The Ghost of Christmas Crafting Past

We have a pretty fair collection of Christmas ornaments. Not anything like the collection my parents had, since my Dad liked to hit the drug stores after Christmas and see what ornaments were on sale. If we'd used all the ornaments collected over the years, we would have had to put up three or four trees. Well... we did live on a Christmas tree farm so that wouldn't have been entirely out of the question. But we didn't.

Still, my collection would cover large tree as thickly as any gift shop display. Since we put up small tress these days — less for the cats to knock over, though they haven't done so yet — I only get out some of the ornaments and leave others. Some I've bought. I adore old-fashioned shiny glass ornaments in all kinds of shapes and figures. Some I've made. So, in a crafty theme, here are a few of my handmade ornaments and the stories behind them.

Starting with:

I wanted some gold shine on the tree one year, maybe ten or fifteen years ago, and saw some pretty gold lamé ornaments. Thinking I could make some myself, I found some gold fabric. The only kind I could find was quilted, so I used it to make quilted stars and crescent moons.

This snowman:

And this tree:

began life only a few years ago as plain glass ornaments from the craft store for decorating. I used window sticker paints to paint them up all pretty.

This little critter peeing out of a stocking:

is made of polymer clay. I have a pattern for this in felt, but thought I could make something smaller and shinier from polymer clay. I rolled the red and the white very thin to make the stocking, and inserted a wire loop between the white border and the red for a hanging loop. Miss Mousie is dimensionally modeled in brown clay with pink in her ears and bright beady black eyes, accented with white. Some tubes of sparkle glue made the adornments, and the whole thing was coated with acrylic floor wax and baked for a hard, shiny finish.

Going back in time to my cross-stitching days over twenty years ago:

What's it say? It says "Merry Christmas" in Czechoslovakian. I made it for my grandmother, whose parents immigrated from Bohemia when Bohemia was still a country of its own, back when Queen Victoria was sitting unamused on the throne of England. Grandma didn't speak a lot of Czechoslovakian, but her parents spoke it at home when she was young.

This one:

is done in counted bead work on cross-stitch fabric using vintage glass beads I got from my other grandma. I crocheted the border with vintage rayon thread, sewed it to a white satin back, and stuffed it. The ornament won a blue ribbon at the State Fair.

And these:

are real eggshells. I cut the fronts out with embroidery scissors, washed them well, and peeled out the membrane. I painted the outsides with multiple layers of fingernail polish for color and strength -- pearly white for the one on the left, metallic cherry red for the one on the right. The lace is crocheted from gold thread on a tiny vintage crochet hook. I crocheted the poinsettia on the left from sewing thread on the same tiny hook. The one on the right has a tiny bell, with little leaves of holly cut from green ribbon. Even though I used ordinary nail polish from the drug store, no fancy-schmancy brand, it's held up for well over twenty years. Made hash of my nails (I must be sensitive to acetone or something), but makes eggshells last forever.

Advent for Knitters from DROPS

Why did I not know about this before? DROPS Designs has an Advent calendar posted that will have a pattern a day for some little knitted something. Here's the link to the English version. And to the original Swedish, if that takes your fancy.)

Selfish Swap

In preparation for the holiday season (yes, Mr. Bill O'Whathisname, holidays, holy days, inclusive of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and other winterish celebrations, making this a season of holidays), the Selfish Knitters and Crocheters group on Ravelry organized a selfish swap, officially titled the Secret Veruca WFT Swap.

(Miss Veruca being the patron yarn-grabber of the group.)

The theme was holidays, and we all picked favorite real or made-up holidays, as well as describing our likes and dislikes in thorough surveys and wishlists. It is a selfish swap, after all, so asking for precisely what one want was highly encouraged.

But there was nothing selfish about the loading up of boxes to send off! Upstream "swapners" had a whole lot of fun filling boxes of goodies for their downstream partners.

My downstream "swapner" gave me an easy theme: National Chocolate Day. Not a problem finding things to fit the theme. I went for quality over quantity, though the quantity was pretty good, too, and much of it was made by hand, but selfishly, not by me -- by artisans instead, some of them local:

The box I sent out contained a skein of hand-painted sock yarn from Three Fates Yarn in the closest colorway that I could find to mint chocolate, several bars of organic Dagoba chocolate (including one with chilies in it), hand-made Hood River Cherry Pinot truffles made at a wine bar and bistro in town, a big pack of I Dream of Chocolate tea from independent tea blender Tea Time Garden, a tea brewing basket, and handmade chocolate sandwich cookie stitch markers from The Winemaker's Sister.

Then I waited and soon came a box from my upstream swapner!

