Happy New Year

Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? 😊

While I’d love to report I got scads done during my blogging break, I’d be lying if I did. After getting off to a slow start, I lost a week to illness. It might have been a bad case of food poisoning, it might have been a prolonged IBS attack, it might have been a reaction to a medication I was taking – we may never know because I was unable to get a hold of my doctor.

But in due course I recovered, and then it was full speed ahead for Christmas. You may recall that during the summer I went on a jam making frenzy, the idea being to make jam sampler baskets instead of cookie baskets this year.

I left it a little late to get the baskets, and the only ones left were rather on the large size. Now I’d already planned on including scones or biscuits (gotta have something to put the jam on, right?), but even with the scones the baskets were a little sparse. So I made four different kinds of fudge. LOL

The home made ornament for this year was the fabric stars I learned to make with the stitching group. It took me about four days to turn this:

Into this:

Half a day was spent cutting, a day and a half was spent folding and ironing strips, and two days were spent actually folding the strips into stars. I averaged about 3 stars per hours. But it gave me an excuse to sit in my chair and watch TV.

I had fully intended to make tiny God’s eyes using metallic thread and tooth picks as well, but they never got past the experimental stage. They turned out to be more fiddly than I expected, and while I’m tempted to give them a shot now that the holiday madness has died down, we’ll have to see if I’m in the mood for them or not.

One thing I did do while on my break, was a lot of thinking about what I want to accomplish in the new year. I came to the conclusion I could get a lot more accomplished if I eased back on the blogging.

When I first started blogging, many, many years ago I was writing short, pithy posts on random subjects. The last couple of years I’ve been bogged down in this strict blogging schedule that takes more out of me than might be apparent.

Coming up with a subject, researching, writing the post – these things can be pretty time consuming. So with that in mind, I’m scrapping the poetry posts – it’s getting harder to find new forms anyway. And I’m finding the only poetry I wrote last year were examples for the new forms, or homework for my poetry group. I wasn’t writing poetry for fun any more.

I’ve also decided that the posts on this blog are going to appear a little more randomly – I’m no longer locking myself into posting every Monday. If I have something to say, fine. If I don’t I’m not going to worry about it. This means I might post once a week, or two or three times a week, or skip a week completely.

AND I’m going to focus more on the crafting side of my life here – what I’m working on, the progress I’m making . . . I have a lot of things I’d like to accomplish craft-wise in the year ahead and a lot of things I’m going to learn. I’m taking a class in blackwork embroidery, and another in sashiko. And that’s just for starters.

I confess I went a little crazy, the last few weeks, shopping online for craft supplies. That alone should be worth a couple of blog posts. 😊

Happy Yule

As promised, here are a few of my favourite Christmas videos to help make the season bright.


I'm Climbing Up the Christmas Tree


Imperial March/Carol of the Bells


Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire


Little Drummer boy – David Bowie and Bing Crosby


Faith Hill – Where Are you Christmas


TSO – Christmas Eve in Sarajevo


TSO – Christmas Cannon

I Break For Christmas

December always seems to sneak up on me – so much to do, so little time to do it in. So this year I’ve decided to make things a little easier on myself and take a break from blogging for the month.

I’ll probably be back to post a few of my favorite Christmas videos, but that won’t be until later in the month.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Espinela Verse Form

This Spanish form was named for Vencinente Espinela, and is often referred to as “the little sonnet.” Being a musician, he designed his form to be pleasing to the ear when recited. Here’s where it can get a little confusing.

It is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a Décima, which is a Spanish term for any ten-line stanza. However, there is also a popular song form from 15th century Spain called the Décima which consists of forty-four lines (an introductory stanza followed by four ten-line stanzas).

The Espinela has only two stanzas, with four lines in the first and six in the second for a total of ten lines. Each line has eight syllables, and it follows a strict rhyme scheme of abba/accddc.

Schematic:

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxb
xxxxxxxa

xxxxxxxa
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxc
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxd
xxxxxxxc

I think the nickname of “little sonnet” is an apt one, it is very much like writing a sonnet. And like a sonnet, the Espinela can be written on any subject.


Evening Song

Skin still warm from the summer sun
Glimmering in the fading light
Waiting until the moment’s right
Waiting until the day is done

Waiting for that special someone
The touch, the taste, the feel of him
The bending to another’s whim
Anticipation building slow
Reach the peak and then overflow
The moment caught, too soon to dim.

