Category: Christmas

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2 Calendar & Creativity

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House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

Hello, old friends and new readers! We’ve made it through the first week of the House & Holiday Plan 2026! Congratulations! How’d you do?

Week #1 was all about Planning & Paperwork, and we focused on getting our office areas tidied up and setting up a Christmas Activity Center. We also filled out the Holiday Values worksheet, established our holiday budget, and began our Master Gift List.

Debrief: Week #1

I’m still in the process of getting my dining room table full set up for HHP, but I’ve left my HHP binder on it all week and, as a result, used any downtime I had to work on various HHP tasks.

My rolling Christmas cart is downstairs AND I’m in the process of cutting some vinyl wording for it to make it cuter.

I was talking last week about potentially setting up a sewing machine in my Christmas Activity Center so that I could have easy access to working on some projects, but the more I think about it, the less inclined I am to do it. I’m trying really hard to not start new projects until I clear a specific handful from my crafting queue, so I don’t think it’s the year to undertake some impressive Christmas makes at the last minute. [insert super sad face here] However, I do have a knitting project I thought I’d make for Christmas this year, and that’s easy enough to leave on the table, so I might go that route. OH…I think I’ll also get out my Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler and its frame and use some downtime to get it framed. (I TOLD YOU I wouldn’t get back to framing it until the holiday rolled around again!)

Filling out the Holiday Values Worksheet was revealing: As I thought back over last year’s Christmas season, I realized we actually didn’t do much because we were dealing with my husband’s stepfather’s passing, and subsequent out-of-state funeral. We missed concerts, events, just about everything. The only thing we did was attend one of Renaissance’s friends’ birthday celebration on Christmas Eve. Christmas Day was super low-key because we desperately just needed a break.

And then I remembered that Christmas 2024 was a rough one, too, because the last half of 2024 was rather brutal for the Brooke Family.

I think we’re due for a really amazing holiday season this year, what do you think? I’m going all-in, y’all. We’ve earned it.

Week #2: Calendar & Creativity

Alright, Week #2 concerns itself with our schedules and our creative spaces. We’ll get our calendars under control and get our crafting and gifting areas ready for their holiday work.

Week #2 Cleaning Checklist: Craft Room

  • Declutter and clean creative spaces: I’ll be heading into my craft room, which is bulging at the seams yet again. How does that happen?!?!
    • If you’re looking for a kick-in-the-pants method for decluttering, I highly recommend reading Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff, by Dana K. White. I’m not an affiliate or anything; I use it and it’s the best decluttering book I’ve come across thus far.
    • A good rule to start with, that I picked up somewhere long ago, is: The floor is not a shelf. When in doubt, clear out a room enough to not have anything on the floor that shouldn’t live on the floor.
  • Assess stored crafts materials: Do you need to purchase any basics? Do it now and save yourself the “I thought I had that” headache later.

