Category: Knitting and Sewing
The Christmas Market (aka Things I Commit to Without Really Knowing Why)
| November 25, 2011 | Filled under Knitting and Sewing |
I have this neighbor that manages the local Christmas market. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Germany, live in Germany, or have unsuspectingly traveled to Leavenworth, Washington during the holidays, but a traditional German Christmas Market is a force to behold.
Roasted chestnuts, hand-made candles, knitwear, carved wooden toys, blown glass, the ever-present scent of sausages, and my personal favorite: Hot spiced wine.
I’m guessing the latter had something to do with my willingness to be part of the Christmas market this year. My neighbor asked me if I wanted a stand there, and in my eagerness to be a part of… everything… I said yes, of course.
Let’s establish a few things right here though:
I don’t know how to sew.
I learned how to knit on YouTube.
I have a sewing machine I bought at a discount store. It runs on diesel and swearwords.
Any salable skills I possess are likely not appropriate for family atmospheres or carolers.
But somehow I found myself flipping the pages of the calendar and realizing I actually had to MAKE things to display in my little Christmas hut. The kid was more productive than I, which is why I’m mostly selling a collection of toilet-paper-tube robots and crayon pictures of a “Chilala Dog” (Thank you Skippy John Jones).
So B and I put our heads together and made things. Aprons, of course. Kitchen things, like egg warmers and pot holders. I sew and knit at a rate that earns me approximately 12 cents an hour (euro cents, so that might be like three dollars by now). Along the way we learned a few things. Like my sewing machine runs better when oiled. And that, when sat upon, pins can puncture a buttocks like a hot knife through butter. Creative optimists as we are, we considered turning the wound into a piercing but I was concerned that a stud in my left cheek would make my nylons run.
