Well not quite... but I am starting to look forward to it, in terms of making a LOT more of my own things this year, both household and presents.

I want to make homemade modelling dough and cut out a 3" circle using a teacup's rim; then make a pattern using the handle-end of a very old-fashioned big spoon, rounded end outwards, so that it looks like the famous Rose Window of mediaeval York Minster. Add a small hole pierced for a ribbon and paint it in rich glowing jewel colours for a homemade decoration.

I want to mix up a room-spray with cedarwood and cinnamon and a little rum to mix it, all Christmassy and wintery and warm.

I want to search and find an ink-stamp that isn't twee or cutesy but is lovely and old-fashioned, harking back to my infancy in the 70s when we spent time at school carefully painting cards made from stamped sugar-paper... robins and snowmen and ivy and holly and candle-lanterns. I want to find some handmade paper from Daintree and spend a stormy wet grey afternoon folding these in half and stamping designs on them and then painting them for my nearest and dearest.

I want to knit socks and mitts and a hat for my friend's baby due between Christmas and New Year, using Opal wool in colours from maroon to fawn to olive green, swirling ever-changing streams and rivers of colours of my favourite months.

I want to try to find a way to clear all the clutter from my mantelpieces so that in December I can decorate them with real holly and ivy collected form a kind neighbour's garden, with a gleaming polished brass candlestick at each end bearing a red candle.

It's only September the 1st, but...

laura

Your post is so inspirational. I look forward to the holidays of the upcoming season too. It's my favorite time of year.

Ok, I'll admit it, I printed out the Brocante Christmas Planner from last year this week thinking I was mad to even be considering it!!

I'm so looking forward to Christmas this year, when I worked through the planner last year I realised how difficult I found Christmas in the past. My mum suffers from some mental health issues and Christmas as a child was always fraught with stress. She's apologised so many times for this and I never understood why until I started planning my own Christmases and realised how Christmas could be.

Now I love having Alison's guiding hand to make my own new traditions and it has transformed the holidays from something to just get through to an absolute pleasure.

Having said that I'm already feeling the cold panic of deciding what to buy my other half, he's so difficult to buy for, I hate buying for men, women are so much easier!

Men are a nightmare to buy for aren't they? I just ask other half what he would like now, rather than rack my brains - but I always do him a stocking. You're never too old for one of those.

To be honest, I enjoy the run up to Christmas, rather than the day itself. The lists (I'm a list addict), planning, picking up gifts etc. And I also enjoy Christmas more because we decided we would see our families either before or after Christmas, rather than arguing about whose parents to spend the day with, so the day is now spent in our own home which is bliss.

I've always wanted to make a few bits and pieces, but am somewhat craftily challenged. What would you consider to be the easiest thing to make to start with?

That would be my next wish, we are currently spending Christmas Day with alternate parents and I am just dying to stay at home and do it myself. It always ends up being a rush around and with a horse that still hasn't learnt how to feed and muck himself out it can get really hectic!

One of my new rules I started last year was that Boxing Day was a PJ's only day for me, didn't get out of them or leave the house all day which was a real luxury.

Can't help you with the crafting at all, I am also challenged in that department. The most crafty thing I did last year was sew some snowflakes onto those little wedding favour bags you can get to fill with chocolates and hang on the tree. And it took me hours....

Yes, I've been going through the Brocante Xmas Planner this week, too, HKS! ;-)

As I live in the same house as my parents, Mum and I used it last year and the result was that we got much of the clearing and cleaning done in the first weekend of December, much of the food-shopping in the second week of December, and ended up feeling quite peculiar on the 22/ 23/ 24th without the usual miserable grouchy muddle!

This year, I'm borrowing a flat that woudl otherwise be empty for a month, for two weeks, if that makes sense! Two friends and a dog and cat are joining me - they drive but can't cook; I cook but hate driving on roads I don't know... so the plan is that they drive us around the local beautiful villages and scenery, and I cook!

So I'll be really relying on the Planner as it'll be my first Christmas run on my planning... eek!

Something easy to make, booklady? What kind of thing? I mean, can you sew a little, or knit, or draw... do you want pretty-pretty things, useful things, edible things...?

You could dry herb-leaves now... and look for fabric remnants cheap. Cut a square 30cm by 30cm and use an iron to fold each edge over 1cm on the wrong side of the fabric. Then do it again so no raw edges show.
Fold the square in half and pin the short edges together flat. Fill the 'envelope' with dried herb leaves, lavender, or just with cotton wool pulled apart and fluffed with some essential oil on it. Fold it all in half again, making a square again and stitch the sides using either matching thread and small stitches, or if needlework's alien to you, stitch it with contrasting brightly coloured embroidery thread and bigger stitches to give it a deliberately crazy-stitching look.

One scented sachet for undies-drawers.

Any use?

laura

Even simpler idea... inspired by HKS's snowflake-bags... buy some organza or very fine netting (you can get it with glitter in it too). Cut squares 15 or 25 cm square.

Put two squares together, one on top of the other. You can use two colours of mesh, or put one diamond-style on top of one square, so the corners project out from the square's sides.

Put candy or dried figs or whatever in the middle.

Have some thin ribbon and some beads or snowflakes or baubles that you can thread onto the ribbon.


Gather up the edges of the gauze. Wrap the ribbon (with bead/ bauble/ snowflake on it) tightly right round and tie one reef-knot (that's the normal single knot, just one over the other and pull), then round again and tie two (ie a double-knot) to hold it. Don't cut the ribbon off short - leave six inches on each end and then tie these two together, making a hanging loop.

Christmas bags with no sewing!

Any use?

laura

Thanks for the advice ladies. The organza bags sound great and easy for my limited abilities.

Any advice on knitting?

I love knitting BUT I'm only really able if I use four needles and knit in the round; and I'm very very slow indeed...

I would be able to knit a scarf in the round, but that would be for Xmas 2015 or so...

I wondered about what used to be called "wristlets" - do you think anyone would actually wear the things? They're cosy ribbed soft-wool wrist-bands that keep warm the gap between glove and jumper or coat.

Only I have a doubt about them as gifts - everything's so cheap now, wouldn't people just buy longer gloves or longer-sleeved jumpers if they had draughty wrists?

I've a pattern for a beret and could maybe make one... but nobody in my family wears hats except me!

Any ideas for knitted gifts that a) are within my slow, in-the-round abilities, and b) would actually be used/ worn by a modern recipient?!

I've two near-elderly parents and two teenage nieces, as well as a few 40-something friends - surely SOMEONE would like something simple knitted?!

laura

Hi Laura..I can't knit either! I can crochet but have never mastered knitting. I saw a lovely pattern for a knitted men's jumper in UK Prima magazine and it very nearly made me try to knit yet again! I thought if I learnt, I could get the jumper finished by Christmas for my husband...and maybe go to one of those lovely knitting circles that are so popular these days!

However, I'm living in a dream world with that plan I think! If you can only knit tubes, how about a hot water bottle cover, sewed at the bottom and then gathered in with ribbon around the neck of the bottle??

Also, never doubt a home made gift...you can buy most things cheaply these days if you know where to look. A home made gift, no matter what, always goes down well with the recipient!

Good luck with your knitting!
Sally