Week #2 Holiday Prep Checklist

  • Get your calendar filled in: Now that school is in session for most families, it’s a great time to physically write in every game, concert and event the family needs to show up for. Get everyone’s birthdays written down, too!
    • I now use a calendar that starts in August and then goes through December of the next year. I tried a new brand this year and am not loving it; I wish I’d stayed true to my favorite Orange Circle version. If I hadn’t already filled my unloved calendar in, I’d totally start all over with this beautiful Fruit & Flora one.
  • Plan holiday travel.
  • Schedule necessary household and family upkeep appointments.
    • Furnace checks
    • Carpet cleaning
    • Family photo session, if needed
    • Chimney cleaning
    • Any family medical appointments that need to be done
  • Hold a family scheduling session: I call it our Autumn & Christmas Bucket List Planning Session, and I give a heads-up to everyone in the family a couple of days beforehand to start thinking about the activities they’d like to participate in that will be fun and bring them joy through the end of the year. Then we meet, write every idea down and figure out what’s actually possible to do, given time and budget constraints. Click here for the Autumn PDF, and click here for the Christmas PDF.
    • When they were younger, I’d then write down all the autumn bucket list ideas on a big piece of poster board and use painter’s tape to affix it to a wall that was easily visible from the dinner table so we could talk about the upcoming events and cross them off as they happened.
      • Bonus: By having it up as a poster, it kept our plans at the forefront of my ADHD brain so I wouldn’t forget about making them happen. I’d also make a Christmas bucket list poster to put up during December, and we’d have another planning session in the week after Christmas to make up our Winter Bucket List poster.
      • I might bring this idea back this year because young children management tactics work well with teenagers and young adults, too. We’ve not been very into activities in recent years and I’d like to change that for the better. Use the tools that work!
House & Holiday Plan Autumn Activity Brainstorming worksheet
House & Holiday Plan 2026 Christmas and New Year's Activity Brainstorming Worksheet
  • Start gathering your holiday ideas: The original HHP plan called this “tear files,” where you’d tear out articles, recipes, and other ideas from magazines because that’s what us “mature” folks did back in the days before Pinterest. If you’re still a magazine person, then by all means, curate an expanding file folder to hold your ideas. If you’re a Pinterest user like myself, set up a new board for 2026 Holiday Ideas and start pinning! I go through all of my holiday decor boards, activity idea boards, recipe boards, etc., and re-pin the ideas that I’d like to do this year to the new board. That way I still have the pins on the original boards, but then I have a focused list of actual possibilities for this particular year all in one place.
  • Start a shopping list: Paper or digital, it’s up to you.
    • Our family uses the Google Keep app and I’ve invited them to the grocery shopping list so we can all add to the same list when things run out and then I have it in my pocket when I’m out.
    • Hint for the Gift Tracking app I mentioned last week: If you add a link to each gift’s description, then it will populate it into a shopping list that you can check off. I don’t know why it needs a link for it to get onto the list, but that’s the trick. I just insert thatcraftycara.com as the link when I don’t need to purchase the item online. 😉 UPDATE 9/12: Opened my Gift List app this morning and it had an update that fixed the bug that kept gifts without links from populating into the Shop tab. Huh. (Yay! Thanks, Gift List app developer(s)!)
  • Review gift lists: Is your Master Gift List from last week complete?
    • This is the week I like to reach out to extended family and get sizes, favorite colors, and gift ideas for everyone.
  • Inventory unfinished crafts projects: It’s time to face the music, Fellow Crafters! When I did this last year, I found I had forty-seven UFOs (UnFinished Objects)!
    • Good piece of advice from Cynthia Townley Ewer, the creator of the HHP: “Remember the Crafter’s Rule of Four: If you have more than four unfinished crafts projects, or if any single project is more than four years old, don’t schedule any new crafts! Finish the old ones this year–you’ve already got a head start on the process and the price is right! Rout out projects you’ve begun, and take advantage of the time already invested in them for happy crafting.”
      • Obviously, I don’t abide by this creed…but, as a crafter drowning in UFOs, I do admit its wisdom and wish I did. #goals
  • Begin a “Gifts to Make” list: Because now is the time to start! Click here for the PDF.
    • I try to finish making gifts by American Thanksgiving (November 26, this year), preferably the weekend right before. That way I’m not under a cloud of stress during December when our family has all the music rehearsals and concerts, gift wrapping, social events, and requisite movie and cocoa family time.
    • Life Hack: Actually schedule time for working on your handmade gifts. (This is, after all, a crafting blog!) Like, create a recurring event in your calendar and if something comes up that’s trying to be scheduled during that time, say, “I’m not available at that time.” It’s that easy. No one needs to know what you’re doing at that time (and don’t tell, because they’ll try to talk you out of it, believe me!) and if you simply say you’re unavailable, then the people you’re making plans with will move on to the next available time.
      • Only twice in the last twenty years has my protected crafting time actually made it impossible for me to meet up for something important. When it becomes obvious that it’s my schedule that’s causing the problem (when I’ve said, “I’m not available at that time,” for the third time), I stop for a second (Say it out loud: “Give me a second to think here.”), think about whether meeting up for the thing trying to be scheduled is something I actually need or want to do (am I willing to give up crafting/music practice time willingly, or am I being guilted into this?), and then, if I do truly want to be a part of it, I’ll cancel one of the three scheduled crafting sessions/conflicts suggested to make room for the proposed event at-hand.
        • If it turns out that I don’t actually want to be involved in the event, I’ll say, “It looks like my schedule is too busy right now to commit to another thing. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be involved with this after all. I’d forgotten about some commitments I’ve made, but looking at my calendar now has made it obvious that my schedule is too full to add anything else.”
        • Repeat after me: It is better to disappoint others in a small way now (by declining to participate when you know you don’t have time for it) rather than disappointing them in a big way later (by overcommitting and doing a terrible job at, or worse, flaking out at the minute for, the thing you said you’d do because you didn’t have the time or energy to do as it should be done). The event organizer will have time to find another person for the task if you decline upfront. It’s not a big deal. If they can’t find another person, well, that’s their problem, not yours. Also, maybe the event doesn’t actually need to happen? Or maybe it’s a great idea…for next year?
House & Holiday Plan 2026 Gifts to Make worksheet

I had a lot to say about that, ha ha. But crafting is self-care for me, it’s one of the most therapeutic ways to help keep my mind quiet and calm. I respect it as a important tool in my mental health arsenal. I also have to respect my music practice time if I’m going to deliver on any performance I commit to. It’s just that simple. Don’t let people bully you out of your scheduled creative times, or else stop committing to creative projects. Beautiful projects and performances take the necessary time to prepare them well.

And that’s it for Week #2’s tasks! Let me know in the comments how Week #1 went for you, and whatever’s on your mind for Week #2! I’d love to hear about all of it.

