With our hottest, wettest, summer soon coming to an end, my task calendar reminds me once again that the Christmas holidays are on their way. It’s time to make the gift pick ornaments for our Hoss family celebration – my sometimes difficult, always rewarding, labor of love.
After several days without a single idea, 2021 was definitely beginning to fall into the difficult camp. And then it came to me. Where do ideas come from, I wonder.
This year’s toy highlights one of the many talents of my dear mother-in-law, Lavalie Bixby Hoss. A mother of 10 and grandmother of 20, each year in preparation for the holiday season she crocheted, blocked, and decorated snowflake ornaments for each Christmas tree of her large, extended family. I dug into our box and found we have 32; Juliet reports 25 in her collection. Doing some quick math, she must have created nearly 500 of these treasured beauties before she was done.
Preparing for my pick toy design, I photographed 12 of her unique creations on colored backgrounds.
Haste makes waste. Aiming to maximize my time while simultaneously working on three knit patterns (whatever was I thinking), I made the toys bit by bit without a complete plan for their finish. With boxes assembled, photos adhered, and ribbons attached, I embarked on the gift tags only then to discover that they would too easily slip off of the ribbon and likely be lost. Brainstorming a solution, I made my way to a local craft store in search of a bead with a hole just big enough for the ribbon to slide through, yet small enough to secure its contents.
I thought these could work, but after trial I found their holes too small.
Then I remembered the trinket box on my top shelf. Where do ideas come from, I wonder.
I hadn’t opened it in years, perhaps a bead there? Turns out, not that, but this – amidst all the curious craft clutter was a crochet hook, the tiniest crochet hook in the whole wide world, that slipped in and easily pulled the ribbons through the no-longer-too-small holes of my newly purchased beads.
Success.
Where do ideas come from? – the hand of God maybe, but given the serendipitous discovery of a long forgotten crochet hook, this time it’s more likely the loving hand of Lavalie. Having known her, I’m betting on that.
Happy holidays everyone, coming soon.