New Things

Well, I've found the camera! Whoo hoo! Thought I'd add some photos of Christmas Decor... I've been on this "Less is more" thing lately, putting the breakables up high because of the little destroyer.  I found these teal and red balls at JoAnne's half off and thought that'd be perfect for my chandeliers... I like it, well, I like the little bird.  I also bought a Christmas papercrafting kit from K&G at JoAnne's and made some pretty little things from paper die-cuts, like the wreath on the mirror, below.

I thought last year, when I bought those candles on sale, I'd love them on the mantle.... but I'm ambivalent... I think I'd rather have a white illuminated paper village or something... white candles.  Something that does not include a fake greenery garland would be ideal.  The children wrapped the loooooong banister in red and green tinsel garland, which I hate, but they love!!!  And we bought a tree at a local farm, but have not bothered yet to put up lights... though we've made cookies and watched more than one Nutcracker performance!  Mostly I guess I want to feel the holiday magic again, the romance of twinkle lights, the flicker of fire.  I want read alouds and board games and lots of hot drinks.  I don't think the problem is really the decorations.  

Christmas Knitting

I've been knitting my fingers to little nubs this month... in late October, everyone asked for mittens for Christmas, hand knit mittens. Actually, my husband requested his in November. No pressure. Anyway, I have managed to knit all but one pair of mittens and a pretty hat for my youngest girl. And most of a sweater for the Dauphin. I don't really mind! You know I love it!

Bird in Hand stranded mittens in KnitPicks Palette and some leftover XXL Trekking, size 2 DPNs
Chevalier Mitts, Patons Classic Wool, Size 6 DPN's

Classic Mittens, Stash superwash Leftovers, size 5 DPN's, above, and Cascade Superwash in Scarlet and Size 5 DPN's below:

Elephant Tam, child Size by Kathleen Taylor, size 5 circular, stash leftovers, turned out beautifully.

Why I Hate Halloween

I hate to be scared. Sometimes, at night, when my husband comes home and I didn't hear him and I see him out of the corner of my eye when I'm doing dishes or something. I freak out. By this I mean that I gasp, I scram, and then I actually cry real tears because I'm so startled and scared, and throw myself into my husband's arms feeling happy that he's not a bad guy while he apologizes for startling me. My stepmother always said it's because I have a guilty conscience that I get startled so easily, but really, I'm just a scaredy cat. I hate scary movies, I hate haunted houses, I hate it when people talk about ghosts or paranormal activity, and I absolutely, positively abhor anything that celebrates witches, ghosts, goblins, murders, blood, ghouls, demons, or pretty much scary anything. Which sort of rules out Halloween. Which is sad, because I love to celebrate. I celebrate obscure Saint's Days, just because. Also, I love to wear, make, plan, and look at costumes. To top it off I really adore the idea of visiting one's neighbors to say hello and share a little treat. I'm happy to celebrate things that promote goodness, generosity, bravery, selflessness, new life, thankfulness for a good harvest, love, rest, friendship, or joy, but I will not celebrate fear, evil, darkness and debauchery. Bah Humbug!

I do have and alternate idea for the fall, that incorporates treats, visiting, partying, and all fall wonderfulness, such as apple dunking, pumpkin treats, and also, bonus, dancing!!! I think I'll have a Hoe Down in the fall. It could be a family event to which everyone brings treats, sort of like a dress up dance, only it's all Cowboys and Prairie Princesses. I could incorporate a talent show, or a one-act play, or even a comedy act.

People who think like me usually hunker down on Halloween, hoping no one too scary comes to their door asking for candy, but this would be much more fun. I've been wanting to have an annual "event" to which I invite my friends for a big blowout. Perhaps I'll throw a great big Harvest Dance in a barn somewhere in October to sort of replace Halloween for me and my kids. I don't mean a normal Hallelujah party with costume competition and trunk or treating with a "salvation message" thrown in... I mean an old fashioned Hoe Down, that celebrates that all the hard work of summer is over and the harvest is in and we have time to throw a party (put your "hoes down" ladies and gentlemen!). I wonder if anyone else would come if I specified that it was "Not a Halloween Party", or "Western Dress Only"? The menu could include:

Corn dogs: they're portable and kids love them
Candy apples: ditto
Apple butter and pumpkin spice donuts
Crudites
Cheese and Crackers
All the finger foods and desserts people care to bring to share
Hot apple cider, Iced tea, lemonade, and a cooler of cool water to cool down after gettin' down!

To solve the whole costume envy thing, we could move the costume party to New Year's Eve... then the whole scary undertone wouldn't be there and people could get as creative as they like, without offending my delicate sense of all being well with the world. Why not just completely remake cultural norms because I want to! Get on board people!

