Tis the Season

This is my favorite time of the year. While I'm not exactly religious and don't really follow a specific denomination, I do enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds around this time of the year. For me, the biggest focus is on my family. I don't do a lot of gift giving outside my immediate family, after all, with 6 members in our immediate family alone, it can be quite a substantial holiday. Add into that the 6 nieces and nephews shared between my husband and myself, plus both our sets of parents and their spouses (yes, we both have divorced parents, both mine have remarried and one of his has remarried). So as you can imagine, our modern family is rather robust. My favorite part of the holiday, out of all the favorites, is the time and effort I put into selecting and/or creating the offerings to my family.

A few years ago I began my crafting hobby. I knit, crochet, sew, paint, make from-scratch soap and a few other odd crafts. I love to create something from raw materials. I admit my favorite is the yarn arts. It never ceases to amaze me how a single thread can become fabric, toys, and so many other beautiful things. However, with this tendency comes one difficulty: finding the time to design or locate patterns and to create the items I wish to give away. The funny thing is that I tend to give away or sell everything I make. I don't even own a single item that I've created over the years. I just have more fun making for others.

So far for this coming holiday I have made a crochet soap saver bag for my mother. I'll be making a batch or two of special soap that will be split around to various people. I'm cutting out several pairs of fleece pants for my son. For him I'll also be making a fleece 'stuffie' which is just a very simple stuffed toy, and a taggie ball. I might use a similar pattern for a fleece ball for my youngest daughter. I have plans for a bean bag tic-tac-toe game for the elder children. Then there may be some crochet play food to go with my youngest children's main holiday gift (a wooden kitchen play set). Each niece or nephew, other than the two oldest, will be receiving a crochet toy.

I have fun doing all of it, though it does keep me quite busy. Speaking of which, I have fabric to cut out. Ta ta!