My Living Crafts Experience & a Giveaway

Baskets in progress

I am so excited to share something that is very special to me and dear to my heart. Many months ago I was fortunate enough to be involved in a project for Living Crafts magazine (You may remember me hinting to it quite a bit over the summer as my project took shape). This is one of my absolute favorite magazines, so to say that it was an honor to do this project would be a complete understatement. Honestly, I am still in shock over being part of such an inspiring magazine, surely I must be dreaming!



It was a group project compiled of creative women from all around the globe. We each created an ornament based on the German tradition of giving a newlywed couple a set of twelve ornaments, each representing a facet of a whole and nurturing home life. We had many different mediums to choose from but I decided to go with knitting, it's what I feel most 'at home' with.


Knitting apples

Although, I admit that I still feel like a beginner when it comes to knitting. I only learned 3 1/2 years ago when one of my dearest friends D'Anne taught me. I knitted on and off but didn't fully get into it until I became pregnant with C. Then I just suddenly felt the need to knit and haven't put the needles down since.


A rare glimpse of me knitting away

My biggest challenge was deciding on what symbol I wanted to use and how I would create it. I looked online for ideas and I came across the symbolism of fruit baskets.


A basket before the felting process

"Fruits, like plants, also convey positive feelings. Scriptures calls our virtues as fruits. We are asked to bear fruits which can be savoured by others to find happiness. In olden times, kings and nobles used to send fruits to others as symbols of friendship. Sending fruit baskets as gifts symbolises friendship and companionship."

That seemed like the perfect symbol for what this project was about so I went with that. I had quite a few mishaps in creating my pattern at first, and the girls had an endless supply of various failed prototypes. But in the end it all somehow came together.



What made my experience even more profound was the community that formed around this project. Even though we were thousands of miles apart I felt so close to everyone I worked with. We chatted daily bouncing ideas off one another, dealing with setbacks in our projects and/or even in our lives, and just getting to know one another. To have so much talent and creativity in one place was just awe-inspiring (Again, I squeak - How did I get to be a part of this?!).



I am happy to say our issue is out now! Much to my amazement my actual photographs were used in the article (Someone, seriously, pinch me now!!!). Due to size constraints there are only 5 of the 17 patterns printed within. The rest of the patterns are being revealed online in Living Crafts' craft room over the next couple of weeks leading to Christmas. My pattern is not up yet but I will let you know as soon as it is!



I don't think I will ever be able to forget this experience. Thank you, again, Fiona and everyone at Living Crafts for letting me be apart of this. Thank you to my wonderful community that I shared this experience with - you are all talented beyond words, and thank you to all of you that stop by my little blog leaving me words of encouragement and sharing your insights. I am so grateful for you all.



I couldn't think of anything better to share with you as a little token of my gratitude than something that means so much to me - one of my knitted baskets.
I wish I was able to knit one for each and every one of you but I hope you will accept this giveaway instead.

To enter, all you need to do is leave a comment. It's as simple as that! Now, if you want more than one chance to win all you need to do is post about this giveaway on your own blog and come back and leave another comment with the link. If you do that you get entered not once, not twice but three times! I will close comments on St. Lucia day - Sunday December 13th at 6pm PST and announce the randomly chosen winner the following day.

I wish you all the best of luck and look forward to sharing something so dear to me, with you.

My Living Crafts Experience & a Giveaway