Happy Advent!

Take time to light a candle and sit in the quiet.

Image courtesy of Google images, saved to my server.

Santa's crafty list

This year the Cattyfamily has decided to exchange names instead of a gift free for all. That's okeyfine by me, but I still want to do a little something for my parents. My mother's gift request is always "More dishcloths". So I broke out the cotton stash and whipped up a few of the Kitchen Cotton Dishcloths. The green and yellow cloths are Reynolds Saucy mercerized cotton and the tan cloth is Rowan's Purelife.

Here's the start of a Christmas giftie: my niece is redoing her room in the very grown-up color scheme of white, grey, and yellow. Before she gets too mature, I want her to have a  fun pompom wreath. Since this photo was taken, all the yarn has been converted to pompoms and I have the blister to show for it!

This isn't a Christmas gift, it's just a set of pulse warmers I crocheted up from some leftover stash yarn. Very quick, very cozy, and as some people tend to think, very pointless. But I think we all need a little pointless pretty in our lives.

Happy little Etsy finds

Here are some blasts from my past via Etsy. The Spaghetti String glass roly polys are the cousins to the tumblers my mom had when we were growing up. I'm going to use them as LED votive holders. And the Betty Crocker Cooky Book is just as entertaining now as it was when my mom made her world-renown Candy Cane Cookies (minus the peppermint candy). I heart Etsy!

November Projects

I said there were some more of these headbands comin' round the mountain and here they are, all ready for Christmas gifting. The darker one on the left is made from Lion Brand Tweed Stripes in Woodlands, the lighter band is Debbie Bliss Donegal Chunky Tweed leftover from this project. The buttons are from my stash.

I've been intrigued by  garlands lately, so it was only a matter of time until I whipped up one of these. This is the doorway from our bedroom to my craft room. I purposedly hung the garland a bit lower than I normally would, if only to dissuade the CatMan from entering my inner sanctum.

And remember this? The $6.00 table from the Plattsburgh flea market?

Here it is all repaired, primed, and painted. You really can't tell in this pic, but the color is a pale green created when I mixed Sherwin Williams' Open Air (high gloss) with Ben Moore's Urban Nature (from a paint sample jar.) I'll see if I can get a pic of it in its new home, but I have to wait until the weekend and daylight. I left the leather top intact: just cleaned it and then used neutral shoe polish to buff it up and restore the shine.

Other craft projects waiting for their closeups - 2 button monogram pictures (Christmas gifts), a crocheted jar sleeve, crocheted pulse warmers, and a knitted scarf.

Little things that mean a lot

It's amazing how a few small items can change my home's space dysfunction into happiness.

First up is a small basket (from my favorite local store Junk and Disorderly). I'm using it to corral some of the stuff that has been showing up around my stove area. The basket resembles woven pine needles and reminds me of the basket my mom used to gather our Christmas cards each year.

Here's another basket project that makes me happy each time I use it. We kept all our tea boxes on the top shelf of our spice cupboard. Unfortunately, it was a pain to move boxes to get to the one we wanted. So the bags went into Ziplocs, the Ziplocs went into a small basket, the basket went back in the cupboard, and the boxes went to the recycling bin. It's so much easier to pull the basket out (not to mention the added safety feature of not getting bonked on the head by a dislodged box.)

And yes, that is Pippi Longstocking baking with her monkey.

The CatMan and I share a closet, so space can get pretty tight. One of my pet peeves has been the jumble of hangers that accumulate on the clothes rod between laundry days. Enter this small wastebasket (which needed a new home when it turned out to be too wide next to our new toilet). I put it in the corner of the closet and all the empty hangers are tucked in here until the clean clothes are ready to be hung up again. No more searching through the clothes trying to find an empty hanger. *happy little contented sigh*

Pay no attention

Thomas Cole, Hudson River School

Schroon Mountain

Image courtesy of Google Images, saved to my server.

To the non-posting happening here at Gathering Wool. I had oral surgery about 12 days ago and am just now digging out of the woozy/antibiotic/facial swelling thing. Project pics and updates will come soon, I promise. 

But until then, enjoy the pretty picture.