I realized last night that if I was going to do ANY sort of Christmas-gift crafting, I had better get on it, because the way my time goes these days, I have so little free time.

So I wound the three skeins of Cascade 220 (dark denim heather, light denim heather, and a light grey) and began the Fortune Cookie Bag from the most recent Interweave Crochet. It's a tiny little felted bag with a flap - I guess the shape suggests a fortune cookie, hence the name.

I'm going to do one for the AAUW gift exchange - it comes in under the $10 price limit if I do not count my time (I NEVER "count my time" on knitting and crocheting a gift. I might if someone hired me to make something boring - I counted my time when my colleague the ornithologist hired me to sew bird bags - but not for something for a gift.)

I might also make one for my sister-in-law if the first bag turns out nicely. And if this first one comes out a little lumpy or wrong while I'm still learning to follow the pattern, well, I intend to make one to keep for myself because it will be a good way of carrying my keys and chalk-chock* and flash drive on the days when I am wearing a dress or skirt that lacks pockets.

(I don't like taking my big purse into classes - too much chance of forgetting it or something bad happening to my wallet)

(*A chalk-chock is one of those little devices - they used to be metal but now are mostly plastic - that holds a stick of chalk so your fingers don't get all chalky when you write. And also, if like me, you tend to get tense and have gorilla-grip, you don't break the chalk. Before I got the chalk-chalk, chalk would regularly snap in my hands, which, while I suppose there's some heuristic value for the student in seeing it as the professor's response to their request YET AGAIN of how one calculates the variance of a data set (five weeks after it SHOULD have been learned), still it's unsettling enough always to be breaking chalk.

Incidentally, the chalk-chock I use is metal, it's older - Dorothy gave it to me not too long after I started teaching. So I particularly treasure it it and don't want to lose it.)

I just barely got a start on the first bag last night. I do have to say the Clover ergonomic crochet hooks are GENIUS - my hand does not hurt this morning, and usually it did in the past after crocheting. I am sure it is the larger handle and the more hand-friendly shape of the hook that gives that improvement.

I may have to track down the other sizes and buy them. I have a G, an H, and a J - which are the sizes of hooks I use most commonly with yarn, but there are times when you need another size.

(For thread-crochet - which I have not done any of lately - I may be able to jury-rig something using narrow tubing wrapped with batting or something to make a more hand-friendly handle. Or maybe just buy some of those "cushions" they sell to put on the hooks.)

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It's been a really busy week, and I've not had a lot of time to myself. I find I get a little bit melancholic when that's the case.

Last night, I dreamed about dollhouses. Including one I made for a toy mouse I had (named Guinevere) as a child. I think they probably symbolize a sense of control in my life; one thing I liked about dollhouses was that I had control over the arrangement of the furniture and the "schedules" of the inhabitants. (You would think from that that I had a chaotic childhood; quite the opposite).

It made me sad though, thinking of dollhouses long gone. (And thinking of those hours in childhood spent trying to scrounge matchboxes and spools to make the furniture). I also - in the dream - had a Fairy Castle dollhouse, all pink and pearl colored, which sounds kind of stupid in the waking world but in my dream it was really quite beautiful.

(I wonder if also my occasional distress at ugliness in the world - in my town there's been a quite horrific child abuse and murder case going on - makes my brain, in its own defense, dream of simple and pretty things).