I can’t believe it’s been so long since I got you caught up on what we are up to! It has been a rather crazy month – bookended by holidays, filled with family visits and parties, a crazy amount of knitting for the holiday pop-up shop, shopping, and finally, vacation this week, and we both have nasty colds. It never fails that when we make plans to get through big chores during vacation, someone’s health suffers. Still, we have managed to get things done that need to be done, and so have time to just lie about and enjoy ill health.
This month has included thanksgiving and gingerbread house decorating:
Followed by some major furniture moving the next day. This buffet is an immense solid piece that was my great, great grandmother’s. It holds the many many dishes that my grandmother gave me over the years. We hardly ever use any of them, because A is nervous about using the “good” china, but every now and then I break it out. Thanksgiving is one of those times. But I have never had it all out at once, as we had to do to move the buffet. It is a little overwhelming, all these dishes for two people.

Oh, and these were in there as well. Not the pumpkin, but everything else. The white and gold dishes were another great-great grandmother’s, the clear glass ones were given to me on my 40th birthday by my mother’s aunt – a wedding gift to her in the thirties.

With the buffet out of the way, we can move the table to the wall, which opens up the dining area quite a bit. The table comes out far enough that the light is not a hazard to navigation. It is easy to pull out when we need to fit more people around it.

Where did we put the buffet? We moved it to the living room section of the room, against the big wall, behind where all those people were sitting at Thanksgiving. The couch used to live there, but now lives across the room.
I took this picture before the move was finished, because I loved the shadows on the wall. The sun is so low, it shines in at that angle at about 2 pm. No leaves on the trees, the lines are so pretty.


Then it was time for the holiday pop-up shop in Bucksport, Creatively Maine to open. The open house was the Sunday night after Thanksgiving – I too lots of photos, but that is because all of the crafts and arts were so amazing, but more than that – the fact that Sonja was able to take the work of 53 artists and in TWO days create this space from a plain white box. So, here are some of the pictures I too that evening. The neat thing is that every time I go in, it is different – as people buy things and stock gets replenished, she rearranges to fill gaps, and so it always looks fresh and amazing. And in about two weeks it will all be gone, packed up and cleaned out.




All of this jewelry is made with eggshells. Yep, eggshells. She raises chickens and one day got the idea of painting and dying the shells and making jewelry. She does something to it so that it doesn’t break easily, and they are actually quite lovely.


Here are some of my things – and some one else’s hats as well. (The large black and white one did not stay on the little head very long, she switched it out the next day. 🙂 )



You can see some of my shawls hanging on the rack in the background of this shot – I put three in the shop, including an Estonian lace one that had a (for me) high price tag on it. Funnily enough all were some shade of blue-green. I kept all the other ones I knit this year, and parted sadly with these three. 🙂



This window is on my “really want and don’t know what I would do with it” list.

From my frame of reference, the shop has done really well. I sold several hats, and two of the three shawls, including the Estonian lace one! I also had a custom hat order from a guy who saw the TV coverage of the opening, spotted my hats in the background and came in to buy one. He was disappointed to find that the one he wanted he had only seen from the back, and it was a woman’s hat. So I knit him up one without the button flap and button. 🙂 There is still about ten days to go, but I expect the big sales will be done tonight when the shop closes. My yarn stash now has a bit of cash in it, which is good. And I have a nice sized bag of yarn for making hats and shawls, which I will work on this year so that I have a bigger inventory ready to go and won’t have to spend every waking minute in October and November making hats. 🙂 Having the shawls sell well also feels really good – vindication – they are beautiful AND practical and people will buy them. I’ll make more, and try to brace myself to part with them.
Onward….
We got our tree last week, and decorated it this week. A declared that anything we don’t put out for Christmas decorations this year is going out the door, so I kind of overdid the ornaments, lol. I also decided she is wrong. Anything that doesn’t get put out this year gets reviewed and possibly given away next year. But not definitely. I like to mix things up a bit.

So that brings us up to date – the house is decorated, the presents are bought and wrapped, the Christmas cards were mailed Tuesday (just a BIT late!) and we are sitting around this Christmas Eve wondering if we will be well enough to go to Mom’s tomorrow for the big festivities… I think I will be, but not sure about A which will mean my day there is abbreviated, as hers was last week for her family gathering. That was different – I participated in the Yankee Swap by cell phone pix and text. It was fun, but not the same.
But while we wait , sniffle, and hack, I can work on some deadline-free knitting – I’ll finish this up, make a hat to match, then list it on Etsy. THEN I will get back to the things I was making last September… 🙂

And a post from me would not be complete without a few cat photos – Zumba has been particularly cute this month. 🙂 She loved checking out the bags that came in on Thanksgiving, they all smelled so good!

She is finally growing hair on her belly – guess we solved her food allergies at last. She loves to stretch out and show it off in front of the fire.

Happy Christmas to all!
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