Season of Garden Planning

Well, the holidays are over. I hope yours were as peaceful and filled with family fun as ours was. We stepped it back this year and kept it even more simple than usual. It was nice! Maybe it was just lazy, but still Daddy was home for almost two weeks and it was wonderful. So happy new year. And now: it's the season of seed catalogs! I'm so excited to start planning gardens. The children are helping, of course. One wants nothing but pumpkins and melons, another wants lots of strawberries, and another wants to grow herbs and flowers, perhaps "medicine herbs"? My garden will have pickling cucumbers this year, paste tomatoes, lots of tomatoes in general, okra, carrots, potatoes, onions, and some flowers.

Of course, a few things that probably won't make it into my garden this year, in spite of my imaginings. Flax, to spin and weave into linen, of course. A garden to dye wool with. A cottage garden, full of flowers and herbs and veggies all jumbled together with hydrangeas, climbing roses, and plenty of lavender. My husband's ideal garden would probably contain wheat, barley, and hops, if you know what I mean (to brew, sillies!)

White Flower Farms is one of my favorites for browsing and dreaming, but my actual money will be spent on much more practical items. Heirloom Seeds is one of my favorites because it's located rather close to me (in PA). Seeds of Change is also one of my favorites. Our garden size will be doubled this year so I'm gonna probably be putting food away like crazy, but at least this summer I'll not be unpacking or trying to catch up on school with the kiddies. So maybe I'll have more time for canning and freezing. Maybe.

Here's a couple pictures from last year:

A little child labor. Actually, he's getting his garden ready for planting corn and butternut squash. And here is another picture of my pretty pickles! And my canning pot! I know you're just riveted!

End of the Year

Christmas knitting: the ones I managed to photograph before I gave them away, anyway. I made my MIL a neckwarmer and wristwarmers in a beautiful handspun aran yarn she picked at the Local Yarn Store that did not get photographed, but trust me, they were awesome! Here are the wristwarmers I made for my sister to go with a thrifted coat that I bought at the Goodwill. I really wanted that coat. I loved it. Unfortunately, it was a couple of sizes too small, (Not that I didn't manage to button it over the girls and wear it a few times) and a petite (I just said that it had three quarter sleeves! Pathetic, I know). Anyway, I knew, I just knew it would fit my fabulous little sister perfectly. And it did. I'm really, really glad for her. And really, really sad for me. Aaaanyway, her wristwarmers:

Fetching, no? Well that just happens to be the name of the pattern!

Now, this.... THIS makes me super, duper happy! I made my mini me a sweater a la Elizabeth Zimmerman percentage system I've mentioned before. This is it, and I'm so happy with it. It fits her nicely with lots of room to grow and goes with most of her current wardrobe, which is largely shades of pink and purple.






Here's a close up of the yoke, which turned out beautifully, I thought.

Welcome Home

We're busy decorating for Christmas here. I felt that a new fresher color palette was called for in my home and so last year I bought a whole bunch of shatter proof ornaments for very, very little after Christmas. So, here's the tree:

Also, I wanted to show you a picture of my front door's wreath. I think it's so sweet. I love natural decorative elements, and am hoping for a few houseplants to warm up MY nest this year for Christmas.

On the needles: a pair of socks for Hubby, still working on the mulberry EZ sweater, and a pair of mittens for my second boy, who, sob, doesn't have any mittens, and could I please tie them inside his coat so he doesn't lose them anymore? I'm just not much enjoying the mitten knitting.

We're gearing up for St. Nicholas Day (December 6), which is when we do our stockings and do something for others anonymously. I love the Saint's Days and I'm not even Catholic or Orthodox. Spice cookies, eggnog, and the ubiquitous fruit and nuts, also a stuffed roast (to symbolise good things done unseen by others) are traditional for us. I sort of started new traditions in our family because I think traditions are wonderful, as long as the meaning behind them is made clear.

We're making paper snowflakes to hang EVERYWHERE, and busy wrapping and making and sending gifts. What are you all doing?

Piedmont Hunt

If you look way into the middle ground of this photo, you'll see some people on horseback. They're part of the Piedmont Hunt here in Fauquier and Loudoun Counties, and they're fox hunting. Oh, yeah, hounds, guy in red coat blowing a horn, and lots and lots of people in riding habits on beautiful horses jumping across our bucolic countryside. It's oh, so Jane Austen-ey. It's like they're wanting this to be the US version of the British countryside. That's fine with me, it's wonderful, picturesque, and they actually just chase the foxes, and try not to let the hounds kill them, since killing the fox would make it impossible to chase! This hunt was on Thanksgiving morning, and we had wanted to watch it leave from the farm down the road, but we all were just too tired to leave in the morning. To my surprise the Hunt Master (I think that's what he's called) appeared right in front of our house and blew his horn at the hounds, who were baying in the pasture behind our house. I was so excited I made my sister get out of the shower to come look, poor thing.