London Fog Custard Tarts with caramel, earl grey whipped cream and a sprinkle of lavender buds on top.

Rainy Days & London Fog (Tarts)

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Here we are at the Labor Day weekend, firmly entrenched in September. School has begun and the weather was cool and rainy for most of the last week, with that lovely wet pavement smell that makes you reach for a hoodie. Well, hello there, autumn, it’s nice to see you peeking around the corner. If I remember correctly, we’ll cycle through at least one more round of warm weather before the Pacific Northwest truly heads into its Hoa Hoa Hoa aesthetic.

There was some progress on various projects this week, but I think the girls and I caught a mild virus for 3-4 days that made us feel lethargic and headache-y. It’s one thing when I’m the only one feeling sluggish, and it’s a completely different thing when, one by one, all three of us experience the exact same symptoms in a cascading course of events. I used my sluggish days to work on the House & Holiday Plan because I could just sit in a chair and putter around my office desk and actually achieve something productive in spite of the raging headache I had.

Rachel’s Graduation Quilt

I did work on this for one 45-minute work session this week. My knee was twinging just a little bit afterwards. I’m going to experiment with this a little bit more in the next couple of weeks and see if it’s healing or needs some extra help. I once had “unexplained” hip pain that seemed to have come out of nowhere and I was getting really worried about it until a friend pointed out, four days later, that I’d slammed the side door of the van shut on myself at one of my kids’ sports practices, could that have been where it started? So I’m wondering if I did something to my knee and have just forgotten about it. Because it is getting better, as long as I respect it.

In-progress pic of foundation pieced quilt blocks.

But yeah, the pencil crayon tips of the quilt blocks are trimmed now. Yay.

Husband Christmas Socks

I finished knitting the heel flap! Time to turn the heel and then get into the wonky business of knitting the gusset. AND THEN it’s a much easier knit because the pattern is only knit on the top half of the foot and it’s just normal stockinette on the sole. Goes faster once we reach that stage.

Back-to-School

The Boy is back in the school building. It seems to be going fine. I already had to run a forgotten thing down to the school when it was forgotten at home, but I’ve decided to mentally give two free passes for that sort of thing per semester, so it’s acceptable.

Back-to-Home

Renaissance’s summer break BEGAN this past week, so she has no classes for almost the entire month of September. She asked me to help her plan a personal curriculum to work on during her break so she can practice some of the things she’d like to be better at. This week’s theme was flavor combinations and she has been baking up a storm all week making (tea-free) London Fog Custard Tarts, Lemon-Peach Almond Cupcakes, and Coconut Lime Tres Leches cake. I think the London Fog Tarts are one of my most favorite things that she’s ever made, OH MY GOODNESS they were so tasty.

London Fog Custard Tarts with caramel, earl grey whipped cream and a sprinkle of lavender buds on top.

House & Holiday Plan

Um, this thing has taken on a life of its own!

I didn’t expect such an enthusiastic response to my post about it, but online friends and IRL friends are clambering onto the wagon and it just brings me so much joy to be able to talk about this fun little obsession with so many people.

It’s weird; I can see the traffic that’s coming in on that post, but there’s not a lot of tangible signs that it’s popular, but then while I was at church today multiple women stopped me to gush about how much they love the idea of getting going with holiday cleaning and planning right now, and then they told me what they were up to in their homes for the past week.

I am very inspired by all the work these ladies are getting done in their own homes! And talking about Christmas prep in the halls between classes?! Yes, please! Always more of that!

Loving the Rain

We had some amazing days of rain this last week and it was lovely. You forget how awesome a drizzly day is until one finally shows up after weeks and weeks of sunshine. As luck would have it, that was also the day Renaissance was figuring out her London Fog flavor proportions, so the girls and I really leaned into the whole cozy-tea-while-watching-the-rain aesthetic and it was perfection.

Rain tapping on the windows, something delicious coming out of the oven, warm mugs in our hands while we laughed over something Rachel was enthusiastically over-explaining…it was a very good September afternoon.

A knitting mug full of London Fog tea with frothed milk on top, next to a bottle of Torani Lavender syrup

As much as I loved that rain, I do kindly request that it holds off until November, though. There’s a lot of fun outdoor stuff that I’d like to do in September and October, and it’s way more enjoyable when the sun is shining.

Please, Mother Nature, give us pleasant autumn weather. Just keep the rain tucked away for a little while longer…

House & Holiday Plan 2026: Week #1 “Planning & Paperwork”

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Years and years ago, a fantastic woman named Cynthia Townley Ewer created a website called OrganizedChristmas.com and listed a handful of different house and holiday prep plans on it. I discovered her website in 2004 as I was heading into my first Christmas as a stay-at-home mom. I was OBSESSED with her website and followed it every year until she shut it down. Wisely, I printed off all the pages she had created and offered for free on her site, so I still have my Houseworks Holiday Planner binder to reference each year.

