Osborn Fiber Studio

Christmas is in six days. You can start screaming now.

 

This is about the size of the yarn pile that I had to start turning into things for the 25th. This isn’t the actual pile (that has been sort of evolving), but it’s fairly representative. I still have five hats, a pair of gloves, and nine tiny balls to go before I can call myself done, and it’s starting to look a wee bit desperate. But that hasn’t stopped me getting distracted.

Several years ago we were attending a church that did a “Chris Kringle” thing (some kind of code for “Secret Santa”; don’t ask me why they changed it), and my gifter gave me a whimsical assortment of crafts, some yarn, and other things. It was very sweet, but the crafts have lain unopened in the Christmas box for all this time. This year, when we unpacked the box of Christmas, I left them out to see if I had it in me to make them. The verdict?

 

I forgot how addictive cross-stitch is. “Just one more strand,” I keep telling myself. What cross stitch lacks in creative input, it more than makes up for in exactitude for those of us who need a little more OCD in our lives. Or who have a giant pile of yarn staring them in the face upstairs. It serves as engaging and contrasting entertainment when I have to spend 45 minutes watching this happen:

For the natural homemakers among you, we have also learned by empirical testing that hand-creamed banana makes an amazing adhesive. And is only barely water-soluble.

Craft #2 is this little number:

 

 

Cute, right? It comes with all the pom-poms pre-made, and all you have to do is cut a few pipe cleaners and sew them together, right?

This project evolved on the dining room table over the course of a couple of weeks. I would glue a couple of pom poms together, then come back the next day and they would fall apart. So I’d glue them back together again, and the process would repeat a few times until I was at least sort-of satisfied at their adhesion. I realized after I was finished that I was probably supposed to use hot glue, not elmers. I should have just used banana.

The resulting Santa penguin is not quite as cheerful and inviting as the picture promised. I call him “Bubba,” and always imagine him saying, “Hey there, sexy momma. Howsabout you bring me a Coca Cola?”

 

Closer examination of the box suggests that my results might not be due solely to my own incompetence. The fishing pole that Bubba is supposed to be holding definitely looks photoshopped on to me. (The plastic fish went into an empty bead canister and is now Naomi’s favorite rattle.)

 

 

Well, that was fulfilling. Time to get back to work, right baby?