Time For Christmas Crafts

Some Christmas tree ornaments do more than glitter and glow, they represent a gift of love given a long time ago.
— Tom Baker

The best things in life are handmade.
— Unknown

Christmas magic is silent. You don't hear it — you feel it. You know it. You believe it.
— Kevin Alan Milne

Crafting is like meditation, it allows you to focus your mind and release your stress.
— Unknown

Yup. It’s that time of year again. Time to dive into the Christmas crafts. Every year, since the daughter was first able to hold a bottle of glue, we’ve had the tradition of making a new ornament for our Christmas tree. The tradition became a little sporadic once she grew up and got a life of her own, but I carried on, and now sometimes I get the granddaughter to join me.

This year, I finally stiffened the snowflakes I crocheted several years ago. Actually, I’ve crocheted hundreds of the snowflakes, and mostly gave them all away. These are all I had remaining:

I used a solution of half mod podge glue, and half water to dip them in, and then I pinned them to cardboard with waxed paper under them to keep them from sticking:

It worked pretty good, although I had to peel the snowflakes off of the waxed paper when I was done.

If you’re local, and you want to see them in person, a few of them will be included in the display my stitchery guild is putting up at the local library for Christmas. I still have lots of the crochet cotton left, so maybe I’ll be making some more.

And seeing as I gave all of my Christmas prints away to a good cause (I’d had the fabric for yeas and never did anything with it) I found myself going up to Fabricland on the weekend to get some more.

The prints I chose have the Khaos seal of approval. LOL I’m going to make some more of the folded stars for the Christmas tree this year.

The granddaughter likes to do origami, so I’m hoping to talk her into giving it a try herself. She was over on the weekend to work on a super secret Christmas present, and was doing great . . . until my sewing machine conked out on us. Grrr!

I had her do a sewing test – sewing along lines drawn on a piece of paper with the machine unthreaded – and she passed with flying colours. A couple of the lines were darn near perfect! And even the ones that weren’t perfect weren’t off by much.

She also used a rotary cutter for the first time, and I was really impressed with how safety cautious she was. Those things are really sharp, but without being told she figured out how to engage the safety shield when she wasn’t using it.

Looks like she’s a chip off the old sewing block. 😊

Cameo Verse Form

For such a short little poem, there sure are a lot of rules to the Cameo. This rather interesting form was invented by Alice Maud Spokes. It is written as a single sentence of thirty-five syllables spread out over seven lines. The syllable count is 2-5-8-3-8-7-2.

There is no rhyme to the cameo, but each line should end on a strong word. Line breaks should be naturally occurring, where you would pause in speaking. The poem should be a single thought, so avoid using semicolons.

Schematic:

xx
xxxxx
xxxxxxxx
xxx
xxxxxxxx
xxxxxxx
xx

This actually isn’t as bad as it first looked. In fact, it’s kind of a fun form.


spider,
busy spinning webs,
you think I don’t see you up there
but I do
and I’m about to get my broom
to ruin all your hard work
again.


lazy,
you sleep in the sun
when there are mousies to be found
and hunted,
which is the job of the housecat
and you know it, lazy thing,
not me.

Folded Fabric Star

I’m a glutton for punishment, I tell you what. I was barely home from my adventures in Nottawasaga when I joined a workshop with my home stitchery guild to make a folded fabric Christmas star.

The presenter of this workshop, Susan C., was kind enough to do half the work for us ahead of time – she cut and ironed the fabric strips (four inches by fourteen inches) we’d need. As far as I’m concerned, this is the hardest part of the star, folding the fabric strips in four with the raw edges on the inside and then ironing them (reducing the width to one inch).

The bundle was passed around the table and we each picked two pairs of strips to make our stars. The first step was to fold the strips in half and lay them out in a square, then tuck the raw ends in the fold of the next strip in the square.

Then we were supposed to gently work the folded ends towards the middle to make a square in the center. Of course I was so busy taking pictures I messed up. So my square looked like this:

When it should have looked like this:

So then you take the long strip at the top, and fold it to the right.

Then you flip it over, and fold it down again so that there’s a point.

Next you fold the strip lengthwise, so the point is folded in half. At this point you might want to use a daub of glue, just to hold it in place. And it helps if you have a clip of some kind to keep it from slipping while the glue sets.

Then comes the tricky part. You want to trim the remainder of the strip, and then tuck it under the contrasting strip just below your point. You might want to stick a little daub of glue in there, too.

So far so good, right? Now you need to do the same thing to the other strip at the top.

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Now do the rest of the strips.

And before you know it, you’ll have your very own fabric star

I know my instructions are a little sparse, but if you’re interested in making your own fabric stars, here’s a video to show you how.