And just like that 2021 is wrapping up and I feel like I am still struggling to find the time to write and share like I want too, so I am really really going to try and commit to writing at least once a week . . . fingers crossed! 

So I shared these on Insta/Facebook spots but this was a sampling of the making I did for some small gifts this year:

I admittedly have a problem with wood bowls; seriously they are so beautiful and I often see them discarded at thrift stores and flea markets. I put a little elbow grease into them and clean them back up and oil them up and they are gorgeous! I re-sell some on Facebook Marketplace but I also kept back a stash this year and filled with fresh chestnuts, and a chestnut clip for family to roast at home.

Another little small gift was putting together some tea and a funny little tea bag holder in a small reusable cloth bag that could be also used for loose tea and/or mulling spices. There is funny little story about the "solstice squirrel" but I will save that for another time.

I absolutely fell in love with some block printing and gave it a shot on some napkins this year. I found the wood printing blocks on Etsy, the artist is from the Ukraine and the shop is IstiHome. I was on the watch for cotton/linen blend napkins at Tuesday Morning and used matte soft fabric paint in natural muted colors, some in different tones of the color of the napkins. I want to start adding some fabric yarn bags in the shop that are seasonally themed!

Hubby and I also made a variety of cookies; he made his awesome gingerbread and biscotti while I gave my hand a shot at making springerle and some pfeffernusse mushrooms to go with my cheater yule log cake! Both of the cookies I made were German cookies and very fun to make! The mold and recipe that I used for the springerle cookies were from Missouri company House on the Hill. I did try to use the traditional hartshorn in the recipe but the ammonia did not bake out, so I had to make a second batch and stuck with baking powder!

My husband also included some deer meat to some of his family from his first deer hunt this year. Deer and mushrooms always seem to make their way into the decor, gifting, and this year, eating!

Lastly, I made the littlest little in the family, my grand niece a couple handmade goodies this year. Her hat was a simple moss stitch hat with pom pom made in Lion Brand Hue + Me yarn in bellini colorway.  I also made her a little natural maple deer; see there are those deer themes coming in again! 

Tonight we are hunkering down on New Year's Eve with some quiet time, yummy dinner, movie and probably some knitting. 

Wishing all of you a safe, peaceful, healthy and creative 2022!

You will often hear me refer to how the Universe works and delivers. My spirituality is deeply rooted in nature, and reading the signs that the Universe puts in my path. At the beginning of the summer a notice came out on the campus where I work about suggested books from campus authors that would be good summer reads. I picked up one of the selections from the campus library and read about half of it at the beginning of the summer. The summer started to fly by between kayak trips, soccer, work, and life and the book stayed on the coffee table whispering, and then yelling at me to please finish reading it!

This morning, I had a quiet moment to sit down and finish reading it. I am so glad that I did. It is a moving memoir that I would actually like to read again. It is call Siberian Exile by Julija Sukys. It is well written, deeply personal, and guttural. It is the type of story that pulls you out of your own privileged existence and try imagine what it was like to experience this as a family. It was the cover image that drew me into reading it. Julija honestly shares her family story and and research in a moving read.

The book explores the narratives of her paternal grandparents during her grandmother's exile to Siberia in 1941 and their subsequent multi-year separation. I will leave the rest to you to read with my highest recommendation. Now, here is where the Universe delivered some signs to me this morning. Throughout the book Julija does a really good job of weaving in the political and historical backdrop that is a central character to the narrative. In one of the later sections of the book she mentions the view of the cultural image of the Germans by the local Siberians and she mentions the Volga Germans. If you are unfamiliar, in the 1760's Catherine the Great recruited ethnic Germans to settle along the Volga River in Russia and lived there for a very long time. 

This immediately caught my eye, as I may have shared; I always thought my material grandfathers parents were Russian and have come to learn in the past few years that they were actually Volga German Russians from the Saratov region. My great grandfather Jacob immigrated to the United States right before the Bolshevik Revolution when he was just a teenager. I don't know the exact age my great grandmother Amalia immigrated here but she was also Volga German and likewise came from Saratov region of Russia. I am just starting to understand and put together an understanding of my own family history. I joined a Facebook group for Volga German ancestry and plan on trying to read and understand more about this part of my ancestry. Today inspired me to read more about Volga Germans, and I learned that during the same time frame that Julija's grandmother was exiled to Siberia; there was a mass deportation of Volga Germans to Siberia as well. Though my great grandparents immigrated about 20 years prior to this event, I can only image some of my ancestors that were still in that region experienced this mass exile. 

I think I was meant to read this memoir and family story. Though I don't have the letters and stories to piece together a part of family story in quite such an amazing way, I have a few maps and names of my ancestors and I feel the need to starting digging a little more and falling down the genealogy rabbit hole that seems to find people in their later years. Maybe it is that anticipation of milestone birthday next year that has me thinking about all of this. Time to find more family pictures, try to find more stories, and dive into the family history that is in my DNA. 

Till, then I will leave you with the definition of the title of this blog post, familienbuch. Sometimes it refers to a printed book, sometime a family genealogy. In German it means family book. Pretty fitting either way. I hope to read this moving book again, give a copy to my mama, and maybe even run into Julija on campus someday. 

Like so many others, I can remember the first time I discovered Jess Brown and her rag dolls. It was the February 2012 Martha Stewart Living magazine. They caught my eye and I even remember talking with other maker friends in my community about them. It was love at sight with this amazing hand crafted toy. That year I had a milestone birthday as well. Turning 40 made me realize that I always wanted to approach aging and growing through the memory lens of my childhood.

