A View from Sierra County

Christmas Meme

OK, I stole this Christmas meme from Carrie, but her answers are much funnier, so you have to go and read them! Do it if you want... Christmas is my personal favorite holiday, and today is also St. Nicolaus Day, so of course I had to.... 1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Gift bags, of cloth, or recycled from gifts I have gotten, or maybe a cool dish towel or something else re-usable! 2. Real or artificial tree? Real, I mean getting a tree is part of yardwork around here! 3. When do you put up the tree? Usually the second week in December or so... we keep it up about a month total, until Twelfth Night though. 4. When do you take the tree down? see above 5. Do you like eggnog? Oops, THAT's what I forgot tonight at the store... it's practically a staple around here while in season. 6. Favorite gift received as a child? A set of 40 colored pencils that my dad got me when I was around 10... I treasured them and used them until at least my thirties. 7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes, a small one with pewter figurines. I started needlepointing one back in the 1970s then later cross stitching one in the 1980s, but never finished either. 8. Hardest person to buy for? Probably my BIL, who has become kind of minimalist, and already has everything. 9. Easiest person to buy for? DH. He collects lots of things and I am always finding something I know he would love. 10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? This one's pretty tough... I must have blocked out the bad memories... maybe the time I got polyester gloves and scarf... you knitters will feel my pain. 11. Mail or email Christmas cards? Well, I try to mail some every year... 12. Favorite Christmas Movie? "A Christmas Story" 13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Whenever I find something I know would be a treasure. 14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yep, I'm big on recycling:) 15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Fudge. Oh. Yeah, I guess I can get that anytime.... well, how about cranberry sauce? 16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?. Bubble lights! 17. Favorite Christmas song? Silent Night, because I can still usually remember how to play it on the piano, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, because I can remember all the words. 18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Stay home. 19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer?! Yes. come back next week... I'm busy trying to answer all these questions! 20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Neither...I like those pointy ball thingies... 21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or Christmas morning? On Christmas Eve while growing up....on the 'designated day' while raising a blender family, and usually on Christmas morning lately. 22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? I agree with Carrie on this one... its the shopping malls. Although it's kind of a year round thing. 23. Do you decorate your tree in any specific theme or color? Now, here's where Carrie and I strongly diverge... you see here at Slate Range Camp, there are more than ONE tree.. there's a little tree upstairs in my studio with tiny knitted sweaters and mittens, another small tree with woodland ornaments, and a huge tree in our parlor (this IS an older-than-Victorian house) with a collection of German-style glass ornaments in all kinds of fantastical shapes and forms. Of, and of course that's where the bubble lights live. 24. What do/did you leave for Santa? Cookies and milk!

Karyn: Yarn Shop Superwoman

This week's Tales from The Yarn Shop feature our own personal hero, Karyn.  I first started working at Fibers to help fill the large gap Karyn left when she went out on slck leave just after New Years, 11 months ago.  Karyn was already a cancer survivor, but developed a different form of cancer, and had emergency surgery last January, then lengthy treatments and finally follow-up surgery in late August.  Finally, she has been pronounced cancer-free and returned to work in late October.... whew!  We are all so thankful.  She has also been a great role model, facing her ordeals with a cheerfulness and positive attitude I could only hope I would have under such adversity!

Karyn has the magical ability to transfer a lot of that confidence and positive energy to our customers; when she is helping a person gather their materials for the next project, she also can bolster their flagging confidence at starting something new-to-them, and then show them the missing skills to go the next step in the learning process.

Here, she is at the register, ringing up yet another sale (did I mention she is a great saleswoman?) and in the background, the racks feature a line of cards she designed.  Yes, Karyn is also a painter - oh, and a vintner!

One of the themes for Karyn's cards is knitting and fiber animals.  Another is paintings of the various wild animals her DH rescues and rehabilitates before returning to the wild (you can probably see the owl painting better by enlarging this photo).  A new theme, paintings full of the inspiration of goddesses and healing, has also crept into her work as she has recovered! 

Since Karyn returned to work, the card turnstile has filled with new examples, and the store has little wood signs for sale featuring her artwork.

These little signs and Karyn's cards are among the many small things that give our shop its unique personality.

Karyn does not yet have a blog or a website or an Etsy shop, so let me know if you would like to get in touch with her in order to get a special, hand-painted sign for a secret pal or other fiber junkie on your gift list!

We thought this sign was especially appropriate next to the Morehouse Farm superwash merino in grandmother colors (notice, I did NOT say grandchild colors... I have observed that the young mothers are more apt to pick brights or even darks, while the grandmothers are attracted to the pastels for baby items).

Getting to work with such inspirational people is one of the great joys for me in working on what could be a third 'day off'.  I also get additional enabling  inspiration for my own projects.  That is what prompted me to decide to make an EZ Baby Surprise Jacket for a grandchild gift in the first place!

As you can see, the shape continues to change, it still doesn't resemble a jacket, but I AM closing in on the finish.  It has been an interesting knit, and I love the colors of the Cascade Fixation cotton yarn (this baby lives in Texas, so wool was not a high priority).  I found some cute puppy dog buttons at the shop last week in the same shade of tan, and will be happy when I can present you with a FO!

Fall Hike With Rose

Now that cold weather has set in, I want to share this post as a reminder of warmer days... somehow, I overlooked getting it online.  We took a lovely trip to our high country house the first weekend in November, trailering Rose up for a weekend hike.  We felt especially lucky after the long and busy summer and fall to have two nights to spend together at the 'old home place', where we raised our children and lived for many years.

Here, Rose has her sawbuck pack saddle and two wooden pack boxes, which we got second-hand, tied on and ready to go... she gets to carry the lunch.

