easing back into it

It's that time of year again!


Okay, no, it really isn't. That would actually be a little insane; even I know that. Although — all of my "October" nesting magazines have arrived, and they all have ads on the back for their November/Christmas/entertaining issues. So it's not outside of the realm of possibility.

It's just that it's been literally years. Remember how I was going to sell some of my designs? And then I was completely bowled over by a bout of flu right at the beginning of December ... and then I got pregnant ... and then I had a whirling dirvish of an 18-month-old ... and now it's three years later, and I still haven't finished the cards I'd pre-printed in 2010. (You can see them, in the top left of the photo, the gold and red.)

So maybe it's about time. I've been feeling the itch for a few days now. Also, I'm trying to plan ahead. I think, by the time Christmas-card season rolls around, I'm going to have a bit more trouble leaning forward. And this way I can do a few at a time, instead of trying to mass-produce everything inside of a week; that part was always a bit insane (but very characteristic, admittedly).

I spent a couple of hours last night just doodling calligraphy, practicing swashes and getting my hand back. I'd forgotten how lovely and relaxing calligraphy can be.

(I just realised I'd promised you knitting, oops. There will definitely be knitting later — I just finished a sweater dress for the Spanish Inquisition; you can see it (the green thing) at the top of the photograph. I just need to get my act together and actually take pictures of things.)

crafty preview

The Spanish Inquisition is almost one! I know; that's insane. It feels unbelievable. It's been almost a year since the initial scare, and the long hospital stay, and the big, upending change in our lives.

She is still perfect.

Anyway, we are having a party — or rather, a series of parties; it's a long story that inevitably ends with "... and we have a small house" — as befits a Big Girl Birthday, and I have been crafting up a storm.


The paper pinwheels are party favours, from a Martha Stewart kit. The pom poms (above) are also from a MS kit. I've since attempted to make my own poufs; I'll show them to you in a party retrospective.

I've also been making buntings, diving deep into my chiyogami stash for the little flags —

Of course I had to incorporate chiyogami in there; it's an important birthday. I even broke into the Brazilian marbled paper I've been saving up (that's the green, in the picture, and there's a red-peach series in there, somewhere). And there's another, bigger bunting that I haven't taken a picture of (but will when it's up); it's lovely patterned paper with blue-and-white twine, says "happy birthday" on it.

The favours are wrapped in matching paper. I was also going to do a vellum overlay, but I think I'm out of time (and paper), and Pd is starting to give me that "I think you've gone nuts" look and backing away slowly.

I do know that the Spanish Inquisition won't care, not really, and that she certainly won't remember any of this (although it will live on in pictures, I'm sure). But let's face it: the first birthday party isn't really for the kid, it's for us, and I demand decorations, and crafts ... and, apparently, gluten-free cupcakes.

(That last one is a bit of a surprise. We'll see how that goes.)

getting closer to seasonally-appropriate

So, after all of that planning and hand-wringing in October, and then the actual making of the cards at the beginning of November, I have done ... absolutely nothing Christmas-related since then.

Well, strictly, that's not true. I spent a couple of nights this week making this:


Which I am very pleased with. (It is missing a ribbon, which I haven't bought yet — it was sort of a spontaneous project. I am thinking some sort of plaid.) It took so long because tracing out and then cutting leaves? Takes time.

For those of you that are interested, the tutorial is here. Mine is made from craft paper gift wrap (printed with Christmas motifs), and the colour leaves are from washi. You can make it out of anything you happen to have lying around, really.

But anyway, aside from a paper wreath that I very suddenly decided to make, I have not done any work. I still love the idea of crafting in general and handmade Christmas cards in particular, but I think I may be over the actual doing of it. Doing takes work, and time. Time that could be spent sleeping. Or, I suppose, cleaning — although that never seems to get done, either (oops).

This may change after this weekend. We are going to the One of a Kind Show tonight (whee!), and that always signals the beginning of the Christmas season for me. And this year we've got an entire house to decorate! We may even get a real tree.

changeover to winter

I really love our street, and the dawn light in the morning is fantastic — if you can get over the fact that it's dawn and you're leaving for work. I can generally keep up the pretense that it's an enjoyable autumn until Hallowe'en, but after that it's the runup to Christmas, which means snow, which means winter, which means cold. This morning, coincidentally enough, was also the first day this season that it was below freezing when I walked out the door.

And it was snowing yesterday — not much, and very wet; most of it melted practically before it hit the ground, but it was definitely snow. And last night, after all of the trick-or-treaters were gone, we realised that we had no food in the house and went online to check the grocery store's hours — and they had already switched their flyers into Christmas mode. So the changeover happens fast.

Of course, I didn't really wait for it. This is what I did on Saturday:








The majority of the cards (third picture) are standard Gocco screen prints, from my own freehand drawing. I knew they would work (even though they're a new design), so I spent most of my time experimenting with incorporating some Chinese brush doodling (yes, that is absolutely the correct term) and cut paper into my work. I'm very bad at the latter, though — as you can see by the last picture — and I need to figure out how to stop the very fibrous paper from catching on the cutter. So the cut paper may need to percolate for another year while I work on my technique.

I'm very pleased with the Chinese brush, however. It's nice to know that I've retained something from grade school (because it's certainly not the language — sorry, mum!).

two unrelated things

The full Iceland set is up on Flickr. I hadn't finished putting in all of the meta-data in iPhoto before I uploaded (quite frankly: I forgot), but the photographs themselves are still pretty. Above is Lóndrangar — sea pillars from an extinct volcano, on the edge of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. The water beyond is the North Atlantic. It was stupendously beautiful, even if the weather was not.