I grew up with a maker mama and family in a very loving and imaginative environment. My parents raised me and my sisters in the country in rural Missouri in an amazing old two story farmhouse that they rehabbed and brought to life. Sometimes I am a broken record but it really was a great way to grow up. I had relatively few toys; but always just enough and a whole world at my fingertips between the house, barns, woods, etc . . .

I don't remember being given my first doll, I think I was pretty young. I just remember her being there. The texture of the fabric on her body, the colors, the weight, and how she felt. You see she was a Raggedy Ann bean bag doll. When I researched her, she was introduced in 1972. Makes sense, that was my birth year and pretty logical that she was given to me as a wee one. I think there is even a story about her getting lost and how we were somehow reunited.

I grew up reading her stories with my older sister. Yes, my childhood nickname was Christi and obviously I was not a good speller and had a tendency to write inside my books! Maybe it was that love of my first rag doll that bloomed again when I saw Jess Brown's modern takes on this traditionally hand crafted doll, and I was smitten. When I also discovered the sweet book Kiki and Coco in Paris it sealed the deal. That year I purchased a birthday gift to myself of a sweet little pixie Jess Brown rag doll. I think I found her at Land of Nod at the time. Since then she has lived on a shelf in my bedroom and I continued to watch Jess Brown through social media channels as I raised my boys into the teen and young adult world. Days became years and it is still such a joy to see her creations on Instagram.

Here I am 9 years later and already starting to think about how I want to celebrate another big milestone birthday next year and found myself once again thinking about the dolls. My 16 and almost 20 year old are not too interested in toys any longer but my youngest niece is about to start kindergarten and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to finally make a rag doll myself. 

I started a few weeks back by checking out her book from my local library. It really is a gem and I wish I had bought it when it first came out. I relished reading it in bed at night while I worked on tracking my own copy down. It is a little hard to get, guessing the hardback is out of print. Seems like you can get an e-version but I am not sure if the patterns come with the e-version, and I am old school with my books. In the end I found a used copy online for close to the original retail, which I thought was pretty good considered some of the prices I was seeing out there. I do love a good bargain hunt!

Next, I hit up the thrifts stores, flea markets, etc . . . on the hunt for a wool sweater to felt for hair, and textiles for clothes. I ended up finding this beautiful shirt made in India at the flea market that I thought would make the perfect dress. I also picked up some wool yarn that I could knit up in case I could not find a sweater to felt. In the end I did find a sweater and love the look of it for the hair. I understand why she uses it on her dolls.

With the materials all on hand, I dove in last weekend and was surprised that I was able to make her in just a few hours. I used tracing paper to copy the patterns and will confess that I had to make another body. Truth be told I am not a greater sewer, and in all honesty my sewing machine sucks. Somehow the super beginner, super cheap machine I bought back in my college days is on its last legs! Any case I digress. So, with the first body I actually struggled to get the arms turned out correctly so on the second body I did the arms as separate pieces and that worked better for my skill set. 

I used wool stuffing and for the body and then created the dress from that thrifted shirt and made her bloomers from a beautiful embroidered material from my stash. I might need to make my rag doll some bloomers. 

I was actually quite thrilled with her and could not wait to present her to my niece that happen to be sleeping over at our house a couple days later. My niece and I made her a blanket together, it of course had some unicorns from my Heather Ross fabric stash! So I am pleased to present to you Penguin, named and loved by my sweet niece.

I feel like I need to make another soon, you know just to keep those sewing skills fresh. I think I will tuck the next one away for the new grand niece that will be coming into the family later this year!

In the meantime I am thinking about that approaching next milestone birthday next year and am definitely planning on gifting myself another incredible Jess Brown doll. For me, staying young at heart is always keeping my inner child at play. 

As with other anniversaries I am spending some time reflecting on the past year. I am excited that several of my family members have been fully or started the vaccination. My sons and myself with be in the later tiers, but we are ready as soon as it is our time.

Even as the numbers are decreasing, vaccination is increasing and full in-person school is on the horizon for my youngest, masks are a part of our lives and that is a simple human-kind act that I can do. It has taken me nearly a year of really deciding what mask works the best for me. 

In the beginning I was making homemade masks with ties, they were just what we needed in the very beginning. Since then I have tried some from grocery stores, box department stores, etc. I happen to come across a mask from Kitsch and tried it out. It has a gauze-like double layer of cotton that I have finally come to the conclusion is what I like the feel of the most. In its simplicity and comfort this is my winner.

Knowing masks are personally not going away for me for a while, I made the leap and ordered a couple sets. And yes it did not hurt that this color palette is one of my favs right now, added bonus.

Keep hanging in there, looking forward to some hugs with my extended family soon!

I am trying it a couple different ways. In the shop are some weaver's bundles that I put together in a little sewn cotton bag. These are some scrappy ends and sometimes a bit more of skeins of yarn that would be perfect woven in some simple tapestries. 

The second de-stash option is more of a pay what you want style. There is a photo album in my Facebook page, if you see something you like just comment on the photo and we will start a conversation. I just need a minimum of $5 to cover shipping.

I can tell you that the yarns are all natural materials in a variety of weights, textures, and colors. I also added some project bags and books as well.

Help me with my spring cleaning!

 Leave it to Bernie to be my entry into trying colorwork and mittens! Earlier this month I completed by first set of mittens and colorwork to boot after being inspired by the pure joy of Bernie's mittens after the inauguration. As if I didn't have enough to be happy about already, this was the icing on the cake. 

I have been intimidated to do colorwork in the past because I have a strange way of holding my yarn in my right hand. By that I mean I don't really hold it or tension between my fingers. I do this little tug in between each stitch. But I found that I could still do that it was just with two yarns. I love it and look forward to more colorwork projects in the future!

In the spirit of Bernie's mitts I added a new journal in homage. A portion of the proceeds of these journals will benefit my local food bank. 

Check it out!