19th meeting

Our today's stories - "Mrs. Woolly's Funny Sweaters" by Asha Nehemia and "Winter Woolies" by Tracey Elliot-Reep

As we sat down for the book club today, Umm Uzair asked us, how many of us had seen real snow. It turned out that quite a few of us had! We admitted that in snow it feels very cold and that we had to wear many layers of clothes to keep us warm. Umm Uzair made us think, if the clothes were the ones that actually made us warm. Would a sweater make the wall warm, if we hang it on the wall? Would it or not? As we talked, we came to conclusion that clothes simply kept the warmth of our body with us - that's how they protected us from cold!

The first book we read today was about Mrs. Woolly and her daughter Anita. Mrs. Woolly earned money by knitting sweaters, however, since they lived in a warm place, not many people bought her sweaters. So they moved up into mountains, where it was cold and where people needed sweaters. Their new house was so high up in the mountains that whenever they opened windows, clouds would float in and they would not be able to see anything in their home at all. Due to this problem, Mrs. Woolly kept on knitting, even without seeing what she was doing. The results were quite strange: one sweater with two necks, one with four sleeves and one with no sleeves at all - just a veeeeeery long neck. Mrs. Woolly was sad for this wastage. However, later they found use for these sweaters - one was bought by a man, who put it on his dog (the four sleeves one), one was bought by a woman, who gave it to her monkey with her baby - both the baby and the mother could fit into the sweater (the two necks one) and one was bought by a man, who had a sitar - to keep the strings of sitar warm (the long neck one). Anita bought for her mother also a very strong light, which would help her in knitting. Now Mrs. Woolly was able to make fine sweaters, however, whenever anybody needed a funny one, she switched off the light and knitted without seeing...

The other book was about sheep and wool. Through pictures, we learned from it about the life-cycle of sheep and about how their fleece gets cut and made into yarn, which then is used for making warm clothes.

After the books, Umm Uzair taught us to make nice bookmarks from three-coloured yarn. When we finished the bookmarks, Umm Uzair brougth some crocheting needles and showed us, how to make a simple chain with them.