Thrifty Gifts - A hand knit or crocheted scarf

Scarfs are really in style again this year and what could be nicer than one that is hand made with the wearer in mind?

Directions:

1. Join Ravelry. It's a knit and crochet site that offers tons of directions and patterns (among other things). It's free to join; you'll just need to set up an account.
2. Browse their patterns. If I limit my search to free crocheted scarf pattern, I get 108 pages of choices! If I limit it to free knit scarf patterns, there are 201 PAGES of choices! It'll take you longer to choose than it will to actually make the scarf!
3. Buy the yarn you'll need. Here's where the expense comes in, but consider your budget and purchase a yarn that fits. I made the scarf in the photo from two skeins of yarn that I got for a great price in a clearance bin last year.

Almost everyone wears a scarf and would appreciate a custom made one. Hint: If you make this gift for a little girl, make a matching scarf for her doll or teddy bear. I guarantee it'll be a huge hit.

The Catechesis of Beauty

From the Holy Father's Wednesday Audience (November 18, 2009)

Dear brothers and sisters, I now wish to underline two elements of Romanesque and Gothic art, which are also useful for us.

The first: the works of art born in Europe in past centuries are incomprehensible if one does not take into account the religious soul that inspired them. Marc Chagall, an artist who has always given testimony of the encounter between aesthetics and faith, wrote that "for centuries painters have dyed their brush in that colored alphabet that is the Bible." When faith, celebrated in a particular way in the liturgy, encounters art, a profound synchrony is created, because both can and want to praise God, making the Invisible visible. I would like to share this in the meeting with artists on Nov. 21, renewing that proposal of friendship between Christian spirituality and art, desired by my venerated predecessors, in particular by the Servants of God Paul VI and John Paul II.

The second element: the force of the Romanesque style and the splendor of the Gothic cathedrals remind us that the via pilchritudinis, the way of beauty, is a privileged and fascinating way to approach the Mystery of God. What is beauty, which writers, poets, musicians, and artists contemplate and translate into their language, if not the reflection of the splendor of the Eternal Word made flesh? St. Augustine states: "Ask the beauty of the earth, ask the beauty of the sea, ask the beauty of the ample and diffused air. Ask the beauty of heaven, ask the order of the stars, ask the sun, which with its splendor brightens the day; ask the moon, which with its clarity moderates the darkness of night. Ask the beasts that move in the water, that walk on the earth, that fly in the air: souls that hide, bodies that show themselves; the visible that lets itself be guided, the invisible that guides. Ask them! All will answer you: Look at us, we are beautiful! Their beauty makes them known. This mutable beauty, who has created it if not Immutable Beauty?" (Sermo CCXLI, 2: PL 38, 1134).

Dear brothers and sisters, may the Lord help us to rediscover the way of beauty as one of the ways, perhaps the most attractive and fascinating, to be able to find and love God.

Cloche Tip: Zenit

Hosting a Successful Christmas Cookie Exchange

WHAT IS A COOKIE EXCHANGE?

Many would agree that baking is an essential part of Christmas preparations, but it can be time-consuming and expensive to create the variety of goodies needed for attractive cookie trays for your celebrations. A cookie exchange can be an efficient solution. Instead of baking 12 dozen different cookies, I can bake 12 dozen of my favorites and get 11 friends to do the same. We simply get together for an exchange and each person goes home with 1 dozen each of 12 different kinds of cookie.

DEFINE YOUR PURPOSE:

Do you want your event to have a social dimension or is it primarily functional? (i.e. get the cookies and go home)

CHOOSE YOUR PARTICIPANTS:

I participate in an exchange advertised through my home school co-op. An email goes out to about 80 families and there are typically 10-20 who are interested. These are divided into 1 or 2 groups depending on the number. (Since we've agreed, we neither want nor need 20 dozen cookies ;-) It sounds a little anti-social, but we really do just trade cookies and go. There is lots of social time with this group at other events.

I know someone else who uses her annual cookie exchange as an excuse to get together with old college friends. It's the same invitation list every year and they have a high participation rate.

