Pack orders.

Bring A to E’s school so he could read to E’s class.

Ship orders.

Oh, ok.  So I gave in to the yarn thing.  I had 45 minutes to kill while taxiing a child around, and a yarn shop nearby

Tomorrow will be more productive.  Really.

Plus a detour into obsessive-compulsive land, which I will be sure to chat about when we are back to our regularly-schedule Weeks of Many Words.

And a hat for the dog - a 15-minute collaborative effort with Eamonn.

Not done with that last one, yet.  Back to the grindstone…

I’m planning on having one of those incredibly insane weeks.  And while I love my blogging time, and my picture-taking time, there are more pressing things to attend to.  If I want to blog and play with my camera this week, I will have to do so with a dual purpose. So…

This week, I will concentrate on taking photos of things that I have accomplished, and I will post them here, with very little accompanying text.  It will be sort of a photo-journal of my to-do list as I chip away at it.  I think this will be good for me in a few capacities:

• it will keep me from spending vast amounts of time blogging
• it will help me stay on task by marrying my interest in (very) amateur photography with my pressing need to get things done.
• it will add a level of accountability that I can’t seem to generate for myself on a personal level. (In other words, if I didn’t know you were reading and expecting to see my clean sink, I’d skip it and just play online all day.  Not really.  Well, maybe.)

I will call it Week of Few Words (WoFW).  You may play along, if you wish. The more the merrier.  And now, I’m off - that laundry won’t fold itself, you know.

You may remember my totally-inappropriate-for-summer mini-flip-out over having found the perfect Christmas fabric for my seasonal napkins five months ago… Well, today I got started sewing myself a set.  I’d only done one when I took this photo a few hours ago, but I’m up to seven now.

“Sure, Lisa, those look like they will be fun, kitchy napkins, alright, but what about the nice set you made last year?” you ask.

Oh, you mean the ones that we used for only about a month?  The ones that probably each saw two to three uses tops and still look good as new?  Well, I’m kind of hoping one of you might like to give them a good home.  Here’s the scoop on all of the coordinating linens, and you can email me if something interests you:

Everything is made with prints from Moda’s Christmas Past collection.  If you’ve never used cloth napkins made from quilting cottons before, you’re in for a treat.  They get softer with each successive wash (you can just toss them in with your regular laundry when they get soiled) and feel so nice against your skin, you’ll never want to use paper napkins again.  Seriously.  I haven’t bought paper napkins since I made my first set in June 2007.  Anyway…

Napkins

I split the napkins into two sets, in case 24 is just too much for anyone.  These three images are of the first set of 12.

This is the second set of 12.  Each napkin is roughly 11×16.  I’d like $24 for each set, or you can take all 24 napkins together for $44.

Table Mats

Cotton print on the top, plaid flannel on the back, approximately 17×21.  I’d like $6 for each, or both for $10.

Apron

I almost didn’t put this on the list.  I still may remove it if I think about it too long - I really like this apron a lot!  Uses two prints from the collection and one of my polymer clay buttons.  I’d like $25 for it.

Thanks, everyone!  With the exception of the apron, the pricing on these is mainly my cost of fabric.  I haven’t counted my hours of backbreaking labor here

Drop me a line at lisa (at) lisaclarke (dot) net if any of this grabs you.  I’d love to see it go to an appreciative home.  And now I’m off to get myself a bowl of peppermint ice cream.  Mmmmm.

Ooh, don’t you think it’s hard to keep quiet, when you have been working on something neat, and you want to show it off, but you can’t because it’s a gift, and the intended recipient is within earshot?  I do!  And while I know I should just pack the project up and put it away for the next few weeks, I just can’t resist letting little bits of it peek out.

It’s a nice backdrop for another, less secret, gift: a new pair of fingerless mittens (Blue Knifty Knitter loom, single strand of Patons Classic Wool in Moss Heather on the bottoms and Forest on the tops), I think.

And a perfect place to rest the subjects of a Project365 photo.

I can’t tell you what this is, or who it’s for - you never know what family members are lurking here these days - but I made it using entirely materials on-hand, including much of what was left of one of my favorite fabric collections.

