The holidays are coming too fast...

This is usually about the time I start thinking about my holiday gift-knitting. I've had my list ready for months now and I know what I'm making for each person on it, I'm just not sure how I'm going to fit it all in. Do you get that feeling? Right around the end of September? When you see the leaves changing you know its time to switch over to your cooler weather knitting and before you know it, the holiday season has crept up on you?

Now that I am gearing up for the holiday crafts shows and events, my personal gift-knitting seems to get pushed further and further down the "to-do list".  I could remember a time before this became a business for me that I enjoyed knitting to make handmade clothing and accessories for my family and friends, now I hardly ever get the chance to knit something that I want to give as a gift. I've found over the last two years that the business side of my knitting has increased astronomically and the fun side has declined terribly. Does anyone else feel like this during this time of the year?

I like to spend time picking out the perfect pattern and the perfect yarn for each person on my list and every year, I say to myself, I will start earlier with my gift-knitting so that I'm not scrambling at the last minute trying to get them done. But for the last two years business-knitting usually picks up considerably during the months of October, November and early December and I'm cranking out other people's holiday gifts that they'll be giving away instead of working on my own personal gift-knits.

The holidays in general can be a stressful time for everyone, what with the holiday decorations already out on display in many department stores as early as October! Then there is the the cooking and baking, holiday card sending, the list goes on and on. For some people this can a miserable time of year and it can put the perkiest, most upbeat person on the verge of depression.  So in light of this fact, I scoured the web to see what others had to say about the ways they deal with the holiday stress:

Nancy at A Rurual Journal writes about how she deals with stress this time of year in a post from last December, and I found after reading it, she had some really good ideas on how to de-stress and not let the holiday season become too overwhelming. One such solution she had was: "Knit. For the sake of knitting, with no objective in mind. Just knit."

Ah, what a novel concept, I haven't knit, just for the sake of it in over two years and during this season, I'm going to make a point to do just what she suggested. Something else, I like to do other than knit/crochet for relaxation is read and this holiday season, that will be on the top of my list of must do's. My son bought me a Nook Color last year for Christmas and I'm going to put it to good use!

Denise Dador on KABC-TV Los Angeles, CA wrote: Tips on how to de-stress during the holidays, December 2010. She gave tips on de-stress on the go by using accupressure: Dr. Lawrence Taw, an assistant professor of medicine at the UCLA Center for East-West Medicine showed us three accupressure points that reduce anxiety and promote calmness. The first is a well-known one found on your hand: the pressure point between your thumb and your index finger.

"The most effective way of finding it is putting your thumb and index finger together," said Dr. Taw.

Apply pressure for 15 to 20 seconds.

"You press until you feel a sensation, that's how you know you're stimulating the point. For some people, it's very minimal stimulation, for other people you have to go much deeper," said Dr. Taw.

Jennifer Walters at Shape Magazine wrote: 3 Ways to de-stress over the holidays, November 2011. My favorite tip she gave was number 3: Say "no." Most of us get stressed during the holidays because we're overscheduled and feel obligated to do things when we really don't feel like it (or have the time). So this year, make a commitment to do less and prioritize your time for only the events that are the most important to you. Do this, and you'll kick holiday stress to the curb.

Saying, "No", yeah I have an issue saying that word, too often I find myself overwhelmed because I commited myself to doing too many things at the same time, because I just couldn't say "no". Well that will be my buzz word this year, well at least to a certain extent it will...

Above are only three of probably hundreds of great articles on tips and solutions to deal with stress during the holdiays, I know if you type in your search engine "de-stress during the holidays" you will get hundreds more, but I would like to hear from you, what do you to de-stress, or not get too overwhelmed, or deal with the anxiety of the holiday season, leave me a comment, I'd love to hear from you.

Happy knitting!!!

The Countdown Begins...Only 11 Weeks Until Christmas

OMG, I cannot believe we are already in October.  I was in Big Lots two weeks ago and the Christmas decorations are already out! There wasn't a lot, but the fact that they were out in September blew my mind!

My goodness I'm so behind on my holiday knitting. I got started on these colorwork team spirit hats just to try my hand at designing and knitting in more than one color and I've gotten so many friends asking me if I could make them a hat.

What am I going to do? I love that my knitting has improved to the point that I'm actually getting requests to create or design knitted items, but I always do this to myself every year, I get bogged down with special request items that I fall behind on my gift giving projects because well there are a lot of people who want to give handmade knitted gifts to their friends and family too and either don't have the skill or just don't have the time to make it themselves.

Also, I've been trying to get items done so that I can post them to my Etsy Shop for purchase and everytime I complete a new project, I get a request to make one for a friend and I end up not getting it into my shop. Which is wonderful and exciting but my online shop really suffers because it isn't getting the exposure I'd like to get because I'm not posting new product at least weekly. But on the other-hand I'm not complaining because with the requests from my friends and co-workers comes more orders from their friends.

I'm hoping at some point, probably after the holidays, I will have some time to write down the pattern for the ear flap hat that am using to create my custom team/school spirit hats so others can make it too!

Happy holiday knitting to you all, and I hope you have gotten started on your gift knitting or if you haven't you are planning to soon - Christmas will be here before you know it!