Is it still the holidays?

Happy New Year folks!

It seems like I’ve read about 1,001 “Here’s what I did in 2011″ and another thousand “2012 Goals” posts in my daily blog circuit. I am going to forego both. I’m sure I did a lot of stuff, and I’m pretty sure I’ll do more stuff this year – and I’m going to leave it at that.

This past 3-4 weeks have been very busy for me, crafting-wise, despite the fact that I ended up mostly working over Christmas (luckily mostly from home). But for the time I had off, when I was contemplating what to do with my vacation days, I realized that I could actually do holiday crafting over the holidays. What a concept! So I did. I made a felt mistletoe ball one day (fun and simple!), and another day I made four stacking fabric Christmas trees from stashed holiday fabric. I also used that last pattern and made fringed felt Christmas tree ornaments with bells. However, since it’s after the holidays now I’ll probably wait to show you until next year  (if I remember)!

What I haven’t shown you is the gifts I made. First up today, here are the linen sachets I made for my grandmother. They are filled with lavender and roses and smelled awesome (Ravelry page).

Each one features a motif I crocheted for decoration, which I then hand-tacked onto the backing fabric. I cannot lie, this is not my idea but rather one I saw on Etsy from namolio. I did consider just buying some (all her stuff is gorgeous), and I probably will, but the big difference between this mine and hers is color – quite honestly I wasn’t sure my grandmother would appreciate the lack-of-color-natural-materials aesthetic. And I knew she’d rather have something I made, so make them I did.

It wasn’t super difficult to make these – and I enjoy doing up little lace motifs in crochet with thread. In 2007, I think, I made starched crocheted snowflake ornaments for people in my family. This was much the same thing, I just tried to use motifs that didn’t scream snowflake. I think I like the way the green motif (Pretty Snowflake pattern) look best, but the white circle one (Regal Snowflake pattern) was the most fun to make.  The turquoise motif I made up myself as I went. I think it turned out pretty nicely too!

I think I’m going to hold off on my other gift project for another post, lest this one becomes unwieldy. Meanwhile, there seems to be a lot of 2011/2012 cleanup to do on my blog ….

Until later!

Winter Storm

If you’re ever down in Monterey, I recommend Asilomar Beach. It’s one of the prettiest beaches that I’ve been to. In winter, anyway. It’s probably not bad in summer, either, but the waves won’t be as fierce, and the sky won’t be as brooding. I think I rather prefer days like this on the beach to sunny, warm days. The ocean just seems to have more personality during the winter, more insistence. I wanted to sit there all day and watch the waves and birds and anemones, but it rained and I had to go back so I could go to work.

If you go up the road a bit, there’s another beach (closed to the public) that’s reserved for harbor seals. Despite chilly rain, these fat seals were perfectly content to lie on the sand and sleep (and wallow). I’m always amazed at how well animals are adapted to their environments. I saw a few seals playing in the water, and one baby seal who tried to beach himself using the waves and ended up facing back out to sea. He didn’t seem worried.

Just two more days of work to survive, and then I have a whole week off. I’m going to enjoy the hell out of all of those days. I have been trying not to bog myself down with too many plans, to not get to a point where I’m stressed about how much I have to do, or think about that bag full of stuff from Home Depot that I need to do something with. I’m hoping one entire day involves sitting on the couch drinking hot tea wrapped in a blanket watching movies and crocheting. I’ve gotten another 20 hexagons completed on my blanket, but the shawl I began in November languishes, and most of my other sewing projects are currently stuffed untidily and sadly into a grocery bag.

At least the sewing machine is now usable. That hasn’t been true for four months. I’d like to spend another entire day sewing next week, maybe two. I’m close to having everything put away, giving me plenty of room to work. I arranged my fabrics on a shelf in rainbow color order the other night, and it was lovely to see all of them again. I am pulling some out, for I have curtains and cushions to make, a jacket to finish, a quilt to complete. I did a lot of sewing work last year that I never talked about here, things that I started but didn’t finish because of time constraints.

