Christmas is a-coming!

 With Yuletide upon us, creating gifts, tags and other things for the holiday has taken on a sense of urgency.   From my perspective, a hand-made gift holds special meaning.  The person who created it was thinking of the recipients especially and putting their personal energy into that special item while it was being made.  It is almost as if the item holds a blessing for the person for which it is intended.  

Even Christmas items hold a special feeling when they have been created by the home-owner. Our wreath this year began with a base of artificial greenery on a wire frame to which I added some apple wood branches from an apple tree felled during our encounter with Tropical Storm Helene when it came through her 16 months ago.  I added pine cones found locally and decorated with glitter paint, wild, dried flower stalks that I think are from the artemisia family and bits of lichens that I found on fallen limbs from a nearby silver maple.  

The gold mini-poinsettia flowers were artificial, but added some sparkle that was more muted on the pine cones.  The red ornaments were given to me by friend Sharon Tabor, a fellow-tatter and who created the tatting on them.  The bow has both burlap and acetate ribbon.   Hanging on the south side of our main entry, it will bless the house all all who enter by it.

Getting ready another Tatted Tree for Deck the Trees, Black Mountain

 For the past 11 years, a group I have been a part of has participated in a fund-raiser called Deck the Trees.  It's a benefit for the fuel assistance fund sponsored by the Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries.  Held at the historic Monte Vista Hotel each year (except 2020 when Covid-19 was in its height), this benefit has raised in the vicinity of $100,000 to help families on the edge have enough fuel for our mountain winters.  The committee announced the theme for 2022 as "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" back in August, a theme that is bit more challenging than some have been in the past.  

I chose to acquire clear plastic ornaments that could be filled with not only tatting, but natural elements as well.  The journey to find the various elements began in September.  I first realized that the line "And Heaven and Nature sing" was from the Yuletide carol "Joy to the World" written in 1719 by Isaac Watts, an English Minister.  Locating the song in a hymnal was easy as was making copies that could be trimmed down to a reasonable size and used as a focal point inside the clear balls was a good place to begin.  One of the local charity shops had a hymnal lying on the counter the day I went in, and to my amazement, it was free for the asking.  I trimmed the copies down to the best size to fit the orbs and burnished the edges with a candle flame

The following weeks were spent looking for patterns that would create small snowflakes, musical notes and shapes that could also adorn the orbs.  Any that I couldn't find, I designed to the best of my ability.  Some time was spent looking around the neighborhood for acorns and pine cones that were small enough to fit into the ornamanets.  I also located lavender sprigs, hydrangea blossoms, moss and lichens to be used.  Here are some of the ornaments in various stages of completion: