"One of my pet theories is that the winter is a kind of evangelist, more subtle than Billy Graham, of course, but of the same stuff."  -- Shirley Ann Grau

When the bold branches

Bid farewell to rainbow leaves --

Welcome wool sweaters.

                             -- B. Cybrill

Winter came down to our home one night

Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow, 

And we, we were children once again. 

    -- Bill Morgan, Jr.

 "The colour of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination."  -- Ward Elliot Hour

"To shorten winter, borrow some money due in spring."  -- W. J. Vogel

Blow, blow, thou winter wind

Thou art not so unkind,

As man's ingratitude.

                               -- William Shakespeare

"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, arrives the snow."  -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No one can look at a pine tree in winter without knowing that spring will come again in due time."        -- Frank Bolles

Ecstasy.

Oh the unhurried, languorous perusal of the shelves. The fingering of spine after spine as the eyes move slowly across the titles. The delicious snap of a virginal tome, opened for the first time ever. Mike and I made it a date night. Foreplay for bibliophiles.

We prepared to fill our arm baskets: Mike needed a new Moleskine monthly planner and I love their yearly project planner. That's where we parted company, he bee-lining for the political books (boh-rrring) and I to the DIY and craft section. Oh, and there was a quick stop in the Children's section. Apparently Grandma Betty felt compelled to pointedly instruct Mike and I that the children were to receive books as well. As if we would actually hoard all of the gift cards and not buy anything for our babies. Well, truth be told, Grandma Betty is very wise and knows us very well, but I digress.

Our selections made, we scurried home to pore over our finds. Mike was going on and on, something about a book on Sherman's march, or the Civil War something or other. Dear God, my tastes are so much more fun than his. Here are my two runaway favorites:

Yes, and:

 The Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule and Feltique by Nikola Davidson and Brookelynn Morris. Both are so chock full of project ideas. Chloe's birthday is approaching and I've been trying to think of creative ideas for her party. Here's what Ms. Soule suggests (That's right, I speak as if she knows me. If she did she'd think me a lovely person, I am sure of it.):

Chloe loves drawing and painting, so this project idea, taking a child's drawing and tranferring it onto a pillow with embroidery, sounds absolutely delightful! She'll love it! And after I present her with her little pillow, she'll definitley want to make one herself. All instructions are here in this imaginative and inspirational little book. There's even a how-to for teaching a child as young as three how to embroider. My Mae is two and a half, but her father and I think she's gifted of course, so we'll give it a go. I can't wait to see how many embroidery rings I'll be freeing from the sofa cushions with my trusty seam ripper.

And from Ms. Davidson and Ms. Morris came this fabulous bit:

They are called Cupcake Chompers. Can you stand it?

God bless Grandma Betty and her stacks and stacks of ten dollar gift cards. I don't even care that the clerk at Barnes and Noble probably thinks we got all of them through nefarious means. I can forgive the way he eyed us suspiciously, it's not every day that someone steps up, dumps out two basketfuls onto the counter and then proceeds to pay for everything with seventeen gift cards. But you book lovers out there know how we feel. You do what you must.

After so many days of snow, sleet, and winds that only moments before had whirled aggressively around the candy-striped Norh Pole itself, waking up to the sun filled me with an immense feeling of optimism.

It felt like a sign.

I sat up in bed and looked out the window nearest to me. Still wintery as ever, but brilliant, almost blinding, the way the sun reflected off the snow-covered lawn as if it were a gigantic sheet of polished white metal. Yesterday morning I'd taken some pictures of what I saw outside my bedroom window. The morning was gloomy, yes, but the snow clinging to the pine boughs possessed a kind of stark beauty that had grabbed me. But this morning's gleaming light seemed positively ecclesiastical. "2010 is here!" It seemed to cry, "Harken the clarion call of the heavenly trumpets!"

I feel like this is going to be a good year. If it does turn out that 2010 was an unprecedented period of transformation and growth for me, I want to make sure I remember that this morning I awoke to the sun and thought it possible. Good work, God.

All the makings of a perfectly lovely table runner. I had so wanted to have this ready for our Thanksgiving table, but at this point it doesn't seem as though that is going to happen. Too many other projects, I'm afraid. I'm working on some custom orders for one of Mike's co-workers, in addition to slowly finishing and preparing to list some other pieces on Etsy. Here's as far as I've been able to get on the table runner:

There's still quite a bit more to go on the dark brown end, then to felt it and then needle felt the overdesign. If only I could just stay awake around the clock. That would really help.

Mike actually asked if I would knit him some socks! HA HA HA HA HA HA! I told him that none of us would be getting anything hand knit by me for a while. He turned away, dejected, while muttering, "Well, maybe when you retire and this is just a hobby again..." I felt bad, so I offered to find a sock knitter on Etsy for him. He perked up a little then.

I am all for counting my blessings, so here they are:

1. I'm doing what I've always wanted to do, needlecrafting and finding a viable way to make a living from it (eventually).
2. I made my first sale on Etsy last night, a hand-painted fingering weight yarn called Koi.
3. My children are healthy and my husband has actually not left me due to my crazy notions (see blessing number one).
4. I'm making some great new friends on Twitter and in my community because of my passion for knitting and fibers.
5. Although I become overwhelmed by it all and call it quits on almost a nightly basis, I am the boss so I just rehire myself the next morning.