I discovered a new website carrying on her work a few years ago: Magical Holiday Home. I’m terrible about posting there, but I do check in from time to time and enjoy reading through the posts that others leave about their efforts to follow the House & Holiday Plan each year.

The House & Holiday Plan is an eighteen week long preparation plan that focuses on a different area of the house each week for deep cleaning and various aspects of holiday planning so that you arrive at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Year’s relatively sane and calmly prepared. It starts (generally) on the Sunday before the Labor Day weekend, which was yesterday, so here we are! It’s HHP time!

I have never followed the plan all the way through to the end. Never, in over twenty years. But that doesn’t stop me from starting up with it every single year! I enjoy whatever work I’m able to get done with its help and I love me any excuse to start working on holiday things as early as possible.

In the interest of trying to motivate me to achieve that impossible dream of following this plan through to the absolute end, I’m going to blog about it. Public accountability works well for me.

Week #1 is Planning & Paperwork Week.

The cleaning focus is the home office, and the holiday prep focus is setting up for this year’s HHP.

Week #1 Cleaning Checklist: Office

  • Declutter and clean the home office and any paper handling areas.
  • Set up (or refresh) your household filing system.

Week #1 Holiday Prep Checklist:

  • Set up your Christmas binder.
    • My husband used ChatGPT to create the little banner at the top of this post, and now there’s a new planner cover to match:
  • Complete the Holiday Values Worksheet to figure out what you’d like to focus on during this year’s holiday season. (Click here for the PDF)
    Note: Cynthia Townley Ewer wrote this and I completely copied it for myself.
  • Create a Christmas planning activity center.
    • I’m planning to use my dining room table this year. We don’t use the dining room a whole lot, so I figure I might as well use the empty space for this festive fun! I do worry because it’s one of the first rooms you see when you walk into my house, but anyone who would bother visiting me already knows I’m a Christmas junkie, so it’ll be fine.
    • I have a rolling cart specifically earmarked for Christmas stuff, so it’s been moved into the dining room to live up to its intended purposes.
    • I’m thinking of setting up a second sewing machine and/or crafting area on the dining room table so that I can pop in and work on things for a few minutes at a time when I’m making dinner. There’s often minutes of waiting involved when cooking and I’ve gotten into the nasty habit of scrolling on my phone during that time. It’d be WAY BETTER if I got two minutes of stitching here and twelve minutes of stitching in there. I can’t hear the oven timer at all from the craft room and I often forget to set an actual timer on my phone to take to the craft room, so another crafty location near the kitchen would be awesome. And it’s just fun!
      • With that in mind, what project(s) do I want to earmark for the dining room table? Can’t be cutting heavy because I do not want to set up a cutting station in the dining room.
  • Establish a holiday budget.
  • Begin a Master Gift List.

Even though the HHP plans begins on a Sunday, I like to run mine from Monday through Sunday so I can use the weekend to finish up the week’s tasks. It’s my hope to check in each Monday with my HHP progress! Feel free to join in if it sounds like a good idea to you! I’d love to have more Christmas-obsessed buddies in my circle!

A summer flowering planter with an American flag

Summer is Packing Its Suitcase

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Well, as far as I’m concerned, summer is pretty much over. I keep my patriotic summery decorations up through September 11th, and then it’ll be full-on autumn here in Brooketopia.

Smitten English Paper Piecing Quilt

I gave my knee another week of rest, just to be safe, and spent my creative time working on the Smitten Quilt. I am thisclose to being done with attaching all the rows into one cohesive quilt top! So exciting!

A Smitten English paper-pieced quilt in-progress.

Then I’ll need to attach the side triangles and two borders and the top will be complete. I am hoping to hand-quilt this one, so I talked to Renaissance and Rachel about the idea of me setting it up in the TV Room so that anyone could put some stitches in when they pleased and the two of them were intrigued. Fingers crossed, it would speed up the process and I love the idea of all of us quilting it together.

Rachel came downstairs one day while I had the two halves of the Smitten quilt laid out on the TV Room’s floor and immediately yelled out, “PLAGIARISM!” and ran out of the room. I yelled that it wasn’t plagiarism because I started sewing my Smitten quilt years before she started sewing hers, to which she replied, “I’m the one committing plagiarism!” as she dashed up the stairs to the craft room. Turns out she really liked one of my blocks and decided to shamelessly copy it in her own Smitten quilt. Ha ha.

I don’t know if I’ll keep pushing forward with this in the upcoming week, but it would be smart if I did!

Husband Christmas Socks

I put in some solid effort on them this week and I’m so close to starting the heel! I think I have like two rows left to knit before I start the heel. Woo hoo!

