Merry Christmas!!

Am I a nerd to be blogging on Christmas? Yes. I know. :) It has been a lovely day and I've enjoyed spending time with my family. Everyone enjoyed their hand crafted ceramic pieces and I enjoyed giving them!!

I received several items that will be a big help to me in my weaving endeavors. My mother bought me a 10 dent reed that I've been wanting pretty much since I got the loom. I also got Mastering Weave Structures by Sharon Alderman and The Handweaver's Pattern Directory by Anne Dixon from my sister. I got some llama silk yarn from my sister that knits up very nicely. (really soft!) Hmmm...What else?? Oh! My grandma gave me a gift certificate to Halcyon Yarn which I will be using to buy a Bluster Bay mini EFS. :D Aaaaannd my mom also gave me a gift certificate to Webs. Also fun and good. :) I'm super excited about everything and I can't wait to get home and get working!!
My brother gave me a camera which will also help me tremendously! Once I figure out how to load the pics, I can start putting pictures of my work on here!! YAY!!! FINALLY! Well I should go for now.
~JoAnna

Christmas traditions

Happy Christmas Eve!! :) I feel like this is the first year for a while that I've actually been excited and happy about the Christmas season. I actually decorated our tiny apartment a little. (Just some lights. We don't actually have room for a tree, but that's okay.)
I've been day dreaming about how fun it will be when I have time and a real house to decorate for Christmas. I would like to make a lot of our decorations. Towels, stockings, table runners, wall hangings etc. I think it's so much more meaningful to use things to decorate with that were made with love by someone. (Instead of at a factory in China...) Eventually I would like to have hand knit, fair isle stockings to hang and I want all sorts of other lovely things. I'd like to do some table runners and placemats and napkins in red and white overshot patterns.

I was reading one of my favorite Christmas books the other day while helping my mom decorate her house. It's Trouble With Trolls by Jan Brett(?) Anyway, I love the illustrations. It was one of my favorite books as a child. I was thinking how fun/cool it would be to make clay sculptures of the characters from the book. I especially love the little hedgehog that is in the sub story at the bottom of each page. He was always my favorite. I loved how the trolls prepared a lovely little home for him and he went through and just messed with everything. He's so cute!

I can't believe Christmas is tomorrow!! Here in TN it's pretty warm. :( Everyone was hoping we'd have snow on Christmas, but we probably won't. Unless something pretty drastic happens.

One tradition that we plan on changing when we have a family of our own is instead of giving gifts on Christmas, we're planning on giving them for New Years instead. Part of that is so that the meaning of Christmas is not lost in the desire and excitement for presents but in my mind, it just annoys me how everyone (especially stores, commercials etc.) get so caught up in buying, giving and other material things. Even if you're not religious or a Christian, I still think Christmas should be about family at the least (if you're not going to celebrate the birth of our Savior) even as a Christian, Christmas is still very much about being with family. That way we can all celebrate Christ's birth together. :) Well in case I don't write tomorrow, have a very Merry Christmas! (My favorite way of saying it because it's so cute!!)
~JoAnna

Two blogs...?

So I started another blog at Wordpress so that eventually if I want to, I could link it to a website...Well, for now, I just don't think I'm going to use it. I prefer my blogger one. It's simple, straightforward and I already know how to use it. So for now, I'm gonna stick with this one. Perhaps somewhere down the road, I shall use my Wordpress one. I have strange loyalty issues... haha.
~JoAnna