Turn, Turn, Turn

My drool of the day is the crochet tree from Akuadesigns. I can even see putting some ornaments on it. Cute!

Can someone please explain to me why I am thinking about knitting a pair of socks? Fear not, I am not in danger of actually pulling out the one skein of sock yarn I've had in my possession for more than a year and whipping up a pair. I just want to know why I've been thinking about it.

There are some things which should not be considered: Brett Favre in a Bears uniform....President Palin....me knitting another pair of socks. Though of the three, the socks is the most likely.

I am giving the sermon on Sunday and I will be talking to Ecclesiastes 3:1-13. It is a familiar passage; to everything there is a season. A time to be born, a time to die; a tie to sow, a time to reap, and so on.

It does not escape me that this time of year is crowded for us. There's Thanksgiving and Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa - holidays that are there for everyone. But also it's Mr.Honey's birthday in October and my birthday in November. It is my mother's birthday in October. It is also the time of his mother's passing right before his birthday and my father's passing on Christmas Eve. In the midst of all the celebration are moments of sadness.

But the text in Ecclesiastes says there is a time for every purpose under Heaven. There will be a time when it is necessary for a myriad of things to occur. But it also says God has placed the idea of eternity into our souls and we will never know all that God has done and will do but we are to be happy and do good while we are here. So while there may be a time for hate, war and sadness to be, they are not to be of equal measure to love, peace and joy. As we prepare to put away this year with the celebration of lights, the coming of the Christ child, and the beginning of a new year, it is understandable that there will be moments of sadness and regret. There will be that time of missing those who are gone but the good news is we also have the happiness of knowing they were here. That joy does not diminish.

Five Years In

I have a notoriously short attention span - it's amazing I'm still married - and that I remember his name. Though, I have to admit, calling him Mr. Honey may be proof I have actually forgotten...what's his name.

But my attention span is short. Something will interest me and then I am so interested in it that I burn the interest right out of me and I leave whatever it is abandoned and alone.

Which surprises me that I am still knitting. Knitting/crocheting. Every day. It will be five years this December that I started knitting again. It has shown me the better and worse parts of myself. It has shown me how I treat people and how my thought process works. Perhaps that's why I still do - knitting/crocheting is good therapy - and doesn't cost as much. Well, actually, it does cost as much but I get to choose so much about fiber that I wouldn't get to choose about my therapist.

Perhaps a therapist could explain why I started to crochet this: I was looking through my project books when I came across a prayer shawl book that has some crochet patterns and I decided to try the pattern. A shawl turned out to be too big of a commitment considering I was supposed to be working on an afghan so I shortened it to a scarf. Quick crochet, it's almost done. The photo doesn't do justice to the lacy goodness of it but I am still pleased at how it's coming out. It also does the color (a striking varied blue) little justice.

See, the short attention span rears its ugly head. There is something in my head that wants to take a break from the 'have to make' and play a little somewhere else. The compromise it made was to work on something that could be used in the sale and that way the time isn't completely wasted.

So this little off ramp is still connected to the road but I know I will appreciate getting back to where I need to be.

Have you started your holiday crafting yet? I just made a list of family members on both sides. Christmas Eve has changed since half the kids are married and some of they're spouses are from split families and every one has to make the rounds. So instead of us getting together at Christmas, we get together in January on my mother-in-law's birthday. It is unclear if we are going to do the gift exchange we normally do. So I don't know if I have to knit up three things (sisters-in-law and brother-in-law) or not. But I plan on starting at the beginning of the list and working my way down and do gifts throughout the year. My brother in Arizona is at the top of the list. An afghan works even in the desert.

I can start the holiday knitting just in case - if my attention holds, that is.

No, No, Don't Thank Me

I do this for your own good. There are those of you who are holiday needle folk. You have your list of items to make to give as gifts to family and friends.

This is your 'almost 90 days to Christmas' countdown. You know you need it. Mr. Honey and I only give three presents at Christmas: to his brother, his sister and his sister-in-law. They have each received a knitted item (at least one.) Chances are they will receive afghans this year.