Back-to-School

It’s upon us and I’m about to get pretty busy with band shenanigans. We held an ice cream social during this last week and it was attended pretty well. It’s the first time we’ve done something like ahead of the school year, so I’m hoping it was enough of a success to warrant repeating it in future years.

House & Holidays Plan

It’s here! It’s here! Today is the start of the 2026 House & Holidays Plan! I can finally let all my Christmas joy explode out into the world and rain down like confetti throughout the house! I’m toying with the idea of creating a separate series of posts for this this year because I really like the idea of hunkering and going all in on this. I’ve dabbled with the HHP since 2004, never really ever finishing it completely, and I appreciate the ways it prepares and organizes my holiday season. Every year I go big in the first few weeks and then lose interest, so we’ll see how long I can keep it up this year.

Week #1 is “Planning and Paperwork,” which has me cleaning up the office areas and establishing my Christmas Activity Center. I’m hoping to start working on that once I publish this post.

Farewell, Summer

So we’re buttoning up summer and getting ready to immerse ourselves into autumn. Aren’t seasons just the best?!?! I love that the landscape just changes for funsies throughout the year. Enjoy this last week of real summer, seeing that next weekend is Labor Day and everything will become orange and pumpkin spice the morning after.

No complaints here, but I’m trying to be responsible until then and remain present in the moment and the moment is summer. Wish me luck!

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger and royal blue contrasting heel made with Cascade Yarns Heritage yarn.

American Flag Socks: Michael’s Christmas Socks 2025

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It’s the first Sunday after Christmas, which means Michael’s wearing his brand new pair of socks to church for the first time. I made him a really great pair this year! He was completely surprised by them and has dubbed them his most favorite handknit socks EVER.

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger.

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple

Yarn: Journey Sock Yarn in colorway “Grand Old Flag” from The Painted Tiger, and Cascade Yarns Heritage in colorway #5636 “Sapphire” from Simply Socks Yarn Company. There’s a fair amount of each leftover, but I haven’t weighed anything to give you specific numbers. I also used two spools of Lang Reinforcement Thread #290, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger and royal blue contrasting heel made with Cascade Yarns Heritage yarn.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: None beyond the contrasting heel and toe.

We were discussing his growing collection of handknit socks last year after he opened his 2024 pair, and he mentioned that it would be really cool to have some striped USA socks, but it would probably be really difficult to start and stop with the red and white yarns and how that was too much to ask of me. I tucked that little quip away in my note-keeping app and when it came time to decide what to make him for this year’s socks, I decided to take a quick look on the internet to see if some self-striping Americana yarn already existed out there. I happened upon The Painted Tiger’s version and bought it as fast as I could. So exciting!

Handknit socks made with self-striping American Flag yarn from The Painted Tiger with contrasting heels knit with Cascade Yarns Heritage sock yarn in royal blue.

You know you’ve done a good job when you’ve been knitting for over twenty years and your husband opens his present, after squeezing it and saying, “This feels like socks,” and exclaims, “WHOA! Did you make these?!?!” He was so pleased with the colorway! I’m really happy with his enjoyment of how they look already!

I don’t know if I can top these ever. I’m not too worried about it at the moment; it’s just been great to listen to him fawn over this pair. Merry Christmas, my love.

Note: These socks were originally given the code name of “Cherry Twilight Socks” as I worked on them earlier in the year so I didn’t give away their very distinctive design feature. All posts tagged as “Cherry Twilight Socks” have been updated with the “American Flag Socks” tag.

#craftygoals: December 2025

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Debrief: November 2025 #craftygoals:

Rachel Brooke, wearing a light pink formal gown, and her family at the Daffodil Princess selection ceremony
  1. Daffodil Princess Dress: The dress was altered and hemmed in time. Rachel looked so beautiful! Nathaniel was her escort and I was so proud of the two of them working together. Rachel wasn’t selected as Daffodil Princess, but she says she learned a lot about public speaking and the like, and she really enjoyed “princess lessons,” so the net sum of the experience is positive overall.
  2. Penguin Party Quilt: I attached the bottoms sashing to two rows before deciding that I really do need to take some growth/width out of the penguin block rows to get them to fit the sashing strips better. Life has been an absolute carnival with Daffodil Princess prep, the school district K-12 musical, battling COVID for the second time this year, and Thanksgiving, so I’ve not got back to working on this since then.
  3. Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: No progress
  4. Woolly Wee Sheep Ornament(s): I started one! It’s a finicky pattern, but I’d say I’m about 2/3 done with it.
  5. Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: Haven’t done anything with it since finishing the stitching. I have the frame for it in possession and just need to do all the things you do to frame an embroidery piece.

December 2025 #craftygoals:

Time-Sensitive Things That Need Working on ASAP:

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler: I blasted through finishing up the stitching for this so I could display it this year, so I better get it framed!

Wee Woolly Sheep Ornament(s): They’re meant to go on the tree so I need to finish them.

