So, it’s September! Which, despite all the evidence of my senses and the disappointment I feel every year when the temperature doesn’t immediately drop below 60F/15C, always and forever means “autumn” to me.
There are probably a good 4 weeks of summery temps left to us here in upstate NY – but back home in the UK and Ireland the leaves have started to turn, the nights are drawing in, and the morning air is crisp.
The new school year, as well as my birthday being in September, always made this month seem like a version of new year to me, rather than a decline of the current one. A fresh new start – with no mistakes in it (yet), as Anne with an E would say. I’m always sad to leave my friends and family and return to NY at the end of the summer, even after all these years home is the only place I want to be. But I did come back with a feeling of renewal and optimism this year – this has been a year of life changes for me and those dear to me. Good changes (for once). I came back buzzing with ideas for my design business, and itching to implement them – and was further encouraged and inspired by my time at the NY State Fair teaching and demonstrating my skills.
So although it is not yet autumn here – it will be soon, and I am never sorry to see the summer season leave. And the arduous NY winter will follow hard upon – but I can’t wait for the long evenings of hunkering down indoors. All knitters will agree that winter is Our Time. I have several cold weather designs and projects I’m working on at the moment – with an eye to Christmas in particular. I might have already started gathering up stocking fillers and made gift and food lists, but I can neither confirm nor deny that. OK, I’m confirming it – but having watched the Christmas Cupboard episode of Derry Girls, I do believe that this is a trait that has been bred into my genetic code over generations, and I should embrace it.
I decided to branch out from selling my patterns only, and am now offering my Personalised Christmas Stocking for sale as a finished item in my Etsy store. This is one of my most popular patterns, and I frequently get asked if the stockings themselves are available for purchase. My hope is to be able to have a stockpile of them going, so I can just add the embroidered name when an order comes in.
The idea came to me when I was having a bit of a miserable old time back home slogging away on my NY State Fair entry shawl – working in thread and painstakingly adding 2000 tiny beads when I could be having larks and japes. Or at least just watching Coronation Street in peace. I had (once again) misjudged the time it would take me to finish the thing, so instead of wrapping it all up and sending it to the Fair before I left for Ireland, I had to take it with me and work on it at the airport, on the plane, in Paris, etc.
It was fine – I got it done and sent by the deadline, and only had to sell a minor organ to cover the postage, and it won a blue ribbon, and all was right with the world. BUT, this year I am giving myself the gift of time for Christmas – by which I mean the pattern, yarn, and beads for next year’s Fair entry, rather than deciding in April and starting in May. So I won’t have a complicated lace project I have to work on when I am home next year. And in place of that – stockings! What could be simpler than rounds and rounds of stockinette stitch? Yes, there are heels and toes and i-cord and embroidery – but a lot of the stocking is plain knitting, and I can do that in front of the telly of an evening. No counting, concentrating, or even having to look at my work, basically. I’ve made so many of these stockings that I can knit them in my sleep. So I’m saying yes to less stress! (And please check in with me on Jan 1st 2020 to make sure I’ve begun the Fair shawl, OK?)
So anyway, yeah. Christmas has been on my mind in spite of the air conditioner running as I type this. Winter is coming – I have to believe that!
