It's Cosy Crafting Season!

 

After a long and happy summer of gardening and enjoying the company of many lovely family and friends here in the beautiful Annapolis Valley, it's now the season of woodstove and armchair, winter walks and crafting.  I love the seasons and I love the change of pace that comes with each one, it just never gets old.  So good to get back to my sewing maching and knitting needles - so far I have managed to produce a couple more outfits for my gorgeous grandchildren and a few items for the November 'Makers' Swap' at the Life School House, and then hey presto it was time to festify the house with all the usual Christmas sparkles.  This year our hallway looks rather pretty having been treated to a new coat of paint and a new sideboard, now complete with Christmas doormat, hand painted chair and of course some tinsel and fairy lights.  All my endeavours to reduce the amount of plastic we use seem to have gone right out of the window when it comes to Christmas lights - I'm like an addict, I know I shouldn't but I just can't resist. Please, please someone invent beautiful sparkly lights that are eco friendly.... that would make me very happy.  Until then, Santa can leave me off his list for being just plain BAD. Sorry world - promise I'll try harder next year. Probably.

Itty Bitty outfits

Oh the joy of making little outfits!  No idea if/when they may fit or be worn but I had such fun making them. Takes me right back to when I used to make clothes for my babies, and now it's for my grandbabies.  Life is a wonderful thing.

Lifeschool

One of the many things I love about where we live is the 'small town' mindset - ok, that can have its negative aspects, but I love the community events, clubs, social gatherings and the way folks smile and say hello just passing on the street.  I love that most houses have a porch facing outwards to the road so you can sit and watch the world tick along and wave hello to passers by.  I love that there are very few fences and gates around people's homes, and I love the way that Pot Lucks are the norm for entertaining friends.  Sometimes there are frustrations - many websites and banking and insurance procedures feel like they haven't progressed in the last decade or several.  But then you happen upon some really great initiatives and talent, in all sorts of walks of life, one shining example being the LifeSchool House which has just relocated to a lovely old farmhouse not far from where we live. In addtion to all kinds of workshops, where the presenter is rewarded with donated goods instead of cash, every month there is a Makers' Swap, which I had the pleasure of attending this week.

What a great idea and what good fun!  Everyone takes a few home made things along: baked goods, home brew, plant seedlings, soaps, knitted and stitched crafts, postcards, and more. Everyone was friendly and welcoming, there's no pressure to take a lot or a little and everyone gets to pick something in turn from the table until everything is gone.  I took along some bunting and some greeting cards, and came home with several tomato and pepper seedlings, gorgeously scented home made gardeners' soap, a taster of Fire Cider, beautiful postcards from a local photographer, and a tiny bottle of something that I'm told will properly perk up whatever liquid beverage I care to mix it with and properly perk me up too!  What to make for next month's swap? Watch this space!

Nanoo's Makery

Anyone care to guess the big news in my life right now...? Yep, I'm going to be a GRANDMOTHER later this year - I am over the moon and just so excited - not least because a whole new world of crafting has opened up before me!  As you can see I've jumped right on the grandchildren devotion train. By popular demand I shall be known as Nanoo, which I think is kinda cool as it reminds me of Mork and Mindy which I used to watch a very long time ago, when my firstborn was a only a few months old.  I'm so enjoying getting back to crafting, after a year that was All About The Dog. We got an Aussie Shepherd pup 9 months ago, she's a bit of a handful and ever so time consuming - but things are quietening down a bit now that she's a year old, and I did manage a few crafty moments along the way.

That's our pup, star of this year's homemade Christmas cards. She's getting the hang of snoozing outside my craft room door while I stitch and sew - it's really the only room of the house she's not allowed into, as I just can't trust myself not to drop pins! She's only stolen my knitting from the living room sofa once, and from my reaction I don't think she'll be doing that again anytime soon.  As she took up so much of my life last year, I'll include just a couple of pics below.  Quite a cutie really, isn't she?

And while I may grumble while pulling on my snow boots and layering up for yet ANOTHER dog walk, the sunshine / rain / snow / ice / wind and the gorgeous, soul stirring countryside all around us make me thankful to be alive, healthy, safe and loved. So I guess I have something to thank the little rascal for after all. 

Gettin' Crafty at Christmas

What a gorgeously relaxed Christmas we had this year - one year on from our move to Nova Scotia, properly settled into our home and plenty of time to enjoy the build up to the festive season.  Missed our family madly, but the internet is a wonderful thing for keeping in touch with friends and family.  When I was in my early twenties I lived in California for a couple of years, and kept in touch with my darling Mum by airmail letter alone - not even a phone call as it was so expensive.  So although we would have loved to have everyone here, we counted our blessings as always for living this amazing life in the home of our dreams, and had a very jolly time of it.  Friends came over on Christmas Day, we ate, drank and played silly party games and just enjoyed every single minute!  I went to a Christmas Craft Fair at the local High School, which was super impressive for a small town, and I came away with not-so-secret ambitions to have a table there myself one day; I so enjoyed making all of these things, what a great excuse it would be to make lots more!  I planned to get stuck into it in January, but then remembered that I still need to finish recovering the seat cushions for our tiny caravan, a task that's been hanging over me for-evvvver.  So I bit the bullet and now I am 4 cushions down and 5 to go, very happy that I am making progress with that.  Pics to come soon!

I made a list

Oh summer, where did you go? Ah yes, that was those happy months filled with sunshine and friends and family visiting from the UK - busy, busy busy, and beautiful.  So much fun, many happy hours in the garden, another fabulous wedding and a few snatched hours in my craft room.  I was feeling like I had been slacking off on the creative side and hadn't really made very much, but now I've made a list: Mother of the Bride Hat No.2 for Daughter No.1's wedding (No.1 hat for Daughter No.2 was last February), cable knit gloves and stripey socks for me, curtains and blinds for the house, curtains for the Potting Shed, a bib for an absoloutely darling baby, and my personal favourite, a ScareCrow. Oh, and some dinky little seed packets, which won't win any design prizes but at least I finally found a good use for the butterfly stamp I bought in Amsterdam many moons ago.  So after making that list and digging out the photos, I'm feeling quite pleased with myself and don't feel quite so daunted by the long list of projects I have lined up for the winter. Looking forward to some cosy hours in my craft room, and in the kitchen too - we went vegan this summer (feeling SO good about that!) and I have a stack of new recipes to try.  In the meantime, I'll be making the most of every drop of Autumn sunshine that remains - I'm almost enjoying raking up the leaves this year, even though there are a gazillion of them every day, as I have the time to pace myself, and the view is just gorgeous.