Chances are.

Because I have only, at last count, five afghans in stock and I have two shows coming up and have been known to sell an afghan or two (or five) in the shows that I've done. So, really, I have no afghans at all.

And it's 110 days til Christmas. An afghan can take up to a month to make. How long does it take to make all your stuff?

Mr. Honey got a phone call from someone at work who asked if he would help on a project coming up in a matter of days - the project was getting a part of the store ready for Christmas. "We're still getting Halloween stuff in.' says he.

Poor baby. He doesn't understand the nature of the retail business. Labor Day is the new opening day of the holiday season: Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years in rapid succession. Happens every year.

And every year we crafters get caught looking at the calendar and thinking, "Oh, I have time." Right. Because everything else in life will magically transform itself to accommodate your ambitious gift making schedule.

I know the sun is still out and there are some warm days ahead. I'm just saying you need to start wrapping your mind around it so you'll have time to wrap the presents without as much hurried stress as in seasons past.

This is our craft and our passion and we love giving gifts - so there's no reason why doing so much of what we love should be so stressful. Planning - that's the ticket.

Better get started!

I Wish You A Merry Christmas

The Prayer Shawl roll continues on...I decided I should show you what I've been up to. Five prayer shawls and one more on the needles. The light colored one on the bottom left was made a few weeks ago and is the only triangle one there will be. I used to make the triangle all the time, but I am enamored for the rectangle one. The four rectangles have all been made with a ten day period - told you I was on a tear. I love the colors. And I love how soft they are and they look like a lot more work than they are.

Mr. Honey's sister is getting the triangle one because she canceled Christmas (well, kinda, another post) and his sister-in-law is getting the prayer shawl on the upper right. (I can tell you this cuz they don't read the blog!)

There are more shawls to come in some really lovely colors and I am excited to see them go from skein to shawl.

You know what else I'm excited about? LIsa's Pieces. Lisa is a local artist and she makes jewelry. She's fresh and understated - which means her stuff has a great 'wow' factor.
Take a look at some of the things I love in her shop: Aren't these the cutest earrings? Y'all know since I chopped off the hair that the ears can't go out naked. Earrings have always been one of my favorite accessories and these are just darling!
My other favorite accessories are pendants and these are also quite cute.










She manages to get quite a lot into such a small area. The pieces aren't so big they overwhelm you, but the designs are such they carry themselves very well. I just love her work. She's been doing it for over fifteen years and she even makes guitar picks! Check out her shop on Etsy.com and see if you don't fall in love with it, too!

I'm going to get back to the knitting now. While I do have that prayer shawl on the needles that's about 1/3 done, I will actually be working on some squares. My secondary project is to make 200 squares and I have 3 of them done. I am hoping I can keep myself interested enough to get through them all because they will make about 4 sampler afghans which should look really nice.

I don't know that I will get back here before the holiday so let me take this moment to wish you and your family the best of the holiday season. Whether it's Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Festival of Lights or whatever the observance of your heart and spirit - I pray that it is everything you wish and need it to be and that it leaves you feeling wonderfully tired and refreshed with the joy of being surrounded by the people you love or being in restful solitude can bring.

Ah, The Synergy

So, we do an Epiphany Concert every year. (Epiphany, for those who don't know and even for those who do because it's the same whether you know it or not - commemorates the day the Magi came to see the Christ child. Epiphany is also the name of the nurse on General Hospital, but I'm relatively certain we don't celebrate that.) For the past seven years, we have trekked over to United Lutheran because someone there is the founder of the concert. Well, she had enough of that so this year our church (First United Methodist) was the host and yours truly was the coordinator. (That's not really important, but I thought I'd tell you.)

Before the concert, each choir (there are five choirs from area churches who sing) are assigned a room and for the past few years I've knit waiting for the concert to start and this year was no exception. I gave great thought to taking my knitting into the sanctuary and knit while the other choirs sang (we were the last choir to sing so I could have knit for close to an hour before I had to put it down.) Alas, I left my knitting in the parlor thinking it would be best if I didn't enjoy myself so much while my choir mates were sitting attentively.

