All That Glitters

   As that dark, damp and cold time of year approaches, many of us are preparing for the festivals of spiritual light  that precede and include the solstice. These must tide us over through the slower moving, more meditative days until the sun begins to reopen the span between our waking and our relinquishing to sleep.

    In my knit and crochet class, we're preparing for our pre-Christmas session by sharing patterns we think others might enjoy making. I've worked up several pretties to offer as possibilities and they're all done in time for some advertising to go out. The snowflake and the bauble with beads are both available to print out at attic24. Thanks so much to Lucy who takes simple crochet skills and turns them into folky, colorful goodies. She also posts lots of photos as tutorials. I have made both of Lucy's designs in perle cotton instead of yarn. I love the shine of the mercerized cotton! The red circle was made by crocheting a ball of Brown Sheep sport weight wool yarn into a square and then melting it down by putting it through my front loader twice on hot. I then cut a circle from the resulting fabric and had fun embellishing it. I used perle cotton for this also because it shows up better than embroidery floss. 


  All three of these decorations were fun to make and there will likely be more in my future. Thanks to Richard for the pics. He does the photography better than I.

Talking It Forward

   On Saturday I gave a talk to some thirty women from Fredericksburg Methodist Church who invited me to share in relation to my book, Contemplative Crochet. In doing so, I met a number of friendly and gracious people and was served a way above average lunch which included tomato aspic - a delicious surprise!
   In the several months before my talk, I kept mulling over what the subject should be. I thought I had covered my ideas about handwork and spirituality pretty well in the book. I didn't know how many people had actually read it and I didn't want to repeat those sentiments. As I dug back into my prior research file I found myself getting excited all over again about the book I had passionately started when the acquisitions editor from SkyLight Paths called to ask If I was interested in writing a book for them. My original idea about writing a book for parents and educators about why handwork is important for children had been put to bed five years ago and was still sleeping soundly. That is, of course, until now. I wondered if my audience of church ladies would mind too much if I slid into a related subject but not so much about spirituality.
   I finally realized that it was time. I was being led back to a subject I care about deeply. I needed to do the best I could to give my audience something rich and not disappoint them while moving myself forward and reclaiming an unwritten book.