She knows it is time to go to work when loaded up and wants you to see how good she looks from the front!

Though it is only mid-morning in this shot, the slanting light reminds me that winter is rapidly approaching and being able to take such hikes will soon be impossible, as the yard of our house in the background will be filled with snow in another month and a half, and likely stay that way until March.

We headed out from the house, located in the historic mining district of Forest City, and out one of the oldest roads, called Mountain House Road. 

This one's for Smith; he will definitely recognize the shirt.

 

Glenn led Rose while I admired the scenery, though we both commented on how most of the deciduous trees had lost their leaves already in the winds from the heavy rainstorms two weeks before.

We soon took a four-wheel drive road, originally another old trail, called Sandusky, and stopped at a stock pond for lunch.

Here, Rose is hoping to share my lunch with me - check out that nose!

She did get apples, but not the cheese, and it turned out she was more interested in trying to snag a bite of our tuna sandwiches... donkeys love carbs!

As you can see, one of the nicest features of the hand-made pack boxes is that they also work very well as a table or a bench, making lunch a happy affair.

A beautiful trail, a sunny afternoon, and our donkey Rose - what more could we need to feel like we were in heaven?

The reward at home

For Rose, it was more apples and a fresh growth of grass in the yard while for us it was getting to be in the high country and watch her enjoy it!

On a more timely note, perhaps you noticed the Blogaversary button ticking away in my sidebar of late.... I am preparing a special giveaway, thanks to Bev's sharing with me her birthday giveaway tradition, so come back by on the 9th!

Holiday Fairs!

I am very lucky that there are a wide variety of down-home holiday crafts fairs in my region... not the mass-produced, multi-city tour ones, with good produced by hard driving professionals, but the home artisan ones, with work from artists who live in my region.  Some make their living crafting and selling their wares; others supplement their income at this gifting time of the year.  Either way, I find unique items that I don't see elsewhere and get to support my friends and neighbors.  These are also the kind that offer home-baked goodies only to be found this time of the year - why I even had bison stew for lunch at the one I attended this afternoon!

There are also a handful of 'fair trade' sales that come to our region each year... this season, I found this cute rabbit toy for Glenn's grandchildren at one supporting Handcrafting Justice a few weeks ago, and this awesome woven table runner at the Weave A Real Peace sale our Foothill Fibers Guild hosted last Tuesday night (click to enlarge to get a better effect from the optical weaving, a product of Mayan Hands).

WARP is one of my favorite handcraft mentoring organizations... consider having your guild or knitting group arrange to host a viewing of their slideshow, which documents some of the many projects they are involved in around the world, helping to preserve textile traditions and enlarge the fair trade market for handcrafts.

Handcrafting Justice also works to help women in developing countries make a living through handcrafts, as well as provides work for seamstresses custom-making fair traded school uniforms... their online catalog is very extensive, so perhaps you would like to send some of your gift-giving budget their way.

I especially enjoyed the two fairs I attended this weekend.  Saturday's was Downieville's annual Holiday On Main... this is the small town where I worked for 18 years, until this past spring.  DD Nikki, her boyfriend Tony, and his three-year old son, Mason took me up and we met DS Cody there for a fun lunch of pizza.

Each December, every post and pillar in the historic downtown (only about 2 blocks long) is adorned with a Christmas tree, provided by the local Lions Club, which also sells trees at a discount rate (and believe me, there are lots to be thinned each year in our region to prevent future forest fires).  Local businesses and each grade at the school 'adopt' one and decorate it before the event, so part of the fun is walking up and down the street to admire the decorations children you know have made.

The fire department provides rides on their antique engine, though yesterday we arrived too late... they did several trips in the morning and decided the wind was a bit too cold and bitter for riding on the open truck.  There is a small crafts fair, different this year in the large amount of local crafted food items.  I bought a set of three corn-filled pillows to heat in the microwave and place around your neck, behind your back, etc.  DH and I have more aches this winter than in the past - couldn't have anything to do with our age, could it?

The real excitement is waiting for Santa to arrive and have a visit with each child, who goes home with a bag full of goodies that include oranges and candies.  Mason was in high spirits after we caught a glimpse of Santa, browsing through the booths, and I went up and greeted him, saying it was nice to see him after a year's absence... he asked what Mason wanted for Christmas... 'a Playstation, an X-box?", to which Mason replied, "No, I want a helicopter", while Cody and Tony were clamoring, promising they had been good all year but would be happy splitting an X-box!

To help ease the wait, the downtown merchants have hired a magician the past two years to provide a funny and entertaining show for the families in the last half hour before Santa is due.

Here, Bill The Magician, is demonstrating his escape trick, learned from reading Houdini's secret magic manual.

The adults laughed at his corny jokes, while the kids cheered, laughed and increasing numbers of their hands shot up in the air each time he called for a volunteer from the audience.

It was late afternoon by the time Santa arrived, and we had to work a bit to keep Mason from nodding off to a nap while waiting in line for his turn.  I told him that I knew Santa had a motorcycle to ride on his vacations from the North Pole after all the hard work of the Christmas season is done, and to ask Santa if he had a Harley... he thought that was very funny.

He was also pretty tickled to have a private audience with Santa and tell him his secrets.

Today's fair, up at the North Columbia Cultural Center, in the town of North San Juan where I now work was a more 'artsy' event, with many high-quality items.  I enjoyed seeing several old friends, including Beryl and Igor from our fiber guild, who were selling many fine woven items and offering the unique perpetual calendar members of our guild assembled this year, featuring a hand-woven sample and poem for each month of the year.  I was also delighted that Stephanie was doing well selling her yarns and rovings.  I couldn't resist this lovely and interesting colorway... of Corriedale, it is probably destined to become boot socks later this winter!