Anyhow, these two women came late and they sat in the pew in front of me and what did one of them proceed to do? Take out some knitting! It looked like she was knitting a blanket and it was all in garter stitch. It was a nice grey worsted weight and she was double stranding with some size 13 needles. (Scary that I know that!!) Another choir member made a point of pointing out that someone else was knitting. I wanted to go get mine and join her - then I wanted to take hers from her and knit it myself (It was only the garter stitch, after all!)

I did neither. I went up and sang with my choir. When I was coming down from the choir loft, there was someone waiting for me. Someone from my online knitting group whom I had never met. Another knitter! And she had her knitting with her (albeit in the car.) My knitting was still in the parlor. I went to gather them all together so we could slip off into the parlor for some stitch bonding, but I couldn't herd them all in. - darn it! (No pun intended.)

So that part didn't pan out, but it was really neat to have knitters in the midst.

I am convinced that the axis on which the world turns is actually a knitting needle!

Well, Merry Christmas

Whew! The Christmas Eve service is over and it was very nice. I didn't get to the sound engineer quickly enough to grab the CD last night, so I will try and get it Sunday. Music is always an important part of the services, but even more so at Christmas. We sang a lot. 'O Holy Night' went well. Even my choir director said it was quite lovely! I'm somewhere in the back row. This was from last year's service and I don't think it was Christmas Eve, but it was around that time.

Dinner and the family was fun. This was the HB's year to play Santa and he did a very nice job of it.
And the Christmas gifts were cool: a new necklace and a shawl, gift certificates for dinners, a jar of marmalade (reminded me of my mother-in-law), theatre tickets (from Marilyn), Irish Creme - which I told the HB we should add to coffee because that's the only way I will drink coffee
a John Legend (cute!) CD and five books from the HB:
Cables - Mittens, Hats and Scarves
How to Select Color Palettes for knitting
Knit to be Square
Picture Perfect Knits
Knitted Afghans and Pillows

The habit is enabled for at least another year! We're off to church to help serve lunch. I hope your Christmas Day is blessed and restful and will begin your renewal for the New Year!

It's Christmas Week

Ok, so there won't be hats for everyone this Christmas. I forgot just what a hectic schedule I have this week. But that doesn't mean there weren't hats made.
I did manage to get a few knit up, but since they aren't going to anyone in particular, I actually started playing with the idea of doing an Esty shop.
I went onto the site and looked it up, and by cracky, I think I will do it. I've set up another blog to load up some product (of which these two hats will be part) and I've registered my shop on the site. I talked to God about it and other than reminding me of how I get these ideas and then lose my attention, He seemed to think this was something I could do if I managed to deal with the aforementioned attention problem. And I think I can do that since I'm always knitting and I head up the sales we do and since it requires writing, it pulls all my stuff into one place. But hats aren't the only things that will be in store. There will be afghans, blankets, pillows, etc. like this feather an fan afghan I just finished.

Other than that, getting ready for Christmas meant singing rehearsals. I've done a solo on Christmas Eve every year for the past six years. This year I will be returning to my mother's favorite, 'O Holy Night' I'm a first soprano and that means hitting the B flat. It's a really beautiful song and our music director, Michael, plays it wonderfully. It's very majestic. If I can remember to grab the recording, I'll try and put it up - cuz, of course, you'll all want to hear it!!

I'll be spending Christmas morning in bed while the HB goes to his church for his service, then he'll come back home and we will open presents (He bought me five knitting related books and 1 CD. I bought him some baguette pans and a stand mixer - well, it's what he wanted!) and then we are heading off to my church to help serve lunch to some of the homeless.

In case I don't get to the computer - let me say to you all how happy I am to know you. It is a blessing to share the love of our craft with you and I enjoy reading your blogs as well. I wish you all a safe, blessed and fulfilling Christmas season and a wonderful New Year.