I did a new little video chat highlighting a fun little gift to make really anytime, but if you had a hankering to make one of Valentine's Day, this is a quick, fun, natural gift. Feel free to watch the video to hear more about it, but I wanted to list out some links for you as well. As I mentioned in the video I was trying to put together a little something with craft supplies mostly available in local box craft stores incase you wanted to avoid shipping and needed a little quick make during a snow day! We just so happen to be in the middle of a snow storm this week!

I really like the idea of giving/making natural gifts that have a low carbon footprint. These check off that box and allow for some sweet smells also. In full credit, I saw this idea from Simply Earth site last December and loved making some for gifts. I wanted to add my own twist so I used some cotton yarn that I naturally dyed with avocado for a lovely blush pink. 

Almost all of these supplies came from my local box craft stores:

• cotton knitting yarn 
• unfinished wood rings
• unfinished wood beads
• essential oil
• cotton gift bag
• wood hearts
• wood blocks
• fabric paint

I was excited to also see that my local library has this book as well as the new book by Brandi Cheyenne Harper; Knitting for Radical Self-Care. I could not help but just thumb through the book and take in the beautiful pictures and prose. I am going to enjoy reading this one. It strikes me as a great book for a beginner and a beautiful re-charge for knitters who have been doing this for a bit. Looking forward to diving deeper into this one.

Lastly, I seemed to have missed that this prequel to the Hunger Games came out in 2020. Since I left the book industry in 2014 I don't have my thumb quite on the pulse of the new releases like I did before but my quest to find the right knitting project for the Olympic knitting brought me to the Hunger Games and I discovered Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes so I thought I would like to start reading it as well.

I can't say enough how amazing my community library is; they had all of these books and has a great curbside pick up option as well. So appreciated while the COVID numbers are still high in my area. 

What are you reading these days?

It is odd how a color finds it's way into your favorite club without even expecting it. If you would have asked me a couple years ago what my favorite color is I would have said dark red and other earth tones. Today I still love variations of red; dark red, rust, brick red, and terra cotta, but I also really like soft pinks. It is in the same color family right? I never was one to do pink growing up but I was happy to support both of my sons enjoyment of pink at different times even to this day. But I am telling you that softest blush pink is awesome. And corals; they are awesome next to terra cottas and earthy browns! 

I love reading about the history of the color culturally. After settling on my knitting pattern and yarn for the upcoming winter Olympics, I decided to cast on a quick scarf that is quite ridiculously long which makes it quite fantastic also. I grabbed the leftover skein of yarn from making my grand nieces' winter hat; Two of Wands Hue + Me bulky wool blend in bellini colorway. Combined that with simple garter stitch on size 35 needles and it made for a fun fast knit.

The pattern is in a book from my knitting library; Weekend Knitting; and it has the perfect quote for this pattern. Done while watching some wildcard football last weekend, it was really fun. I think though that I am going to go back and shorten it just a bit; I am pretty short and so 96 inches including the fringe is pretty long on me. A good stash buster for a statement making scarf!

Speaking of pink I also wanted to share this super quick piece that I made at a craft gathering with some friends recently during a house warming. The idea was to take a canvas and create a backdrop and tree or other abstract image with fabrics scraps. As you can see I went straight for the pinks again. I did a quick brush stroke light pink backdrop with just random pieces pink scraps with no rhyme or reason but I love how it looks in my office window looking out my backyard full of oak trees. 

Hope you are enjoying working with some color this winter. Till next time my friends!

How has the New Year continued for you? If you have followed me for a bit you know that I tend to break out the mushrooms around the beginning of the New Year; it is an old German tradition as a symbol of good luck going into the New Year. It seems like we are all needing a little luck come our way with the recent surges in COVID. 

We have found our selves hunkering down a bit more than usual due to the increases here in our community but taking some chances with booking some trips in the spring. We are still feeling very fortunate to all be healthy in my family with the exception of the eldest and his roommates coming down with some respiratory infections.

We woke up to some snow today which I personally enjoy; if it is going to be cold at least bring me some snow! Before I bundle up and take Ursa out for a walk I thought I would expand on an earlier part of a post and visit about Springerle cookies once more. I have been receiving back some happy reports of folks who enjoyed eating them so I am encouraged to make more at different times of the year. 

As I mentioned I used a replica mold that I got from a company that is local to my state; House on the Hill. The first mold that I got from them was from a little shop at one of our state parks that has a German home preserved in a German settled river town in my state. I think I made the springerle cookies once with that mold and I look forward to using it in the spring; the mold is called Ric Rac Rabbit. The Buck mold that I used for the winter holidays was perfect and now packed away till later this year. 

I am on the hunt for a heart themed mold, but I am kind of picky when it comes to hearts. It really has to be a unique primitive style heart for me to use. I am just not too into hearts for decor generally.

As I mentioned earlier I tried to use the traditional hartshorn (bakers ammonia) this last time and it was a fail that it retained the smell; it did not bake out but they did puff quite a bit like they are supposed too. I think I am still going to use baking powder though. 

Do you ever hear a phrase and it sticks with you? Last year I was watching Victorian Farm; which I loved BTW and remember in passing Ruth mentioning the Rag and Bone man in reference to leaving the out the bones. I went to the notes section of my phone and wrote "research rag and bone man". I remember her talking about cooking down an animal and utilizing everything down to the last bit of bones and leaving it out for the rag and bone man to pick up. 

Truth be told I did not do too much research but the phrase caught my eye again when I saw a knitter feature a scarf she made inspired by Rag and Bone. I think she was actually referencing and expensive clothing line but it sparked my interest again around Halloween and decided to go stash diving and pulled out a couple skeins on the undyed Fibra Natura wool yarn and make a winter scarf. Something about the name rag and bone lent itself to a good cast on for Halloween!

Knitting time was not as often as I wanted it to be in November through mid-December thanks to some well appreciated loving support of the toymaking, so I really did not pick the scarf back up in ernest until mid-December when I shut the shop down for the season. And if you know me I am a huge Christmas Carol- Dickens fan and each holiday season I envelope myself in the book and movies. It kind of wears out my crew so I often end up watching it for the umpteenth time by myself. 

If you watch the movies; often the knit scarves stand out, so I felt that this scarf captured that feel in the rustic wool; simple 1x1 rib pattern ending with fringe. Also I was reminded that the rag and bone man show up in the Christmas Carol; usually at the end when the maid tries to sell items from Scrooges bedchamber to the rag and bone man. In a very dark version; the FX version of The Christmas Carol the rag and bone man is in the beginning and counted by Scrooge with an much different element of Scrooge brought in of studying human behavior.

If it peaks your interest like mine let me know. So far I am just browsing the ethers for the historical traces of rag and bone men. This is all in the context of living in such a wasteful and disposable culture we currently live in. In all honesty; I think I live across from a modern rag and bone man. Not quite hoarding; but someone who seems to pick up discarded items to try and re-purpose. Somewhat intriguing and somewhat frustrating at the same time; but I am going to continuing down the rabbit hole of researching rags and bones!

 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.