Fair Isle Christmas Balls: I was on a bit of a kick with planning the Wee Woolly Sheep Ornaments and decided to go all in on knitted ornaments, so I bought the books and yarn to make some Fair Isle ornaments, too. Hopefully I can get at least one done!

Things to Work on After the ASAP Projects:

Machine Stitching:

  • Penguin Party Quilt: Fixing the width of the rows and hopefully finishing this top!
  • Say-It Sew Along: Lori Holt has designed the cutest seasonal banners to go along with the release of her newest fabric collection, “TYPE/ography,” and I want to sew along! She released the instructions for the “Merry Christmas” and “Let It Snow” banners at the end of November and I’d really like to make them.
  • Rachel’s Gingerbread Christmas Quilt: I’d be lucky to get to work on this in December, but I’ll put it on the list anyway.

Hand Stitching:

English Paper Piecing: No plans for anything this month.

Knitting: The above-mentioned Christmas ornaments.

Embroidery: No plans for anything this month.

There’s so much going on in our lives in December, so I’m not optimistic about how much progress I can make on crafty things, but it’s better to have a plan just in case, rather than finding myself with some free time and no idea what to make when I finally disturb the cobwebs in the craft room!

Happy December to you all, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, and hopefully I’ll be able to report back with some beautiful progress on some feel-good projects that elicit those wonderful Christmas-y heartwarmings that we’re all in search of in the darkest month of the year! Drink your cocoa and play your happy music!

English Paper Piecing quilt blocks that look like red, green, and white peppermint candy discs

Christmas Stitching in October

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I’ve written a little bit about the Peppermint Blossoms EPP Quilt and the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler, but haven’t shared any actual info or pictures about them. We shall remedy that today!

Meet the Peppermint Blossoms EPP Quilt:

This one’s going to take a very long time. I spent some time in the past week figuring out numbers for it and I think I’m going to end up needing 50 full blossoms and 10 half blossoms, plus whatever insane number of background triangles and diamonds that I’ll math out later. As of today, I have 8 red blossoms and 7 green blossoms complete. Only 35 to go…

Red, Green, and White Peppermint Blossoms English Paper Piecing Quilt units

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This project is my current crafting-in-the-van project that gets worked on whenever I’m waiting for kids’ practices to get over and when I’m sitting at church during Mutual because I don’t want to drive back home just to turn around half an hour later to come back and pick them up. Progress is slow on this, but I can usually knock out a full blossom a week now that I’m working on it during Mutual.

English Paper Piecing quilt blocks that look like red, green, and white peppermint candy discs

I also need to cut out more white jewel pieces for this quilt—113 more, actually. Yikes.

And here’s the Christmas Alphabet Embroidery Sampler:

The Ziploc bag that it’s stored in says it’s from ~2005, so this project is pretty ancient. I think I bought the pattern shortly after we bought our first home and before I got pregnant with Renaissance. I was leaning towards a primitive and folksy decor look, but decided later that it really wasn’t for me. (That, and my house was decorated in “homeschooling chic” out of necessity for the stage of life we were in, lol.)

Christmas Alphabet Embroidery sampler in rustic colors

I’ve been granting myself some “Whimsical Days” each month to work ahead on upcoming holidays and celebrations when my heart desires it, and I found myself wishing I had a slow stitching Christmas project to pick up on my Christmas days, so I unearthed this and have been putting in work on it while watching movies. I’m not worried about when this will be finished; it’s just fun to work on. Maybe it’ll be ready for this year’s Christmas, maybe it won’t.

But I like to keep track of progress, so this guy is at 12 blocks out of 26, which is ~46%, and we’ll subtract 5% from that to account for the border that will need to be stitched at the end, so 41% done.

"Yuletime" #210 Alphabet Stitches embroidery sampler, pattern by Once Upon a Vine (Kim Goodrich), stitched in primitive and folk colors of DMC embroidery floss

And I just noticed that the pattern itself has a 2006 copyright, so I imagine I actually started working on this in 2006. I do love that fabric and yarn will wait for you!

Hopefully you’re able to find some slow stitching time on this beautiful Sunday! The weather is blustery here and so perfect for some down time with needle and thread.

Linking up with:

Handknit socks made with red, green, and white self-striping yarn.

Stripey Christmas Socks

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Hurray! A beautiful finish that will now go live in a trunk for eight months. *groan* I’m really looking forward to debuting these on November 1st while decorating for Christmas while wearing my Hermey the Elf shirt. *happy smile*

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Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple After all this time? Always.

