Holiday Plans

I just love this picture of my two dogs, taken last Christmas.

But perhaps, too soon?

I know.  It's not even Halloween yet.  But, to be honest, I've started thinking about the holidays.  Part of it is, I make a lot of presents, so I've got to start that early.  Otherwise, things get a little stressful.  Another part of it is, I rather like having a holiday break--one of my perks of my day job.  And it's been a bit of stressful fall thus far, but that's ok.  It makes the breaks something to anticipate.

Along the present making lines, I've been working on making wool dryer balls.  I'm thinking of packing them in little boxes, with a tiny bottle of essential oil.  And I have a stash of crafts I've made, that I recently rediscovered.  I love finds like that.  So far, I've found a couple of china cup bird feeders, and chalkboard pots, and gardeners hand scrub, and even a rather fun peanut feeder made from a slinky.  I may just pull some stuff out of the stash for myself...

I've also got a few knitting projects on tap, as always.  I was going to knit a whole bunch of hats, but I kind of lost my mojo for that particular idea.  I'll likely knit a couple, but not a whole slew.  Last year, I knitted so many presents, it was wonderful but wow, a lot of work.  I'm thinking a bit fewer knitting projects this holiday is a good present for myself.

But the wool dryer balls, those are easy peasy.  I simply made balls of wool yarn, popped them in old socks, and ran them through the hot water and a hot dryer three or four times.  And then I wound up with these lovely felted balls, perfect for tossing in with a load of laundry and taking away static naturally.  It's a great use for some very pretty but rather scratchy Nantucket wool I was gifted!