THE FROST IS ON THE PUMPKIN

I'm sitting here enjoying our old cookstove's comforting heat this fine crisp Sunday afternoon. Yes, we finally have heat in our home, but you know what?  It's a crying shame to use it when a cookstove's heat is so much more inviting.

It does take firewood to keep it going, though.  So, a bunch of folks from our church came over yesterday and we had a good ol' fashioned wood-splitting bee!  They split, oh, probably 5 cords of wood for us!  And it's all trees that naturally came down through the year and would have just rotted out there if we hadn't "rescued" it for our heating purposes.  And there's still plenty more out there for nature to use as critter homes.

The change in weather has got me making "warm" jewelry these days.  In the summertime, I can't even think about wearing a bracelet cuff or bulky necklace.  It's too much contact with my already-overheated skin.  But of late I've been enjoying making crocheted flower pins. And the latest batch has a special touch - a layer of ruching added to the flower brooch!  So much fun to make!

I've also finished a 50-inch loop necklace/bracelet.  It can be one long loop of a necklace, a two-looped one, or a lots-of-loops bracelet cuff.  I really like the cuff look.

Has the change in weather brought on a new serge of inspiration your way?  Share your thoughts!

The Writing in the Sand

Welcome!  Sit down with a cup of something yummy and let me introduce myself.

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved to “create”.  I remember one Thanksgiving when I was around 7 years old, while waiting for my grandparents to show up, that I wrote poems.  Well, I thought they were poems!  They’re actually pretty funny.

During this same time, I would open my mom’s jewelry box and gawk at all the “pretties” in there.  We weren’t rich, they weren’t diamonds, just costume jewelry.  But I was awed.

And then there was a history project in grade school that I had to do.  We were supposed to make shadow boxes representing the colonial times.  I had a BLAST, with Mom right beside me, egging me on to be yet more creative!

Speaking of Mom, she would take me to her crafty meetings as a tweenager.  Here I was, 10 years old, among a bunch of sweet old ladies that had to be – gosh – 110 years old!  (Just kidding, Mom!)  There’s a verse in the Bible that talks about what I experienced there…“The aged women likewise…That they may teach the young women”.  (Titus 2:3-4)  I’ve kind of stretched those verses a bit to fit my situation, but you get the idea I’m shooting toward.  Those older women treated me like I was one of them and taught me so much.  It was confirmed - I liked this “crafting” thing!

So, decades later when I caught the “jewelry-making bug”, no one was surprised!

I think I’ll go make a pair of earrings…