I'm gazing fondly at my unfinished table runner, folded neatly on the shelf over there. Even if Thanksgiving comes and goes without it making its debut, I will gladly give thanks because in spite of not being able to do it all, I'm doing all right.

Those brussel sprouts were so good.

My goals for the month of October:

1. Finish two table runners and post on Etsy.

2. Dye all of the yarn I have ready and post on Etsy.

3. Do more to promote my blog and shop.

4. Do more to promote other crafters that I like.

5. Get more involved with the EtsyKnitters Team.

6. Buy new spindle and get to spinning.

7. Nail down packaging.

8. Really push my campaign to get my friends and family to buy handmade for the holidays.

A-viral we will go, a-viral we will go, hi, ho, the merry-oh, a-viral we will go!#beatcancer!

I do have to say that I have a true love-hate relationship with stockinette stitch, of which the knitted base consists almost entirely. While you can just race through row after row, knitting and purling, that's the problem. The row after row of knitting and purling. I have to resist the urge to just add a row of friggin' bobbles already. My cable needle beckons. But I must persevere. The design is already set in my mind and simplicity is key here.

But, you may ask, what's up with the turquoise? Right. The turquoise. Not the usual you'd expect to see on a Thanksgiving table, I guess. I briefly considered using a more traditionally autumnal color like rust or pumpkin orange. But I like mixing things up a bit. A nod to tradition, rather than a strict adherence to the expected. I don't mind the strange mix of a warm and cool color palette. I guess I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out, but my hunch is it'll be fine.

I've got a couple of table runner ideas cooking (pardon the pun, please). Three actually. I just hope with preparing for my own family festivities (Lordy, it's almost Halloween already! We haven't even been to the pumpkin patch yet.) I'll have time to create all of these yummy ideas I have brewing for the holiday table (seriously, I just can't stop it with the puns).

Chloe has decided to be a mermaid this year. Mae chose Abby Caddaby from Sesame Street. I just hope it's not freezing for trick or treating so they don't end up having to hide their costumes under heavy coats. That's no fun.

Last year, Mike was a Black Bart-type cowboy guy in a black cowboy hat and shirt. Twirly mustache. I was a cowgirl circa the 50's, complete with pigtails and pencilled on freckles. My brother and sister-in-law came along dressed as a pirate and wench. There are pictures of this somewhere. I can't find them in our family album file. If I do...well, I still can't promise that I'll post them. It may be too embarrassing.

In other words, we set a dangerous precedent and now every day Chloe asks, "What's your costume going to be, Mommy?" I just want to crawl into bed with a book on tape and my knitting every night. When am I going to come up with a costume? Stay tuned for more news on that.

Last night I watched the "Origins" episode of the Craft In America series on PBS. In this episode eight  craftspeople shared the origin of their particular tradition.

I have always loved crafts. Anything handmade. There's something about the experience of human hands on material, molding, manipulating, making. I feel something downright primordial about the whole process, whether I am the crafter or merely the observer. And even for those of us who are not crafters, we know instinctually that there is something just good and right about an object that was lovingly made by hand.

The eight featured artists were Vernon, Pam and Travis Owens, a family of potters who own Jugtown Pottery in Seagrove, North Carolina; Mark Hewitt, a British born potter living in North Carolina; famous South Carolina blacksmith Philip Simmoms; Paul Stankard, a glass blower from New Jersey; Teri Greeves, a beadwork artist from New Mexico who works in the Kiowa beadwork tradition (she also created the bead-covered sneakers featured in the above image brought to you courtesy of pbs.org); and professor and master weaver Jim Bassler.

I sat in awe as each explained his or her own tradition. Watching them work was inspiring. Of particular interest to me was the work of Teri Greeves and Jim Bassler.

Ms. Greeves' work is said to continue and update the Kiowa beadwork tradition, and as you can see from those amazing sneakers, update it she has. I love how she has continued the storytelling traditions of her people and how each work is not simply ornamental, but infused with meaning. I also love that her mother and children are such integral parts of her work (as mine are of my work), because craft is heritage and it is legacy.

Mr. Bassler, a textile artist, probably interested me the most. Probably because I feel drawn to the loom as well. But there was something he said that struck me, "I never base my [design] decisions on how long something will take." or some approximation of those words. As a crafter with an online storefront, it is easy to feel pressured by the need to fill my virtual shelves with product. Of course you need product to have a store, but I have found that when I have felt that a project was taking "much too long" to finish, like the "Fissure" scarf that I'm working on now, I don't enjoy the process and I think there is something of me missing from the work. Mr. Bassler's words really set me straight. If getting paid to do my craft causes me to lose my love of the craft, then it's really not worth it. I'll never make that mistake again. Craft first, Etsy second. After all this is what I love to do.

It's a wonderful series worth tuning in to see. You can watch the episodes online at pbs.org.

Chloe and Mae are sitting at my feet as I knit. They are having a pretend tea party. Pretend because their real china teapot broke and their dad had to glue it back together. So no more real tea inside. I was sad about it, but they seem to be having a high time nevertheless. Children are great about not sweating the small stuff.

I am just so very happy right now.