01 November 2006

Gifts


My weekend junk store partner came bearing her own treasures to offer… a vase made by her very talented husband. He is pursuing a master’s degree in ceramics while she works at a production jewelry company and pursues her own art work in metals. Can you imagine the kind of amazing Halloween costumes their children will have one day? Cool Christmas gifts? Or science fair projects?

Anyway, I’m honored to display art work produced by friends. Maybe someday my friend will let me show off and brag about her own work that she is much too modest about.

On an entirely different level of creative production, I decided to go into my craft room/pit of destruction and pull out the first sewing project that I came across and get at it. Nothing like digging out a quilt that was promised to your brother years ago. And the really horrible thing is that I was able to complete the piecing in two nights at the machine. Oops, guess I shouldn’t have filed that one away for so long. I still have to finish tying this, but I may just have a finished gift to bring home at Christmas.

This is one of my favorite quilts to make. I made a large one for myself years ago and use it pretty much year round. I’ve made one as a wedding gift for another friend and have at least two more planned. It’s pretty much a no-brainer sewing project and you can feel good about making good use of old jeans that are too worn out for the Salvation Army. I hit the jackpot a few years ago and scored two garbage bags full of jeans for a quarter a piece so I’m set for a good while. If you’re on my Christmas list, you may just be getting a denim quilt under the tree…

And since I’m really trying to do this post-a-day month, I may just post instructions for this no-brainer, just for the heck of it. After all, Lone Knitter, you’re going to need some simple sewing projects when you convince your mom to give you her machine!

On a not really related note, it seems the commercial world has decided that since Halloween is officially over, it is time to bombarb us with messages about the holiday season and its all-too-quick approach. Actually, I saw Christmas cards at Target a few weeks ago, but they were discreetly displayed in the back of the store for the super-organized among us to start those letters. Today, I came across three Christmas internet ads while doing my usual poking around. Ugh. In my own little act of celebrating the giving aspect of the holidays while staving off the last-minute panicked run to the mall, I'm going to try to prepare and/or give a gift of some sort every day for the rest of the year. This may be getting together something for the numerous family and friend birthdays coming up as well as actual Christmas gifts or donating a "gift" to charity, be that a financial gift or an item to take to Goodwill. I must admit that this is partly a selfish act as it would be nice to start the new year with a lighter closet and a few checkmarks on my list of crafty projects that I'd like to make for others. Hopefully it will also keep my own urge to get into the holiday panic (and the accompanying credit card bills) at bay.

National Blog Posting Month Entry #1

2 comments:

Lone Knitter said...

That is an adorable vase and the yellow flowers are perfect for it. I want a friend with a ceramics-making husband! That is awesome. Well, my mother may have to turn that machine over sooner than she wants to: I've been seeing too many cute quilts on blogs and I'm itching to go a-fabric-hunting and score some batting!

p.s. If you do make a Silk Garden hat, a neat thing to do is find a ball that begins (or ends, depending on which end you start knitting from) with a color that compliments your face/hair or a color that you want framing your face. I choose the skein I bought because of that baby blue beginning. And really, the hat only takes one ball, even if you go for the extra inch like I did.

Sean Carter said...

The gifts that u've displayed are amazing..really like dthe quilt..heres some more exciting stuff on my Holiday Blog...you may like it, especially if u are on an idea shopping spree....