Handmade Christmas ~ In the Mail Part One

 The Stitch Family ~ oh how I love them! ~ are so perfectly perfect.  They are, collectively, the funniest family on the planet.  They are also sweet, sassy, intelligent, generous, and friendly.  It's a mind-blowing combination!  Because of all their hippie-goodness, I was pretty sure the gnomes were a must have...It looks to me like this picture is missing one or two.  Well, no matter, because I need to make more for the boys because these are for Brit.  Never underestimate the need for gnomes felt by every adult woman I've come by in the last few weeks.  :)

I wrote about making this rag rug before, too, and it was always going to be for The Stitches.  I think it's so wonderfully thick and yummy!  On a post I wrote last year about how to make these rugs, a commenter recently left a note that her mom made a crocheted rug out of thrifted wool clothing that took years to make, and eventually covered the entire living room floor.  The kids still have it, having inherited it after their parents passed away, and it weighs more than 300 pounds!  I mean really!  More than 300 pounds.  It's so joyfully absurd, I just LOVE that story!  This rug is not big enough to cover a room (instead, it's about 2.5 x 3.5 feet or so), but it really made me think that if I ever did make one big enough for a room, The Stitches would most assuredly be the recipients. 

Every once in a while, Brit or I will email each other with blogs we like to read; she told me about Soulemama's blog, which I quite like.  Poor sweet Amanda Soule, who seems like a lovely person, also seems to be the recipient of an inordinate number of angst-ridden posts re:  every mother's inability to be her.  Oh, folly!  :)  I have so many hobbies, but this constant comparison is not one of them...even on the one hand, that I can enjoy a voyeuristic peek into somebody's life through their blog, I don't seem to experience the other hand of that, of wishing for what they have or do or believe.  It's not that I'm so full of esteem for myself, nor am I so full of disdain for others; I think it's a gene, inherited from my mom, that if you're busy (enough of the time), and happy (enough of the time), and choose to still feel busy and happy (the rest of the time), then it's okay to be cool with that and not worry about anything, or anyone else, while you're at it.   I will point out that my mom probably takes this to a mind-numbing, socially-embarrassing extreme, but she's rad so we ignore that.

The point of all that, I suppose, is to say that Brit is sort of my "Soulemama"!  I've always thought of Brit's blog as a love letter to her children, and in the best possible way, I'm a fan of her perspective and choices and mama-ing, plus she's so creative and talented; it's like a great big lovely-ball-of-wax, and I'm so glad to know her and her husband in both my real and virtual lives.

They might move pretty soon, and I know it's too much to ask for, but I do wish on a star that they might find their way down to my neighborhood.  :)