Ah! Done with the holiday!

I am still trying to recuperate from the Christmas doings. I am too tired to write much but I wanted to make a last post for the year. I also am afraid I will forget much of what happened if I don't get it written soon.
A few days after my last post I found out I had sold one of the pieces I put in the Wesleyan Potters annual show ans sale. This was a real good example of things going well since it was a piece that I had forgotten I had and submitted it at the last moment! It is the one I did for the Granby Land Trust art show last year.

I finished the (insert the appropriate curse word here) project I was working on in my last post. I am proud that I finished it but it fought me all the way. The sewing went so badly that I went to my sister's house to do the button holes, which are no fun to take out over and over. It also convinced me it is time to buy a better machine. The project was to make a nice warm vest for my Dad.


The finished vest does not look terrible if you don't look too close, but it fits as well as would be expected for this project. I know it is not about the gift, it is the thought that counts, but I had so many bad thoughts about this does that still apply?
Once I had my shopping for gifts over with I got busy with the traditional cookie baking.

I like this part of the Christmas holiday...especially when it is a shared time. While I was mixing the last batch of dough my daughter decided she wanted to do a gingerbread house this year. She remembered the houses that my mother used to make. One year she made six of these...

We didn't have time to do the candy stained glass windows but I think we did OK.

A close-up of the lady of the house...

and our drowning swimming gingerbread man. We could make up a story that he is from the story and was no fox in sight to get him across the water...only the ducks. Or we could say that he was a participant in a polar bear swim, but really it just shows our strange sense of humor.

It didn't take me long to get back to felting. I didn't even wait until I had the studio(aka dining room) set back up properly. The blizzard prompted me into making a nice 'warm in the snow and wind hat'. It reminds me of a hat from the Star Wars movies but it keeps my ears warm and yet I can still hear. Besides I am not one to care about how I look, comfort comes first, though it looks kind of cute on my niece. I still need to do a fastener for the real windy days. It is just pinned in the photo below.

My niece decided to make a hat too. I could not believe how hard she worked and how she stuck to it. She even did more work the next day adding the finishing touches.

And now on the table is the beginning of a large landscape for an exhibit of work done by the felters who went on the late summer retreat at the Hyuck Preserve. The show will be at Davey Jones Gallery  opening in February.

I started this post last year aka yesterday but I got interrupted, which has been happening a lot lately. I hope the New Year goes as well as the last. I do know it is going to be a busy one. Happy 1/1/11!