*CHRISTMAS SPOILER ALERT FOR MATT - DO NOT READ*

Tubey :: Finished

This took me over a month to complete on size 0 needles, but it was totally worth it. I'm obsessed with how fine the gauge is.



The heel makes me happy.



Ta-da!



Raveled

I hope my hubby loves them. Of course I made them out of necessity, and he went and bought twelve pairs of socks whilst these were in the making. Oh well!

:::

On a side note, today is Liam's third birthday. I feel sad, but not overwhelmingly so like I used to. I still miss him every day.

:::

Today I feel thankful for all that there is to be happy for in my life. The scent of vanilla filling my kitchen. Warmth. The lingering taste of good coffee. This space to write about it all. Thank you. What are you thankful for today?

Christmas, Christmas time is near!

Me I want a huuuuuuuula-hoop!

as sung ala Alvin and the Chipmunks

Okay I've got two Christmas goodies for you today...

First up, it's time for one of my favorite swapping events of the year!



Find all of the info you need to partake in the swappy goodness here.


Secondly, Corporate Free Christmas, a blog that I linked to a couple of weeks ago, posted a really great article on how to approach your Christmas list in a mindful way. The point of the post that really hits home for me is that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE CRAFTY TO HAVE A CORPORATE FREE CHRISTMAS! Jamie words things in an encouraging way that makes a corporate free holiday appealing. Go read it - enjoy!

That's it for today - off to do dishes! I know, my life is fascinating, right?!

Book Review :: A Greener Christmas

A couple of days ago I went on a long overdue walk through the craft aisle at Barnes and Noble. Much to my delight there were many new fabulous books for me to flip through. I picked up A Greener Christmas, by Sheherazade Goldsmith with low expectations. I mean come on, the title is a little cheesy and screamed greenwashing. I judged a book by its cover and was dead wrong. Do not be put off by the cheesy title my friends, this book is oh so good!!!

Here are a couple of quotes from the introduction to give you a feel for things:

"This book is the antithesis of that instant last-minute Christmas Eve dash through the crowds to the stores."

"Relying on chain stores for all your Christmas needs and throwing all your garbage out in one bag will save time over the festive season, but choosing presents without much thought seems, to me, to contradict its meaning."

"This book is about having a simpler, more home-spun Christmas. It's about giving home-crafted presents, making your own decorations, and festive baking. It's about rethinking and changing the way you consume and recycle..."

Yes, yes and YES! I couldn't agree with all of these quotes more!

I've discussed my feelings about the holidays here on the blog many times before, but I'll recap a bit anyways. Most long-time readers will know that I've been striving to make nearly all of my holiday gifts by hand for about four or five years now, (EEK - I can't remember!). If I don't make it, I try to buy handmade or local goods. The only person that I break the rules for and spoil is my husband, because it's the only time of year, besides our birthdays, that we ever spend money on each other.

Over time my mom joined in on the game with her sock-making, my sister with her delicious wine and scarf-making and even my brother Mike got in on the hand made fun last year by making me a sock-blocker.

What began as a solution for not being able to afford "real" Christmas gifts has become a tradition and the way that I celebrate. To that end, Goldsmith shares so many lovely ideas in her book that fit in with my way of celebrating. The book is divided into five sections: Welcome, Christmas Tree, Giving, Table and Food. It's crafts, decorating, making and cooking. It's an anthology of Christmas fun and tradition.

So it's awesome. Got that? Good. Check this book out!

THOM :: THIS IS A CHRISTMAS SPOILER :: DO NOT READ BELOW!!!

My brother Thom has really been riding the green wave so to speak, and seems more interested than ever in all things environmentally friendly. This melts my hippie chick sisterly heart! For his Christmas gift I wanted to do something that was up-cycled, preferably from something that he had owned before, into something useful.

I enlisted my mom to scour her attic for me and she brought me three of his old t-shirts, which I turned into...

re-usable shopping bags!



The idea popped into my head when I came across this listing in zJayne's Etsy shop. She makes re-usable bags by the dozen, if you don't have the time to make these and you'd like to purchase them instead. I, however, felt certain that I had access to a ready supply of t-shirts, so I chose to make them myself. I *did* add a nifty detail to make them look a little more finished.

*suh-weet wrapped handles*



The handles really ice the cake for me - I'm feeling complete nerdy happiness over how sturdy the handles are! And since both of my brothers are kinda lumberjacky, not only are these bags sturdy, they're HUGE! I could fit a load of laundry in one of these puppies. Hopefully they're a hit!

Cheers, S

Bears for Babies

New England is so crazy! I sat down to write this post five minutes ago, tops, and it got dark and the rain came down so fast and hard I couldn't see across the street through it. Now it's sunny and balmy. So weird.

Anyways...just had to share that! I have many babies to make presents for, for the holidays this year. Two yet to be born, that means shower gifts will be forthcoming too, and my little nephew Mason. I thought it would be cute to give each of them a little hand made bear. The pattern is from Last Minute Fabric Gifts, though I adapted it slightly to my liking by giving the little dude eyes.



He's not quite as lumpy looking in person as he is in this photo, I'm quite pleased with how this came out. It's odd, but the colors I chose are EXACTLY the colors of my childhood bear Pookie - who I'll have to introduce to this blog someday - I didn't even realize it before I put it together! They'll be two more of these to follow, hopefully I can keep up the ass-kicking on my Christmas list ;)

CHRISTMAS SPOILER :: MOM DO NOT READ THIS POST

Let me tell you something about my mom.

My mom is a bag lady.

My mom is a bag lady and boy do I follow closely in her footsteps in that regard!

Rarely are we Duclos women seen carrying purses. God forbid! They are much too small to accommodate everything, except the kitchen sink, which we need to be carrying with us at all times, just in case. Of course there are specific bags for specific jobs...The magazine bag, in my mom's case, sometimes categorized into different bags, or sections of one bag by topic: craft magazines and cooking magazines. There's a small purse within one of these bags that holds the essentials, wallet, keys, checkbook and the like. Then there's the ever present project bag, or knitting bag. This is where my mum's Christmas gift will come in handy!

You see - all of these bags that follow my mother around, are always full to the brim. Scissors, needles, threads, crochet hooks all become buried in the rubble of crafty goodness. When I saw Mackville Road's Sewing Bag Tutorial I knew that it would be a perfect, useful, yet sweet gift for my mom for Christmas.

I chose one of mum's favorite color combinations for this, red on white, or natural in this case...



There's an awesome little felt needle booklet on the inside.



Pockets...



I did modify one step of the tutorial. I attached the cover section to the back pocket via machine before stitching up the sides of that pocket. I'm lazy and I didn't feel like hand sewing it. It was a little tricky to maneuver via machine, but I like how it came out!

I'm going to tuck some fun things inside, like new spools of basic black and white thread, needles, some pretty pins, some special buttons. I hope that she likes it! Thanks again to Diane of Mackville Road for posting the tutorial.