

For the boys I used little boy sized dishdashas. I turned them inside out, pinned the pattern to the front, sewed around the edge of the pattern, and cut away the excess. The toe of the pattern hung over the edge of the dishdasha so I used the side seam as the edge (that’s why they have a blunt edge at the toe). I was going to add fabric to create a toe, but I like how it looks. 

Camille’s finished stocking. I’ll snap a photo of them once I get them all hanging, but couldn’t wait to share them.

lunar eclipse

Did you see the lunar eclipse tonight/this morning? We went out on our roof and watched the moon go from full to completely shadowed. 
View from our rooftop — a warm 75 degree evening that was perfect for moon watching. 

I’ve never seen a lunar eclipse before (that I remember anyway). It seems like all the good astronomy sightings are crack-of-dawn early and I’ve never wanted to see anything badly enough to get up for it. Not since Halley’s comet when I got up by myself at 4 am and sat on the front porch of our house in Oakland and to this day I still don’t know if I was looking at a far away airplane or a comet. Oh well. 
Anyway, this one was perfect for me since it started around 5:30 pm, right as the sun was setting. Pretty nifty and we got a good science lesson out of it. 

Princess Buttercup

She may look like a princess, but she’s a fighter. The situation: Carter has a candy cane — she wants some and loudly lets him know it. He tries to give her a piece of it. She takes the entire thing. Chaos ensues. 

tutu

It turns out that there is a whole other world of crafting and sewing that I haven’t explored because I’ve had boys until now. Who knew that it was ridiculously easy to make a tutu with some tulle and elastic? Obviously the entire entire internet, judging from the thousands of results that come up when you search for “tutu tutorial,” but I was in the dark until a friend pointed out the glittery tulle in the fabric store and said, “you could make a tutu today.” So I did.

A pair of scissors, a length of elastic, and the only sewing required is stitching the ends of elastic together to make the waistband of the skirt. The tulle is cut into 4 inch wide strips and then looped around the elastic as if you were adding fringe to the edge of a knitted or crocheted blanket. Easy-peasy.

This smart girl realizes this is where the magic happens. Someday you’ll get your own machine and together we’ll make tutus and capes for your babies. 
This isn’t the black and sparkly craft project that I thought I’d be sharing on my blog today. This is where I got side-tracked when I went to the fabric/notions store to buy supplies for my other project. I’m about 1/2 finished with the original idea and I’m hoping to finish it in the next day or two — unless I get caught up in tutus again. I have 3 different colors of tulle sitting on my dining room table calling my name. They want to be a pink, purple, and magenta skirt. I never thought I’d be a tutu mom . . .