Knitting in Amish Country

{amish homestead across the street}

{amish homestead across the street}

{recently finished tam}

I Have been doing a lot of knitting in recent weeks. It's been great! Fall is my favorite time of year & I really can not think of any better way to spend my days than listening to audio books, & gazing out the window while knitting.  And when the sun is out we all run outside to catch it while we still can.

Blogroll

The list of participants for the Handmade Stocking Stuffer Exchange is well on its way. I am so excited about all the families wanting to join us! I think this years exchange will be pure joy!

I thought it would be fun to share with you the blogs that some of the participants keep.  Check back, because as more people sign up I will add there blogs to the list.

Grab a cup of coffee & sit down for a bit to enjoy these wonderful blogs. They are  inspiring!

Millers Road to Joy

Block a Day

A Handmade Childhood

Perches in the Soul

Wish Beyond Cake and Ice Cream

Artful Parent

Shivaya Naturals

Pink and Green Mama

*e*

Fairy Child Heirlooms

Little Bird VV

Lil Songbird Mama

Our Own Journey

Thanksgiving Tree - Tutorial

:: How to make the tree ::

The leaves for this tree can be purchased in my shop

There are several ways to make a tree for displaying Thanksgiving leaves.

One way is simply find a stick that you like.

If you want more branches to hang leaves from you can find other smaller sticks that are straight. These sticks can be tied to the main stick with hemp or twine. We did this last year.

or

Another way to attach the additional sticks is to drill a hole through the smaller sticks and into the larger one. Find an even smaller stick that is the same diameter as the hole. Make the smallest into a peg by cutting to be the length of the hole going through small stick & into the main stick. Hammer the peg into the hole to hold the sticks together. This is how we did it for the tree pictured.

Now that you have a tree you'll need to have a base. 

Base can be made out of almost any container. Fill the container with rocks deep enough to hold the weight of the tree.  Some ideas of containers could be a flower pot, a large ceramic pot.  

Drill a hole through the top of a pumpkin & put the tree down into the pumpkin (I'm not sure how long the pumpkin will last once cut into. Is a month too long?)

We found a hunk of wood from our wood pile. A cross section from a fat branch or a small trunk would look nice. Drill a hole to match the diameter of your tree into the cross section. Don't drill all the way through the wood. If the tree fits tight into the hole, go with that. If it's loose then add some wood glue or gorilla glue.

I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to make a tree. A person could really get creative with this. Maybe use wire to sculpt a tree.  These are simply the ways our family has made Thanksgiving trees in the past.

If you make a Thanksgiving tree, share a link in the comments. I'd love to see it!

The season is approaching

Last year I participated in handmade stocking stuffer exchange. It was a lot of fun. It was also a huge help, since I didn't have to try to come up with more than one gift idea. As I've been getting prepared for the up coming holiday season, I've wanted to participate in another exchange, so I decided to host one.

Anyone interested in joining the exchange should send me an email by November 1st with:

Your name

Your children's names, ages & gender

Mailing address

Carriebeachey@yahoo.com

Then November 8th I'll send out an email to everyone participating in the exchange with the above information. Then come up with one idea & make enough for each child on the list.

All stocking stuffers should be made & shipped by December 6th so there is plenty of time for the packages to reach each recipient.

The list of participants has gotten rather large.  It's very exciting to see so many people interested in joining us! I will be splitting the list up into smaller groups. Each group will have no more than 15 children in it.

I'm so excited to be doing this again this year! I had so much fun deciding what to make, making each gift & then seeing the packages come in with different gifts for my children. This is one way that we can stick to having a  handmade Christmas without having to come up with more than one stocking stuffer idea.

This swap is now closed. 

Thank you to all how have joined in this swap!

On My Needles

Well, off actually.  I just finished this sweet little baby hat.  I found the pattern over at Never Not Knitting   and knit it up with yarn from the The Rocking Yak,of coarse. It was quite simple and inspired a new project that is on my needles now.  I'll share more about that once it's finished.

What's on you needles?

Thanksgiving Tree

We have so much to be thankful for in this country, don't you think? Yeah the economy is down & people are working to get by, but we still live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Our children have the opportunity to go to school. Most of us have homes that we live in. And not just 4 walls to protect us from the elements. We have warm, dry homes that are comfortable.  We have clean water to drink. We can get vaccines to protect us from the diseases of this world, food readily available to feed our families & so much more. We really have a lot to be thankful for.

The Thanksgiving tree is an idea that I came up with for our children. I wanted a way to teach the kids about thankfulness.  I wanted to have a tangible reminder of all the many blessing that our family is thankful for, and it was my desire to find a creative way to keep our focus on why we celebrate Thanksgiving. 

Basicly the Thanksgiving tree is like an advent calendar for November. Each day the kids take turns choosing a leaf to add to our tree. The leaves have different blessings that our family is thankful for written on them.  Then throughout the day we can think about the blessing chosen, & pray to thank God for giving us the blessing.

I've had a lot of fun designing these leaves & making them for our family.

I made some extra leaves.  They are listed in the shop if you'd like to check them out.

In two months time...

We've seen our chickens grow

I've dreaded my hair

We've gone on field trips

(Kalamazoo Airzoo)

lots of field trips

(tour of an apple orchard)

and have begun our journey in homeschooling.

I must admit the break I took from this blog was longer than what I had originally planned to take. But, it was much needed time for finding our new rhythms in life. 

Just look what happened while I was away.  It became fall!