Over the last year and a half that I have been dyeing for my Etsy shop, Grape Goddess is still my favorite colorway. I just dyed a pound of Grape Goddess in superwash merino/tencel for a special order (12/6/08 eta:  These are no longer needed for a special order so I’m adding them to the shop this evening.) and I just could not help but take practically a million photos of it.

As I was thinking of “recessionista” ideas this morning, I thought it would be fun to “show-off” the entertainment value of spinning as a hobby. Let’s say you bought a 4 ounce braid of roving for $15.00. Depending upon how you spin it, it may take more or less time, but let’s say you are spinning for a pair of socks. Then let’s say you are spinning a 3 ply yarn. That is quite of bit of spinning and then with plying that could really take quite a few evenings – perhaps 1 to 2 weeks worth if you are working diligently. Then you have to choose a sock pattern and do a little swatching – maybe 1 evening. Depending on how fast you knit and how complicated your sock pattern is, the knitting could take from 1 week to 2 months. There it is –$15 dollars of spinning material covers 1 to 2 months of evening entertainment. Now — let’s compare that to one night at the movies – $9.50 for a ticket plus $5.00 for popcorn and $3.00 for a soda (and you don’t even get warm feet after you are done)… OK, so I know what you are thinking – what about that spinning equipment and well, yeah, if you get a wheel, that could take a long time to amortize but if you get a pretty one, it could count as decorative furniture and of course, there are always drop spindles…

This afternoon, I’m off to do some shopping with Agent K — there are some basic things that we need to get. I really need new sneakers for the gym that we joined. I’ve used my current sneakers for yard work and deck staining. Everyone else there seems to have clean sneakers and I don’t want to be kicked out. I think I wrote about this on Facebook, but haven’t mentioned it here yet. I actually took my first spinning class — like the exercise kind! I didn’t think I would ever do that but Agent K wanted to try it. I’m not sure yet if I like it. There were a few things that happened that don’t happen when you spin yarn. First there was sweat and we were in public. Then the next day – let’s just say there were some sore bits that I wasn’t so thrilled about. (also there was no yarn to photograph when we were done!) K wants to go again, and I think maybe practice will help. There was some coordination and left/right stuff that I will need to practice. Well, I have to run to get K to bring her to the orthodontist before our fun evening can begin. I’m sure I will write more about the gym next week… Leaving you with a gratuitous kitten photo and have a great day!

I find it very difficult to go out and buy a wreath when I have practically a billion trees in my yard. It seems silly to me to pay for someone else’s yard debris, you know?  This year I decided that I was going to make my own wreath. I bought a circle thingy and some wire for less than $4.00 at A.C. Moore, watched a You Tube video and set to work:

I can tell you what I did, but I can’t vouch for it until it makes it through its first snow storm without falling apart.  First I went out into the woods and cut off some pine and hemlock branches. I brought them all back to my breeze way and started securing them into little bundles with pieces of wire. I made 8 of those altogether because my base was divided into 8 sections.  I secured each of these bundles onto the base with more wire.  Then what happened was when I held the wreath vertically, all the branches really fluffed out so I secured them with even more wire.  I’m still not sure that I used enough though.

Earlier in the season, my aunt and uncle had dropped off some bayberry twigs.  I thought, why not stick those in the wreath too, so I bundled them up with some more pine twigs and secured those in there with even more wire.  When I bring out my holiday stuff for real, I think I may have a bow or 2 saved from last year that I can stick on there too for some more color.

I’ve been very intrigued lately by the idea of being a recessionista.  I know really the concept revolves more around fashion than homemaking, but I did find one article that showed ways to save  50 ways to money that were not all fashion related.  What have you seen out there – any good information?  If you get a chance, I’d love if you would share the link.

Holiday wreath for less than $4.00