Holy cow, what a load of goodies! There's hand-dyed spinning fiber, hand knitted mitts and a cowl and a tawashi and a potholder, Tazo tea, a sample of wool wash, little Christmas decorations, some English toffee, shortbread cookies, and two skeins of Lorna's Laces DK. Score!

So what was my holiday? It was more of a holiday tradition: the coming of Father Time on New Year's eve. When I was a kid, we'd stay up until midnight to ring in the new year (literally -- Mom had a brass dinner bell that we rang with great enthusiasm). Then we set the table for breakfast, but everything was set upside-down, plates, bowls, cups, and all. In the night, Father Time came and set everything right again and filled the cups and bowls with candy, nuts, fruit, and small gifts. The gifts often went with things Santa had brought at Christmas, such as clothes for a doll or cars for a race track set.

My grandmother always said that the tradition was from England, but I've never met anyone else who even knew about it, so maybe it's something her family made up. Anyhow -- if anyone else wants to borrow Father Time Night, feel free!

Small Business Saturday

No, I don't do the war on Thanksgiving -- a.k.a. post-Thankgiving sales, a.k.a. "Black Friday." I don't do well at all in noisy crowds of strangers, especially in enclosed spaces, and I can't stand the greed-fest. I'm not opposed to shopping, but I am opposed to stores encouraging people to camp in their parking lots on Thanksgiving day instead of being home with their families, or that start their sales on Thanksgiving itself. I've noted which stores in town did that and will not be shopping there all the next year. Maybe, like Bill O'Whatshisname who yammers about the supposed "war on Christmas," I could start a movement about the "war on Thanksgiving." And I think I'd have a much stronger case. I did Buy Nothing Day instead -- at least until the kid from the local high school wrestling team came around selling wreaths. But that's a fundraiser, so it doesn't count.

I waited for Small Business Saturday and patronized Tangled Purls, one of two yarn shops in town. Not that I really need an excuse to check out the books and yarn, but I'll take one anyway. Came home with The Knitter's Handy Book Of Patterns and a skein of Madelinetosh sock yarn.

Then the family went to our locally-owned theater pub and saw The Muppets. Ah, a lovely feel-good holiday moving. Next we want to see Hugo, and we're really looking forward to The Adventures of Tin-Tin. Directed by Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson? Sounds good already.

In Sheep's Clothing: Vintage Film from Shetland

Want to know where your genuine Shetland yarn comes from? Or perhaps, used to come from... check out In Sheep's Clothing, a rare vintage silent film of shepherds on Shetland herding and "rooing" sheep, then turning the wool into hand-knitted garments. The traditional Shetland sheep shed its wool, so had to be "rooed," or hand-plucked. The film dates from 1932, and is in the Scottish Screen Archive. Click on the picture to take you to the site.

I just love this image of a woman hugging and comforting an antsy sheep.

I'm on the Yarn Harlot's blog!

Squee! Yes! I'm going all squealy fangirl here. I'm on the Yarn Harlot's blog with my scarf, Katie and Ellie are on there, and a whole flock of other folks from Portland and environs are on there. So is Laia and her Kiwi, Agnes -- I met both of them at the spin-in at Stash LLC in Corvallis.

When Muggles Knit

Or rather, attempt to knit. Without instruction. You just take yarn and needles and go at it, right? Whip out that scarf, right?

Riiiight...
 

I'm laughing AND want to slap him hard, at the same time. Honestly, I know a three-year-old who can do better than this, and is a lot cuter, but not quite as hilarious.

"Just use some tape. Some people say, you know, that's cheating, but I say, shut up. Because tape is like knitting for everybody."

"Now, if you you don't want to make a scarf, you can make a snake blanket. Because a snake blanket... is just a scarf."

"Sometimes you'll see people knitting in the subway, or in coffee houses, and... they're just jerks. Because they like to knit in front of people and brag they can do it."

All right, to be fair, we're always saying in my knitting group that whatever knitting method gets you the results you want, whether it's English or Continental or the Norwegian purl or whatever, is the right method. So Dan, my boy, if this gets you the results you want, carry on. Maybe you'd like to bring your project to my knitting group so that you can brag, too.

Spinning Sunday at Stash LLC

Rejoice, Citizens of Corvallis! There's a new yarn shop in town, and it's lovely!

This afternoon, two of us made a pilgrimage to Corvallis to visit Stash LLC for their spinning afternoon. Having gone to grad school in Corvallis -- twice -- I was already familiar with the downtown area and quickly placed the address as a near-next-door-neighbor to a fantastic bead shop I used to frequent, one of those with the aroma of sandalwood and all the peace signs and ethnic items that makes you go, "Bead shop? Head shop? Think I'll stick with the bead cases, thanks."

Just walking in -- doesn't that feel lovely already? Polished wooden floors, samples on display, books -- and yarn! Lots of lovely yarn, and local spinning fiber too.