Co-workers, neighbors, and members of your parish could all be good focus groups for a successful cookie exchange.

It's very common to invite participants to bring a few extra goodies to serve with some tea or coffee during the exchange.

COMMUNICATIONS:

1. WHEN: Include date and time. If your exchange has a more functional character, be sure to stress that everyone MUST be on time. You really can't complete your trading until everyone is there. Social gatherings can be a little more relaxed in this regard.
2. WHERE: Make it a central location with space to spread out a little.
3. R.S.V.P.: This essential step will allow the organizer to determine how many cookies each person bakes.
4. DEFINE WHAT YOU WANT PEOPLE TO BRING: Is fudge okay? Are chocolate chip cookies okay? Are bars okay? (For those of you who are not mid-westerners, bars are basically cookie-like things baked in a cake pan and cut into serving sized pieces.) My exchange specifies "something a little different than the usual 'brown & round'."
5. REPLY TO YOUR PARTICIPANTS with the final number they should bring and remind them of the details.

A FEW OTHER THINGS TO COMMUNICATE:

1. Choose a cookie, bar, or candy that stores well. Festive, colorful Christmas goodies are appreciated.
2. Don't stress about duplication-make what you love! It's fun to see all the creativity!
3. Packaging: please put in re-sealable plastic bags, disposable plastic containers or on a sturdy disposable plate wrapped with foil/plastic wrap.
4. Add a label to identify the goodies & include the recipe, if you'd like. You could also bring a few extras for sampling.
5. Bring a large basket/box to carry in and out your goodies.

Thrifty Gifts - Treasured Photos

In the interest of keeping holiday spending under control and giving gifts with meaning, the Church Ladies will be posting a few ideas for free or very low cost gifts with a personal touch.

For example, last year I borrowed my parents' photo albums and scanned a bunch of photos from their early married and parenting years. I burned the photos to disk and gave one to each of my siblings and to my parents. Everyone loved seeing the old photos and they were delighted to get their own copies.

This idea could easily work with a more focused theme also, such as "Our Vacation to Yellowstone," "Family Birthdays," "Our Years Together in School," etc.

Directions:

1. I used my desktop scanner/copier/printer to scan each photo.
2. The default setting on my scanner is 200 dpi (dots per inch, right?) but I upped that to 400 for all but the biggest photos (and 600 dpi for some really small ones). That would allow them to make good quality prints if they wanted.
3. I saved each image as a JPEG file, and gave it a name which included the year and information written on the back of the photo, if possible.
4. I transferred each into a folder and just burned the entire folder onto a disk.
5. The nice part is that I could work on this project at the same time as answering emails or reading the morning news online. The first photo took a little time but after that it was pretty routine; it did not take my full attention.

Cost: the price of the disks and my time.

Purple is the New Red (and Green)

Well, sort of.

It is easy to be in sync with the liturgical season by just thinking "purple and rose" instead of the traditional red and green.

1. I keep all my Advent decorations in a separate box so it's easy to pull it out soon, and I don't have to sort through Christmas things to find what I'm looking for.
2. These days, retailers have a huge selection of decorations in all sorts of colors. I can easily go to my local Target* and find a nice selection of purple ornaments and lights. (And that's just one retailer. Do a computer search for "purple ornaments" you you'll get pages and pages of ideas.)
3. Bows, wire-edged ribbon, and lots of other sparkle-y things also come in purple and make festive additions to a bathroom mirror, your door's wreath, or wherever else you decorate.
4. I know of one family who likes to put up their tree early. They decorate with purple lights during Advent and replace them with clear lights and Christmas ornaments after their children go to bed on Christmas Eve.
5. Purchase or make a purple table runner. You can find many beautiful fabrics in the decorator section of a fabric store that are typically intended for upholstery or draperies. Most often they are 54 inches wide - a generous length for a table runner. If the design looks good in this crosswise direction, you'd only need to purchase half a yard of fabric and hem the edges to get a 16" X 52" runner. If the design looks best the other way, purchase the length you want the finished product to be (and you'll have enough fabric to make runners for two friends).
6. Change your family altar to reflect the season. A picture of the Annunciation seated on a purple placemat (or cloth napkin) is a simple reminder of the season. You could also place your empty crèche (with a few animals and a shepherd milling about) on a purple cloth.
7. Collect images of the Annunciation and display them around your house. The Church Ladies are planning to post a number of them here throughout the season of Advent. These high-quality images could easily be printed and framed, or simply stuck on your refrigerator or saved as your computer's background.

