Nighttime Storekeeping

I'm working late. I like how it looks in here, and how it smells. My favorite pair of plastic light-up polar bears glowing in the windows, and the tiniest Christmas tree I've ever had.  It's beginning to feel a little bit like Christmas.  Now I'm hoping for a soft, fat, flaky snowfall.

Agenda

Let's see.  There's my antique Swedish spool winder that came along with an antique Swedish barn loom I bought a few years ago.  Clamped to my shelf the winder fills pirns, the rolled up paper tubes,  with cotton and linen and silk yarns.  It's a small job that is very satisfying.  This is what it looks like when I fill a pirn with Habu tsumugi indigo silk to make a linen and silk scarf.  The cone of yarn sits below the winder on the counter.

Scarf # 2, linen and silk, in the classic plaid, a soft, textured scarf.  I'm always attracted to this simple design plan, and the scale of the checks.  Indigo and linen, or natural silk, in a Swedish lace weave,
called myggtjall, or mosquito, is a traditional curtain weave.

At mid-July I feel Christmas barreling towards me, and I know already that I am not ready, nor will I be ready for it. As a storekeeper I feel responsible to create holiday magic, and fulfill  desires of children and teenagers, and parents, and spouses, rich uncles and young marrieds.  "I've no idea what they would like, they're young, they're very stylish."   "What can we get for someone who has everything?"  "What is there for my husband?"

I do love to keep store,  so I'll just do what I can not to disappoint the hopes I see when the Christmas customers come in the door.  Maybe a little birch tree will be pretty  this year for Christmas.  With strands of butter paper origami box lights.  And garlands of milkweed pods. There now,  that's better.

Waiting for the Blizzard

I said I was going to call this post, Blue Balls.  Well, they are.  I've been making them and dipping them in my dye jar, in a double boiler, watching the dye move into the wool, where it dangles from a string, at just the right depth, from a chopstick.   I hold the dye bath at the simmer until the right shade  appears.  It's a good job for someone like me who generally likes to spend a lot of time just standing-there-a-lookin' (from my old favorite folk song about that fine man, Old Dan Tucker).

So far, the blizzard hasn't amounted to much, but it's sure to fall tonight. Meanwhile I'll show you this new store activity:  a paper snowflake cutting station. We have recycled butter paper, and scisssors.  Anyone who comes in can take a pair and start snipping.  So far  some young girls cut flakes, a grandmother, a woman I don't know who was proud of her flake,  and a man who hadn't made a snowflake in years and years.  Elizabeth, my good friend, came in and we cut snowflakes together while we caught up on the news of our lives, occasionally pausing for the reveal of each newer, better, more pointed snowflake.  I call it fun!  Let the clippings fall to the floor.  They look like more snow.   Snow on snow on snow.