In terms of my more current activities:


Still percolating. It's a little bit subliminal, really. The Christmas magazines are out (two of them, now), so it's time to be thinking about this, seasonal 20-degree weather, acres of calendar time and lack of snow be damned. I may have entirely leapfrogged over Hallowe'en, Thanksgiving and Remembrance Day.

anniversary card with nepalese paper

So, after declaring that crafting is going to take a backseat to all of the other activities I'm juggling lately, I went and made a card. Typical.

In my defense, it's for a specific occasion (a friend's anniversary). I missed sending out Christmas cards this year, so I feel like I have to make up for it with something extra-special.


Apparently, "extra-special" means handmade Nepalese papers. (Well, mostly. The blue-and-white one in the corner is a Japanese katazome, but I didn't use it.) These are my favourite papers, which is why I have them in rolls and not just small sheets.


I love the texture of these papers — it's almost like velvet. And yet, like all handmade papers, it's significantly more raw and fibrous than our everyday, over-processed papers. Every piece has some "imperfection" in it — a thick part, or a creased vein. And the edges are fantastic. I tried to preserve that, on the card.


Having said all that, I don't know if I actually like this card very much. There are too many problems with it. 1) It's not terribly flat. (It's in its pressing stage right now; we'll see how that works out.) 2) Because of the narrowness of the closure, it's nearly impossible to close the stupid thing once you've opened it. I haven't even glued it down yet and I already have problems closing it. I suppose I could just assume that no one will want to close it back up once it's been opened, but that seems like cheating.

Oh, and 3) It's kind of really, really boring. I'm not sure if even calligraphy will rescue this one.

Shop Announcement! (hee.)

My Etsy shop is up! I will be selling my handmade Christmas cards there for the next little while. What I will do after Christmas ... I don't know. I'll figure it out later. But this has been something like two years in the making, so it's nice to have it finally done. Now I can get back to actually making the cards, which would be nice. I've got a few new ideas I've been doodling around with ...

Anyway, in case you can't guess, I spent most of the weekend setting up the shop. (Well, there was other stuff. There was an excellent brunch, for example, and open houses, and a hockey game that would have been heartbreaking if we hadn't already given up on the Leafs.) I also knit:


This is Pierre's not-unexpected Christmas present. (Big sweater cardigans are not good stealth projects.) It's the Daniel pattern from Twist Collective, and it's knitting up fast, which is a bit of a relief. This is the left front; I've already got the back done. The yarn is Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica, in the new naturals line, and the colour is nothing like the picture — it's much more of a woodsy, dark brown oatmeal kind of colour. I love it. It's a bit thickie-thin and rustic (but softer than it looks) and the heathered colour and slubby bits give the vast yards of stockinette good interest. It should be warm, too, which is just what he wanted.

When I went to the Purple Purl to buy an extra skein, they told me that Manos del Uruguay just got their fair trade certification. I didn't even know that yarn could (or couldn't) be fair trade, but it made my hippie little heart happy.

And finally, about a week ago, we had some friends over to play Beatles Rock Band (which is über fun, by the way), and it turns out that my cat has a secret life as a roadie:


She may want to work on that narcolepsy thing first, though.

a little forward momentum

It's warm! It's warm!

The unexpected warm spell this weekend (and today!) is a little bit insane. I just want to run outside and jump around, absolutely silly, when I know perfectly well that 18-degree weather three months ago would have made me bundle up and grumble about unseasonal weather. But never mind all that: it's warm! It's warm!

Ahem.

Much as I would have liked to spend all weekend outside (and yes, really, I would have preferred that), I spent most of it working instead. Pierre pitched in and took some lovely photos of the newest Gocco design for Christmas:





And I, uh, made the cards.

I also finished the latest batch of baby congratulations cards:



Just in time, too. Two of these will be winging out of here soon; a friend gave birth last week, and another is expected to do the same sometime this week. And as soon as Christmas printmaking and knitting are out of the way, I need to start on a baby-related project for yet another friend. It's that time of decade, I guess.

(I have also been knitting, never fear. But right now I am working on a sweater for Pierre — Christmas deadline — and I decided to start with the back, which means inches and yards of straight stockinette. It's not exactly photogenic, but it is very soothing to not have to worry about a pattern. Yet.)

a little bit behind

I was planning to have my Etsy shop ready for the beginning of November, but ... no, that's not going to happen. Now I'm hoping for some time next week. It's been hard to find the time to make cards, and I've also been having some technical problems — namely, that water-based calligraphy ink slides right off Gocco ink. I've switched over to an acrylic alternative, which seemed to work when I tested it last week but has suddenly stopped working now. I think the solution is to let the Gocco ink cure a bit more, so they're sitting on their little rack until I have time to get back to them.

Oh well. In lieu of actual finished cards, here's a picture of what I did to the dining table in the meanwhile:


No, we don't really eat there right now; why do you ask?

Another view, with a close-up of some of the cards I was working on:


Aren't they cute?


These won't take long to finish; they just need calligraphy "legs." I held off because the Gocco scrollwork hadn't dried and honestly, scrollwork with permanent ink when you're tired is never a good idea.

Here's a preview of the new design that's been giving me problems:

It's a bit hard to see, but the Gocco image is lifting a bit over the calligraphy, which makes the latter busy and hard to read. (And yes, they're sitting on top of an Ikea catalog. It was taking up valuable flat surface space!)