Christmas in the Studio 2016

I have been trying for weeks to make my way to this space. I've found myself picking up my camera more and more but trying to even carve out the time to get the pictures from my camera to the computer, let alone put them in a blog post and add actual words that might make any sense at all, has just been out of reach.

So today I've decided to give you a little tour of the studio all decked out for Christmas and the words quite probably will not make much sense but we are just going to go with it.

I have spent an enormous amount of time in this room this month. I usually start out in this corner,  tea, knitting, and laptop nearby.

I set up a little advent calendar for myself this year with yarn minis and I usually open it during this time. I actually did this with my eyes closed so I would be surprised each day!

The bowl of little happy bits of yarn is growing daily.

The large stack of yarn also seems to be growing almost daily. It would be embarrassing to tell you how much of my birthday and Christmas money was spent on wool piggery. Let's just say it was in the hundreds and that I have enjoyed every moment of the spending and look forward to enjoying knitting up that beautiful stash over the next several months.

The bulk of my stash enhancement happened while on a trip a couple hours north to visit the yarn shop of my dreams. I was so excited to meet my friend Renee from Sewn with Grace there. Conveniently, it is about half way between her house and mine.

During that trip she spoiled me rotten by gifting me with this project bag she made for me. Inside was an ornament and more yarn. A few days later we made plans for a slumber party at my house the following week but illness and weather worked against us so we will be rescheduling that soon.

In the meantime she spoiled me some more with this amazing Magic Yarn Ball and some beautiful fabric. I let the yarn ball sit on my work table for 5 days before treating myself to unwrapping it on my birthday. It was filled with all kinds of vintage amazingness.

I have gone yarn crazy lately and can't stop knitting and dreaming about new projects. Literally. These two piles of yarn came about after I had dreamt about projects with these combos. I'm fully aware that this is not normal. It's a real sickness but one I have no plan to seek a cure for. I am soon going to have to find another outlet for my obsession though, as my Sweet Man probably can not handle me blathering on about the topic for much longer.

Not all of my recent time in this room has been spent with yarn. Many different types of creating have been happening and I look forward to coming back here after Christmas and sharing some of my makes with you.

More and more I love giving handmade. I have always loved giving gifts. Even as a little girl I would take the birthday money I would get 5 days before Christmas and I would spend it all on Christmas presents for my family. And I loved every moment of it!

There is something so satisfying about spending your time making something for someone you love, thinking about that person while your hands are busily working to make the very thing in your mind come to life.

I can definitely see more of that in my future and I only hope I can learn to better manage my time so that I'm not working up to the wire the way I am this year. But who are we kidding? That probably won't happen!

It has given me much pleasure to spend so much time in this room this month and it feels like just the right way to end the year as I look forward to so much time spent here next year.

These magical days of preparation are all too quickly coming to an end. Tomorrow officially starts Christmas vacation for both of the girls. The very last handmade gift is almost finished, all the presents are wrapped and under the tree, the Christmas cards have been mailed for the first time in I don't know how many years and all that remains is a trip to the grocery store, a little cleaning, some baking, Christmas eve craft project supplies to be gathered and Christmas movies to be watched. And more knitting. Definitely more knitting!

That's a to do list that I am more than happy to tackle. I hope to be back once more before Christmas with photos of our decorations in the rest of the house but until then I am sending you wishes for a slow couple of days filled with creativity and peace and the ability to let go of the things you just didn't get to this year!