I’ve already said too much.  Please pass the duct tape for my mouth. This is a tough time of year for a crafty blog…

“I made something really neat today, but I can’t show you because it’s a gift for someone who may be reading.  How about a picture of my feet instead?”

Prepare yourself.  I predict another fifteen to twenty of those posts around here in the coming month…

First is Claythings for Cassidy, which is happening right now in my own Polka Dot Cottage shop.  50% of the purchase price of anything you buy between now and December 7th will be donated to a young friend who is currently fighting liver cancer.  More information on that can be found here, or by clicking the big green Claythings for Cassidy button on the right sidebar.

Second is an effort called Hope for Jasenn, put together by Linda Permann on behalf of her brother-in-law, who suffers from kidney cancer.  I’ve donated a trio of coordinating buttons to the cause, and there are many other fabulous items to be had.  (I’ve already scored a few ornaments and a pair of potholders to use a Christmas gifts, myself.)  More on that here.

What a wonderful thing it is, to be able to kick off the holiday season in the spirit of buying handmade and benefitting some good causes all at the same time!  Thank you in advance for any shopping you might do!

P.S. If you know of any other worthy opportunities that fall under the heading of Buying Handmade for a Purpose, please feel free to leave a comment and let us know about them.

It’s the time where domestic divas everywhere are mapping out their kitchen battle plans, baking their pumpkin pies, putting together their cranberry relishes, and stuffing their turkeys.  I, as usual, will not be doing any of that.  My contribution to Thanksgiving dinner will begin tomorrow in the late morning.  I will open up my freezer, remove a box containing a Sara Lee apple pie, put the pie in the oven, bake it, and bring it to Neil’s parents’ house while it’s still piping hot.  It will be a welcome addition to our dessert.

You know, there’s a very large part of me that laments the lack of the traditional pumpkin & cranberry goodness at our Thanksgiving table every year, and that same part of me that wishes I were more involved in the preparations, or that I was at least making a pie from scratch.  And then I remember: I don’t make particularly good apple pies, and I don’t really even like much of the traditional pumpkin or cranberry Thanksgiving foods that are missing from our table. Well, duh.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday, whether you are scrambling to prepare a feast yourself, or whether you are traveling 20 minutes away to your in-laws’ house with a frozen pie in hand.  Happy Thanksgiving!

Did you think I meant to write LOONY?  Well, we’re plenty loony around here, but actually, these last few days we’ve also been plenty LOOMY.

While I’ve been cranking out fingerless mitts on my little blue knifty knitter, certain other people have been using the rest of the set as crowns, collars, swords, and chainsaw hands.

My things, no matter how traditionally feminine they may be, are rarely safe from being repurposed as a prop in some imaginative game that is all boy.  This is just the way things are.  This is my lot in life.  This is what I must deal with, being the only girl in a house full of boys.

I only have one thing to say to that:

“It’s good to be Queen.”

Ninety minutes turned to 150 minutes in the face of traffic and ambiguous driving directions, but despite that, the trip was enjoyable, if a little long.  I gave Eamonn a printed map of our route, I gave Aidan our printed directions, and we passed the time talking about navigation, how to read a map, and the definition of “interstate.”

Something to keep in mind for the future: I underestimated Eamonn’s interest in map-reading.  Next trip we take, I will have to make him a more detailed map of the route so that he can see all of the turns we are taking.  Following along visually becomes difficult when you have 75 miles crammed onto a single page!

So, our weekend was an enjoyable one, filled with the obligatory goofing off in front of the hotel mirror…

the obligatory souvenir t-shirt, the obligatory dragging of the children into crafty shops (where I bought the obligatory craft supplies including a skein of yarn that I put right to work), and the obligatory down time in the hotel room.

It was during some of this down time that I made two new pairs of fingerless mitts.  The first pair, was a simple one, made with the Paton’s Classic Wool in Dark Gray Mix that I had brought from home.  On the second pair, I experimented with ways to make the bottom edge come out better, and I ended up with something a bit frilly-looking. That’s not really my thing (although in this Brown Sheep Co. Lambs Pride Super Wash in Sable, I do kind of like it).  Not to worry, these girly mitts are not for me.  I’ve moved into Christmas gift-making mode (and it’s about time!).  I’m off to start a pair in Rose Quartz for someone on my list.  Now those will be girly mitts…