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Yarn: West Yorkshire Spinners Signature 4 ply Self Striping/Patterning, colorway #886 Holly Berry, Cascade Yarns Heritage, colorway #5607 Red, Lang Reinforcing Thread, colorway #60.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

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Modifications: I saw a sock knit up with this colorway and did not like it, so I added the solid red heels and toes. Now that they’re done I realize that I probably would have liked it if I had also knit the ribbing in solid red as well. (I also would have preferred if I had done a 2×2 ribbing on BOTH socks, and not just one…whoops. Doesn’t the 2×2 ribbing look SO GOOD?!?! I’ve been a 1×1 forever, but I will be changing my ways from here on out.)

It’s a late finish, but I didn’t want to rush ’em. This is such a great colorway and I enjoyed knitting these so much! I’m very tempted to commit to the idea of new Christmas socks each year, but even I can recognize the insanity of such a pledge, so these may remain my only handknit Christmas socks (for a while…it’s loads of fun to knit Christmas socks!).

Read more posts about the Stripey Christmas Socks:

View this project’s Ravelry page

Michael’s Christmas Socks 2024

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to each of you, dear readers! December 2024 was a whirlwind of activity, mostly revolving around the constant of music in our family, so I wasn’t able to do a whole lot in the craft room throughout the month, but I DID finish up a pair of handknit socks for my sweet hubby to open on Christmas Day!

Details:

Pattern: #216 Beginner’s Lightweight Socks, by Diane Soucy of Knitting Pure & Simple (As always! It’s a great sock pattern!)

Yarn: Paton’s Kroy Socks in colorway #55102 “Blue Striped Ragg”, 2 skeins with very little leftover. I also tried using a reinforcement thread in the heels and toes for the first time, and ran out of it halfway through the second toe. Note to self: He has big feet and needs two spools in the future. I used Lang Reinforcement Thread #23, purchased from Simply Socks Yarn Company.

Needles: US 2 (2.75 mm)

Modifications: The yarn skeins don’t stop and end in the same place, stripe-wise, so I did my best to match up the stripes, but had to split my second skein to start in the same place as the first skein, which meant I had to join in the last bit of yarn near the toe so it stripes a little weird in the second sock. Fortunately, no one will see it because it’ll be hidden by his shoes when he’s wearing them.

This is the first time I’ve pulled off making a pair of socks for Michael for Christmas two years in a row! Woot, woot! And I barely pulled it off—I finished these during the afternoon on Christmas Eve and got them wrapped and under the tree with only minutes to spare before Michael walked in the door from work.

I love the idea of a tradition of making Michael a pair of socks each Christmas. Back when I started knitting, I eagerly looked forward to the Yarn Harlot’s frantic pre-Christmas circus posts where she’d get through insane lists and spreadsheets of handknits to complete during the holidays, and I loved reading through the posts that featured her handknits in the hands of smiling recipients, Christmas tree lights twinkling in the background. I enjoy going to other people’s circuses from time to time, and her Christmas circus was such a delight to behold in all its urgency and anticipation that would then yield beautiful photos of a happy family and beautifully-knitted gifts and lovely words of love, joy and gratitude. (I miss the old days of blogging, they were really wonderful. Instagram is, really…was, great and all, but I miss the writing that we used to treat each other to back in the day.)

I envisioned the same future for myself, which has basically come true (except for the handknits part), and here we are today with us going through a Christmas circus every year that can only be managed with spreadsheets and to-do lists. It’s mostly all music-related for us Brookes, but I still endeavor to throw some handmades into the mix. These socks were created in all sorts of stolen moments in between putting together the band fundraiser, the Ward Christmas Sacrament Program, and our family’s own holiday celebrations and traditions. I like a little crazy.

Each stitch in these socks is a little bit of crazy, a little bit of peace stolen amidst chaos, a little bit of tradition. A little bit of the holiday experience over and over again. I love having these reminders throughout the year of another Christmas that has come and gone. Each Sunday, when Michael is putting on his church shoes and I see which handknit socks he’s chosen to wear that week, I’m inundated with memories from whichever Christmas and year that particular pair was created. It’s a lot of a memories, over and over again. We’ve been blessed to have so many Christmases together. I hope, twenty years from now, that I’m still making socks for him each year, and that I’m darning the older socks and reliving the glory days of Christmases past—days of our children in footed pajamas, mornings when they were teenagers in flannel pants and messy buns, to eventual days of their own children in footed pajamas and maple syrup-stickied fingers. I learned to knit when I was just starting out as a wife and mother, and I hope I’m still knitting and making memories that include handknit gifts with happy faces and twinkling lights for many, many years to come.

Click here to view this project’s Ravelry page

Goodbye Halloween, Hello Christmas!

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It’s November, and right on schedule, it’s raining like crazy today. It’s pretty rain at this point—the brightness of the colorful leaves creates an impressionistic feel to the landscape, so at least we have that.

