Wow-- thanks, friends for some wonderful, thoughtful comments on my Gaudy Night post.  You are an encouragement to me!  Now, on a lighter note...

I would so love to have an entirely homemade Christmas, but... well, it takes two to tango.  So I keep plugging away at my own gift giving habits and don't worry about everyone else's.  I'm trying to instill in my children a love for making gifts, rather than my usual way of going about things-- nagging.

So we've been making lots of snakes, and Christmas ornaments, and we'll be doing some freezer-paper stencils.  And I've been doing lots of knitting.  Fun, fun, fun!  What are you working on?

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

We love library books, but I have yet to find a system for keeping them in the house.

I don't mean they walk away, but they're always being moved from room to room (and hiding), and in the living room, which is where most of our family reading happens, they end up in a messy pile.  How do you manage them?

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Here it is, at last... the very purple sweater for my girl.

She keeps trying to wear it over a T-shirt, but it is a wee bit itchy.

"It's kind-of itchy," she says.

I'm thinking, It took me three months to knit that thing, you'd better enjoy it. 

"Wear a turtleneck," I say.

Last week I went to the Yarn Shoppe and picked up some super-soft alpaca.  All alpaca, all the time, now.

• Comments (4) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

This happens to me every year, and every year it takes me by surprise.

In the winter, I think, "We just had Christmas.  It's too soon to be working on gifts for next year."  Then the spring comes, and I am consumed by gardening.  In the summer, we travel and have lots of guests, and it's hard to make my knitting/sewing a priority.

Then the fall hits.  All of a sudden it's October, and I haven't started knitting anything for Christmas.

Well, here's what I've got:

Hmm, you think.  (I can actually hear you thinking.)  Isn't that the same photo she posted here?  Well, almost.  Except that the February post was the first of eight Christmas stockings I was knitting, and this is the eighth.  Hooray!  And I'll still have six weeks to knit the forty-seven other things I have planned for Christmas.  (And no, I'm not expecting twins, I'm just knitting stockings for the six of us PLUS my parents who spend Christmas with us.)

If you're looking for gift ideas, you should check out this post  of Sarah's.  I love her blog-- it feeds my love of color, beauty, thought, and writing.  There's also Sew Mama Sew-- they usually have a whole month (in November) of handmade gifts, often with tutorials.  Check out last year's Handmade Holidays ideas! from November's archives.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Several months ago, I had the idea to make my children backpacks.  Cloth ones that they could take to the beach, or the pool... to carry their OWN stuff.  When I was three and we went to live in Egypt for the year, my parents' good friend made drawstring bags for my brother and me, and we loved them.  So I had that vision in my head.

I bought the fabric from Alewives Fabrics.  It's cotton, and so fun.  The bags are lined with white cotton, and the straps are four layers because of folding, and very reinforced.  I made what were essentially two pillowcases and put one inside the other so the seams were between. The lining was two inches taller than the outside, and then I double folded it to make a casing and ran a ribbon through it.  The "clasp" is three buttons-- it works pretty well.

Best of all, everyone is carrying their own stuff to the pool.  Hooray.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Do you read Amanda Blake Soule's blog?  Her daughter has been asking for a purple dress.  Well, we identify with that around here!

This is the sweater I mentioned.  Did I mention it's purple?  It's Swing Thing by Theresa Belville, and I'm knitting it in delicious Lamb's Pride (85%wool/15%mohair).  You can see how the mohair gives it just a little bit of halo.

A purple halo.  For my girl.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

P.S.  So I went upstairs and sat down at the machine with my tiny screwdriver, my sewing machine manual, and the teeny-tiny lint brush...

And I made a really cute pair of linen-cotton capri pants for summer.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

I so want to be a person who does spring cleaning.  Let me rephrase that... I want to be a person who JUST DID my spring cleaning.

Instead, I am more like Mole in Wind in the Willows who does a bit and then wanders out into the spring light and breeze... and spends the rest of the day with Ratty in the boat. 

So I'm starting small.  I just watched this great video on Spring Cleaning Your Sewing Machine by Bitter Betty on Sew Mama Sew.  I think what tipped me over to being ready to go (instead of thinking how great it would be if I were to do that) was that she had the same machine I do.  She hadn't cleaned hers for a year, and it was full of lint.

I haven't cleaned mine since I got it... six years ago.

If you don't hear from me for a couple days, send the dogs to sniff me out.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Do you hear that?  That's the sound of my kitchen faucet no longer dripping.

It has been dripping, at an increasing rate, for... eeek, probably several months.  We have adapted to this problem by pushing the faucet handle slightly to the right, ever so slightly more...

Anyway, it was time.

So after we went to the library yesterday, we went into Home Depot and got a sink repair kit (and a few extra neoprene washers and springs, in case I broke the first ones).  Please don't mind the cheerios in the sink... I had already turned off the water before J dumped his bowl in there, so I couldn't wash them away.  Anyway... an hour later (and several heads bitten off in the process), there is a delightful sound of silence in my kitchen...

Do you hear it?  No more kitchen water torture.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time (or if you've ever blessed me by visiting) you know I'm not much of a housekeeper.  Though I love being in a clean house, cleaning it is not my gift.  I have to work hard at it.

I've been feeling a little harried in my kitchen of late, and though I've just instituted a "Keep Your Zone Clean" plan for the rest of the house, the kitchen is my zone.  And it's totally paralyzing me.  Here's the visual:

Did you notice how there's something on every.horizontal.surface.  In fact, it's so bad that things are starting to pile up on our chairs (not shown).  So while you're blessing your house, say a little prayer for me, that I could bless mine.

• Comments (3) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link