The spinners were already gathering, with a variety of wheels in evidence. In the back, some folks were having fun with the drum carders, making batts.

Patch came with her spindle:

Helen, who rode down with me, came armed with a spindle, too, as did I, since we didn't know how much space or seating there would be. Jakay came with her crochet:

While the spinning carried on, I trotted down the block to the head bead shop in search of at least 35 grams of beads, yes beads. I needed size 8 seed beads for some tencel yarn that I bought at the first Sock Summit, which will become an Entomology shawl, which is what I intended when I bought the yarn.

Evidence that I did come back with beads.

And I think they go with the yarn quiet nicely. Even if they do have the lingering sandalwood aroma of a... bead shop.

A Night with the Harlot

Have y'all been following the Yarn Harlot's (a.k.a. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee) book tour on her blog? Her last stop was last night in Portland at Powell's Books, and a whole flock of us from Salem went up to see her.

Now, for those of you who sometimes say, "Aw, I worked all day, I'm too tired to go to that thing tonight that tomorrow I'll probably wish I went to," listen up. Here's how my Fridays go this term: I teach two 2-hour back-to-back labs in the morning, followed by a noon meeting (which is where I scarf down lunch), followed by a 1-hour lecture, followed by a 2-hour lab. That's seven hours on my feet, a non-stop day with no breaks to sit by myself and decompress, and I'm an introvert so that's the definition of hell for me. So after all that, last night the lab got out a little early (thank Mendel). I jumped in the car, rocketed home, feed the cats, warmed up some stuff that I rummaged out of the fridge for dinner, and met my friend Katie with her little Ellie at the IKE Box where our knitting group meets. We bolted for Portland, got stuck in traffic so slow way south of Wilsonville that it looked like walking there would be a viable option, finally got out of slow traffic around the I-205 exit, and sailed into downtown Portland around 7:00 -- the talk was scheduled for 7:30. Katie was on the phone to Stephania (a.k.a. Three Fates Knitting) who was holding two seats for us. Thank Mendel again, there were parking spots open in a pay lot catty-corner from Powell's. We dashed in, claimed our seats, bought our books, found the ladies room, and sat down about 10 minutes before Stephanie Pearl-McPhee came on stage.

Then we laughed ourself silly for the next two hours.

I'm still grinning the next morning.

I got a blurry picture of Katie, Ellie, and Stephania:

Ellie was a little worried about the size of the crowd, but she settled in and was a pretty happy baby the whole time we were there.

The crowd was as big as the space that Powell's could provide:

I got one sorta-not-blurry photo of the Yarn Harlot giving her talk -- and yes, her Gwendolyn sweater was done! And she wore it! Jut not at that moment because with all those bodies packed into one space on the top floor, it was quite warm:

One of the perks of giving a young mom a ride is that moms with babies are among those who get to go to the front of the line at Stephanie's book signings. We both had spanking new copies of All Wound Up: The Yarn Harlot Writes for a Spin, the newest book, in our hands. Katie gets her book signed, and I was next, but I didn't get a good shot of that.

Wow, a few weeks ago I saw Jane Goodall give a talk and got her autograph, too, though I don't have a picture of that either (they had one person doing all the picture-taking, and I don't see our picture posted in the pictures for that event). Jane Goodall AND the Yarn Harlot in the same month! I was equally thrilled to see both -- for different reasons, but thrilled all the same.

A couple of FOs

We're three weeks into fall term, and between teaching full time, trying to write a paper, and working on an outside contract, I tend to come home and mostly stare at my computer and vibrate in place in the evenings. I could be knitting but that would mean summoning the energy to get up and fetch a project, then find the brain space to remember how to knit.

Nevertheless...

I finally finished my Summit Socks, designed to celebrate our own Three Fates Yarns being chosen as a vendor at Sock Summit. This shot, besides showing how cozy hand knit wooly socks are, shows the colorway that I chose. I think something plainer would have suited the pattern better, but it was a Three Fates skein that I had so I cast on with it at the time.

Here you can see the three "summits" on the side:

And the three diamonds on the instep, as well as the star toe:

I also finished the first sample skein from an 8 lb variegated gray Romney fleece that I bought last spring. It's worsted-spun in the grease from unwashed locks, plied as a 3-ply, and then washed. It came out to about worsted to aran weight -- I'll need to knit a swatch to see what gauge I get.

It's destined to be a fall coat, once I spin up at least a pound of this fleece. That still leaves... wow, there's a lot of fleece in this fleece.

And now a completely unrelated cute kitty picture: our shy calico, Sprocket, cuddled up with the Princess Belle.

Guests in our house never see Sprocket, because she hides in some secret place that only she knows. For all I know, she has a secret tunnel under the floor. So here she is for all to admire her calico beauty.