Six Weeks till Christmas

Hard to believe it is that close. But I know it’s true - the Santa Claus parade is this weekend. Too bad about the rain in the forecast.

The picture with this post is from etsy.com, where there are lots of gift ideas, like the little hooked trees from this seller, Primitivesforsale. Just type "rug hooking" into the search window and you'll find her.

I have spent the last couple of weeks on a mission to finish a bunch of projects that have real deadlines between now and the end of the year - to clear the decks for the holiday gift making.

So, it’s time to get out the lists and figure out what to make for everyone. I really try to do homemade gifts every year, though I’m not positive everyone on the list always appreciates them. But nearly everyone I know has just about everything they need, so for me it’s about giving them something personal.

As I get older, I think getting ready for Christmas is my favourite thing about Christmas. I enjoy decorating the window boxes at the house and cottage. I like sitting and making my lists and figuring out what people would like. I don’t much like the buying scramble at the end, but it seems to be inevitable. And I have a real thing about crowds. Planning what I am going to make is my calm before the storm.

I have a few close friends who collect ornaments, so one gets a Santa every year one gets a snowman and another just gets something I think she would enjoy. She loves the home-made ones. Last year, they each got a felted ornament (which I must, confess I purchased at a craft show). The year before that, they each got a hooked ornament. They’ve received wooden ones, painted rock ones and just about every other medium you could imagine. So I’m not sure what I will do this year.

I am thinking about small hooked signs with Ho Ho Ho, or Noel or something else seasonal on them. They can be signs, or furniture decorations, door hangers - or they can be well, just ornaments.

I have also been scouring my knitting books looking for inspiration. I must say that I am quite partial to the felted bowls in the “One Skein” book. So I may whip up a couple of those and adorn them with something to make them more festive. I found a pattern for some of the fingerless mitts, which I would really like to have for myself. That’s usually how I get my inspiration - I find something that I would enjoy receiving and make a few of those.

There’s also a cable neck warmer from knitty.com that I really like, so I’m going to make one of those and see how that turns out. It’s a great way to use up those single balls of wool that you can’t figure out what to do with.

I’m heading to the cottage this weekend, with sketchbook and notepad. Hopefully, I will get a few prototypes started, or at least down on paper, so I can start checking things off the list.

I’ll keep posting about progress.