*Disclaimer: Church Ladies have no particular connection to Target or any other retailer and do not receive any financial compensation from the promotion or sale of products mentioned here.

Patron saints are here!

The Patron Saints drawing for 2010 has begun! We're starting a bit ahead of the liturgical new year due to Thanksgiving travel.

If you would like a patron saint, please email us at psochurchladies(at)gmail(dot)com or leave a comment. The Church Ladies are happy to share their list of saints with families and teachers so you can have your own drawings- just drop us an email.

All the blessings of the season!

To the victor, the spoils

I won five times tonight at the annual Knights of Columbus spaghetti dinner & raffle!

Great Italian food, good company, and a lot of yield on the $5 in tickets I bought.

My spoils:
3 bottles (Cream sherry, 2004 Chianti, and Metaxa)
3 fabrics (2 yards red silk, 2 yards red patterned silk, 1 yard purple batik)
Scary Mary devotional plate (for the Epiphany Yankee Swap)
3 plastic utility totes
1 travel case

Props to the diocese of La Crosse

For including women religious on their diocesan vocations poster. And as a former Milwaukee resident, thanks for the bishop!

Oh, Kitchen Scale, How Do I Love Thee?

My kitchen scale is this model, found for less than half of retail at Tuesday Morning.

When it comes to kitchen gadgets, I, like Alton Brown, try to eschew single-use items in favor of tools that serve many different purposes (my beloved waffle maker being the notable exception to this rule). In that vein, it should hardly be surprising that my kitchen scale ranks among my all-time favorites. Among the ways it earns its place on my rather limited countertops:

• European recipes, which are now readily available thanks to the internet, often use weights instead of measures
• Bread recipes that give weights for the flour produce a much more consistent product than measures (I compared once on a recipe that gave both, and found that a weight that should have measured 1 c. by volume was only 3/4!)
• Invaluable for changing the yield for recipes that call for 1 (15-ounce) can, etc., or for when your container size doesn't match up to those in the recipe. Fresh vegetables are also often called for by weight (e.g. 2 pounds of potatoes)
• Portioning out hard-to-measure types of pasta (2oz. dry pasta = 1 serving, regardless of shape)
• Not sure if you have enough yarn to finish that second sock or glove? Weigh the finished item, then the remaining yarn, and compare. If you're the type to plan ahead, you can use the scale to wind two exactly equal balls of yarn before you begin.
• Know exactly how much yarn you used for on a project, and how much is left by weighing the last partial skein. You can figure out the yards per ounce by dividing the amounts on the label. If both a weight and length aren't given, look up the yarn on Ravelry's database (registration required), or wind off and weigh 10-20 yards and use that figure.
• Use to estimate postage when you aren't sure whether to stick that extra stamp on.

Just in time for the gift giving season -

Music From The Vatican - Alma Mater is the first release on Geffen records of modern classical music from the Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra featuring prayers recited and sung by Pope Benedict XVI recorded during His Marian pilgrimages by Vatican Radio.

The Holy Father is accompanied by The Choir of the Philharmonic Academy of Rome, conducted by Monsignor Pablo Colino, as well as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Monsignor Colino stated: "I can say with certainty that Pope Ratzinger has a wonderful musicality. I have known six Popes and none could sing as well as him or were as musically aware as he is: This will be evident when people listen to the album."

Songs include: Regina Coeli, Advocata Nostra, Sancta Dei Genitrix and Auxilium Cristianorum.

A press release on the album's Web page reported that the proceeds from sales "will be used to provide music education for underprivileged children around the world."

The release date is November 23, but you can order an advance copy from Amazon.

Cloche Tip: Zenit