I wish I had caught the clear green-blue of these waves better as they danced around the rocks, but the day was too dark, and the rain and wind much too insistent. Storms like these, and the dark and cold, make me want to take a nap. I find storms oddly comforting. I could have curled up in the car and listened to the rain and had the best sleep of my life, I think.

This will be my last post until next week, so I hope you and yours have a good holiday and safe travels, if that’s what you’re doing. I neglected to wish anyone a happy Hanukkah, which has now long since passed. I personally favor the solstice as a winter marker, but that’s also now past. Either way, have a lovely weekend.

Mittens, Holidays and Organization

Happy new year, y’all. How’s the year treating you so far?

{My brother, Jeremy, making honey walnut wheat bread.}

I’ve had any number of blog posts appear and disappear out of my head in the last few days. Mostly they disappear into the mashed potatoes that seem to be clogging up my head (hey Mom, you know that cold you had?). But basically, what I want to talk about boils down to three things: (1) mittens, (2) food prep and (3) family holidays. Not necessarily in that order.

{Lovely misty freezing weather in Iowa.}

Let’s start with the mittens though. I can’t seem to finish them. I’ll have you know I worked on an awesome traveling blog post about making mittens, only to find I wasn’t too pleased with what I was doing. Then I never seemed to have the time to sit down and work on them again, and finish. So here I am! Still mitten-less! This chaps my hide, if you’ll pardon the expression. I PROMISED MYSELF HANDMADE FUZZY MITTENS, and here I am still NOT with the mittens. Finishing them is my real goal for the week. Before it gets too warm to wear them.

{Jeremy’s bread, which I just finished off tonight along with my mom’s cranberry bread yesterday.}

Let’s move on to family holidays. I did what I’ve done many times in my life, and went to Iowa to my grandparents’ house. I love this ritual, and it’s something I remember doing for most of my life. It is a far drive, and I sacrifice other things to do it, but it is a dear and important tradition to me. This is usually the only time I see my maternal extended family during the year, so I make an effort to make the trip each year. I wish I could kick the a** of my paternal family to do the same periodic gathering sort of thing.

{It turns out my mom’s good at un-knotting tangled skeins of yarn. Thanks for those tangles, Wesley!}

On a side note, I got lots of great stuff. You? I gave almost 100% handmade things. It was definitely the season of felted pins. I did not make stuff, however. I will probably do something masochistic like that in the future (like some other crafty bloggers I know), but not this year. Once again, I failed to send holiday cards also. Meh. One day. Maybe I could send Memorial Day cards? Halloween?

{Denmark cemetery. You know, the old kind of town cemetery, dating to the 1800s, behind the church in the small town.}

This year I was in charge of the holiday food. Nine people from Tuesday to Saturday. Granted, I love to cook, and I don’t mind cooking a lot, but I’m used to cooking for two. This required meal planning. I love me some planning! I had charts, and I had lists, and I had recipes and I had … well, let me just show you:

See what I mean? I put notes and stuff on Flickr, too.

{I didn’t remember to get french fried onions for the green bean casserole, so I layered stuffing over the casserole instead, and it actually turned out pretty well.}

I was happy to have my grandmother (who is 83) sit while I did the work this year. She’s not good at just relaxing, but we tried. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot I can do for her being so far away, so it was good to do. Everyone else helped me out, and we all got fed on a regular basis. Usually my uncle Dan or my aunt Miriam do the cooking, but there’s no reason for me to sit around like a fence post. Uncle Dan helped with the meat a lot, which isn’t really my thing anymore.

{The day after Christmas it snowed. A lot. And Jeff drove on this to get us from Iowa to mid-Missouri. Good times! Actually, the glare from the windshield makes it look extra bad.}

The whole holiday was nice. Crazy family, crazy drive … oh hey. Did I mention there was a snowstorm on the way back to Texas? Jeff drove. I crocheted mittens. My mom got bored. It took two and a half days, but we made it in one piece. And THAT, my friends, is the mitten story. But it’s not today’s story.