Busy, Busy Me

My projects at the moment:


I've been knitting socks in the Embossed Leaves pattern from Favorite Socks, in this beautiful mauvy berry smoothie Panda Silk. I don't know how durable they will be, but as they are meant to be rather dressy, perhaps that doesn't matter so much. It's really pretty shimmery, sproingy yarn... merino, bamboo, and silk, but slippery, I'd suggest bamboo or wood or something instead of slippery needles. I'm knitting a sweater for one of my girls in a mulberry hue, with a round Fair Isle Yoke, a la Elizabeth Zimmerman's Percentage System using various DK weight superwash wools. I'm also knitting wool vest/undershirts for my girls to keep them warm in our chilly, old house inspired by a pattern called a Child's Shetland Vest in Weldon's Practical Needlework Volume One. Stripes for the smaller girls out of a merino fingering weight wool, some alpaca, and some sock leftovers. For my oldest daughter I've chosen a pale grey fingering wool, with sky blue accents (Knit Picks Palette). These seem to be knitting up really fast on size 5 needles.


As for sewing, I'm making costumes for the Nutcracker my girls will be in. I initially volunteered to sew some and somehow became in charge of five or six dresses. Yeowch. Fortunately, the goal is durability, and not beautiful details, so I can put them together rather quickly. I'm using this pattern from Sense and Sensibility Patterns by Jennie Chancey. I love these because they are printed on nice thick paper and include all the sizes one could wish for and she even provides supplements for busty gals and online tutorials for altering the patterns. I would like to get more basic patterns in this sort of format, too, in the future. I love the Nutcracker. I just never get tired of the music or the magic or the yummy treats it is inspired by.....


In the kitchen, I used the book Fix, Freeze, Feast to make a very large batch of red sauce this morning, and used 12 cups of it to make the Classic Chili recipe, I cooked one quarter of the recipe for lunch today and froze the other three portions in gallon freezer bags for future meals. My husband really liked it, though I decided to add some cumin to the recipe for next time. I really have liked this book so far (unlike recipes from other Freezer Cooking books I've used) and find it a real time saver at the end of very tiring and productive days to have the main dish all put together, marinated, and ready to cook. Plus, it's inspiring me to make up my own recipes in larger amounts for freezing for later. Like my cornbread recipe, put into single recipe bags, like Melissa's Corn Bread Mix, or something... I wonder if I could locate sealable paper bags instead of plastic??? I'm so over plastic.

Handmade Holidays

Do any of you get this sick feeling when seeing all the Christmas advertising for gifts? I have wonderful visions of magical moments celebrating the birth of my Savior as an ideal, of family moments of joy, of storytelling, crafts, making cookies, and snuggling under little twinkle lights, and not many that involve oceans of wrapping paper. So, keeping in mind the ideals I envision, which have much more to do with relationships than stuff, I've been for many years making gifts for my family, usually useful gifts, but sometimes just stuff I've made. Have you all seen this? I think that the idea of not being such a consumer is great, and anyone who knows me at all is quite aware that I'd rather make it than buy it. But the idea of gifting something one of a kind and lovingly handmade makes me really happy. Even if I can't make everyone a present, I think that to buy handmade things and give them for gifts instead of spending my money on mass produced stuff would make the holidays really fun for me, and hopefully more personal and useful gifts.
My gift ideas are top secret, since people who receive them may look at my blog, but Sew Mama Sew will have a great many projects indexed throughout November for all the people you love. I've already found some perfect and unique gift ideas.

Another thing that really hit me the other day was the idea of bartering. An email from Sarah Brown inspired me and now I'm wondering if I could organize something like a co-op to trade things people have made, clothes the children have outgrown, toys and books and food and eggs and vegetables I've grown, all for bartering. I love the way the Browns are fostering community with the people around them, and I love their idea for modern village living with an emphasis on walking paths instead of roads (Simpler Times Village). And I love how they love kids! Me too, me too!

P.S. On our walk yesterday, I took this picture of this lovely little tree with these gorgeous scarlet oblong berries, but what kind of tree is it?

Holiday Preparations

We love holidays, celebrations, and feasts at our house. Since Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away, we've been getting our menu together and inviting people to eat with us. We usually invite people who are away from family to feast and give thanks with us, since this holiday is all about family for so many. My dear sister is visiting, too, which I'm really, really excited about. She's wonderful and we've been calling each other consulting about what to make, and what do to while she's here. I plan to put her to work a lot... sorry, sis.

We plan on roast turkey... (shocker), and cornbread and sausage stuffing (shocker again). We always have pumpkin pie and apple pie, and this year my sis has requested blueberry cherry pie. So lots of pie. Rosemary roasted veggies, per hubby's request, and my husband always makes a fruit jelly or chutney, this year it's a cranberry pear chutney. We got a lot of recipes this year from the Better Homes and Gardens Holiday Recipes magazine. We usually have both mashed potatos and cheesy hash brown casserole and I make giblet gravy. And we usually ask guests to bring their favorite recipe to share. We eat early, a late lunch, then play games and sing, play/watch football (Cowboys, of course) and nosh all evening. I think this year, if it's not too cold, a hike is in order. Just talking about it makes me all excited!