Show me you're nuts, and I'll show you mine

I know it's a little past Halloween, but last night's teaching was a lot of trick and a little treat. I didn't feel all that comfortable with the material and apologized all over myself for not knowing it like I should, but the students were all really patient with me, and we got through the rough patches together. They're a really great bunch. I should be prepping for tomorrow night's class right now, but I needed some other therapy first.

The craft machine is running full tilt here at the Bunnie hutch. I've got so many things I want to make, that I'm having a hard time showing some project monogamy, and I fear I will end up disappointing myself in the end when they don't all get finished...and even more so for the projects I didn't even get to start. Only so many hours in the day, though.

But here's a sampling of what I've got workin' at the moment:


Little (okay...not so little; he is 20-something after all) BIL asked me over Thanksgiving weekend if I could craft a hat to match a pair of knit gloves he picked up. I was flattered, of course, that someone would think enough of my knitting to request an item. Those are my favorite kind of things to make. Despite the Statue of Liberty look of progress I've got going on, I realized that I made a juxtaposition of a couple of the cables, and at this point I need to decide whether to leave it as is or frog back and fix it. I'm actually leaning toward fixing it, just because I will know the boo-boo is there, and that will drive me nuts. Hi! Perfectionist, much? The yarn is Lopi (100% wool single ply), which I do enjoy, and the pattern is from One Skein.

Proof that I'm nuts!

I know I mentioned that I'd been painting walnut halves in preparation for an Advent ribbon for the boys. I still need to go get more walnuts to split and paint (only a few days left before Advent, so I better get cookin' on that!), but I've got enough to do at least one ribbon. Since there are two halves of the walnut glued to the ribbon, I'm also debating putting the same small gift on each side, which would save me from making another if I run out of time. I also need to get the little things to put in the walnuts. There were some great ideas here that I'm likely going to try.

Now that the Advent circle at school has been done, I officially cleared the nature table of the fall elements and have put a plain blue silk (oh, how I love this blue silk. Can I have more....please??) in its place until this weekend, when I'll add some stones or something. The following week I'll add some plants (though I found this pretty little pine branch on the forest floor during our nature walk today, and I'm itching to put it up),
the next week will be animals, and finally will be the addition of the players in the Christmas Story.

This afternoon the boys and I went for a nature walk after our siesta. The weather is going to be nice for one more day, and then we're into the yucky stuff. Which type of yucky stuff remains to be seen depending on how this weather system tracks, but we could be in for a pile of the white stuff if it tracks just right. Otherwise, my momma (Hi Mom! Love you! Sorry 'bout the snow!) is going to get it all.

Anyway, I digress. So we went for a nature walk late in the afternoon near dusk (which these days is like 5 pm. Ick.), and I took along a basket for gathering things. We collected lots of nice, straight twigs to use for building a stable (Mary's gotta have someplace to have the baby, right?) based on a picture I saw in The Nature Corner. Liam is actually pretty excited about this project, as I pulled out the little hacksaws we have for trimming the branches all down to a similar size, and he was all over helping do that. It's more like construction and less like crafting to him, I suppose.

Now to find the time to pull it all together....Oh...and sleep, because it is approaching winter, and the need to hibernate is going to be coming on strong.