Top priorities this past week:

  • Halloween celebrating & traditions
  • Band Fundraiser Table Runners
  • Scheduling special musical performances for November
  • Finding a pianist for the Christmas program
  • Make some headway on the secret Christmas knitting
  • Rest when I’m tired or hurting

Celebrating

Halloween was fun this year. Not a lot of fuss, but Renaissance and I did manage to create our traditional chili in pumpkin bread bowls, which I wasn’t too sure was going to happen. She invited her friends over for another Halloween feast before Trick or Treating started, despite that they’re all adults now that don’t do Trick or Treating, and they hung out afterwards playing video games together and taking breaks to hunt down Rachel and Nathaniel in the neighborhood to jump scare them with light sabers. As one does…

I was a little sad going into Halloween this year because Ren and her friends have grown up and I was worried about Rachel and Nathaniel not having a group to go Trick or Treating with, but they put the word out that we live in a great neighborhood for Trick or Treating and some of their friends decided to come on over to do that here. It was nice. I love the chaos of having a gaggle of teenagers in my house on Halloween night. Absolutely love it—peak motherhood aspirations there.

So Halloween is over, and with that comes Christmas. I absolutely turned on Christmas music this morning as I worked in the craft room!

And spare me your “Christmas shouldn’t start before Thanksgiving” sentiments: I’m Canadian; I grew up with Thanksgiving taking place in early October, so my internal Christmas countdown was programmed in childhood to start once Halloween was over and I’m not going to reset it ever because more time in Christmas Town is AWESOME. I take the requisite days off from Christmas prep to do a proper job on American Thanksgiving, and we are very grateful people who are capable of exuding a thankful attitude even while decorating for Christmas. I know, it may be shocking that such people exist, but we do! Everything is OK, gratitude will continue to exist in our home despite the appearance of red and green before Thanksgiving. If you’re a person who doesn’t do Christmas until after American Thanksgiving, cool. You do you. But do not come in here demanding that the only correct way to celebrate the holidays is how you do it. Because that is blatantly incorrect.

And further more, how do you think Christmas music happens? Do you think musicians wait until after American Thanksgiving to start practicing that stuff? Of course they don’t! Big preparations take time, and there is not a lot of time between American Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sorry/not sorry to pop your bubble on this concept, but many musicians start practicing their Christmas music in October, even September. I started planning and purchasing Christmas sheet music in August. That’s how Christmas music happens—that far in advance. Just be thankful (hey, there’s that gratitude word!) that there are people who want to shower others with so much Christmas cheer that they’ll voluntarily give up their time very early on in order to prepare for Christmas, rather than pointing fingers and snidely alluding that the Early Christmas Cheer people are materialistic gimme pigs. We’re actually spending more time in service to others by getting the Christmas Town Express going early, and that’s…decidedly unmaterialistic, right?

/soapbox (I’m so tired of this argument that, really, shouldn’t even exist.)

Creating

I have found time to start working on the Band Fundraiser table runners this week. I’ve got most of the fabric cut up and I’ve ironed what I have on-hand and have done the first round of sewing on one (1) table runner. I hope the future organizers of this event don’t get tired of the table runners and get rid of them in a few years. They’re turning out quite nice and could potentially last for years if they’re treated well.

I made a little bit of progress on the secret Christmas knitting, too.

Community

I am hitting some major walls with church music. I shall remain optimistic through this weekend and if things don’t sort themselves out I’m going to have to alter my plans. Once again, but for a different crowd this time, how do you think Christmas music happens? A big part of that is people being willing to be a part of church choir. If you’ve ever wondered about joining your church’s choir, stop wondering and just do it. We’re desperate for you. DESPERATE.

Healing

I’m almost there, I can feel it. I yo-yo back and forth between overdoing it and needing to take time to rest from the overdoing, which is always a good sign that points towards a “nearing full recovery” kind of thing. I’m glad I wrote about it this time around so I can look back and see the glacial pace and know that it’s completely normal. Six weeks of inactivity is a really long time. You don’t think it is when people throw that timeline around, but laying around for that long is mind-numbingly boring. I guess I should be thankful that I’m feeling like bursting my prison right as Christmas Season begins. What a glorious reward!

Highlights

  • Halloween was noisy and fun. I love hosting all these kids at our house.
  • I made a beautiful pumpkin soup this week that was so delicious.
  • The best idea came to me at church: At the end of each month, sit down with your spouse and schedule all your weekly date nights for the entire next month. So simple, but it’s literally never occurred to me. When I approached Michael with the idea, he improved it by saying we could align our four dates each month with the four goal-setting areas of the Church’s youth program in order to expand our horizons a little more. So, a date night dedicated to 1) Spiritual, 2) Intellectual, 3) Physical, and 4) Social pursuits each month. In months with five Fridays we’ll have a family date, which are the most expensive dates of them all, but you know, kids deserve some fun times out with their parents, too.

Lowlights

  • Renaissance got her car stuck in the mud when she went out with friends to a haunted house this last week. Thankfully, Michael came to her rescue. Where would we be without good dads?