First, behold the bamboo needles. They are "Joint Venture" brand and are made from maple milled in Maine and birch milled in Lithuania. They are pointed, assembled, and hand-painted by artisans in Russia. My mom picked them out at a yarn shop on my parents' recent trip to Door County. That's also where she picked up the little "Knitting Is Sexy" button that you see clipped to the front of one of these lovely blue yarn hanks. I'm not typically one for wearing buttons, but I am confident that just the right occasion will present itself for me to make use of this one! Maybe it should ride around on the outside of my knitting bag until then.
The third unexpected gift is this gorgeous hand-made bowl. It's perfectly made and finished, but there are a couple things that make it even more special than your typical run-of-the-mill unexpectedly gifted hand-made bowl. First, it was made by a friend of our family. I can't remember the last time I saw Bob the wood-carver, but he carved a Harry Potter wand for my son a few years ago and that was awesome as well. But even beyond being made by someone I remember from my childhood, this bowl has history.
Back in the mid 20th century, my great-grandpa planted a tree in the yard of his church. It's the church my great-grandparents attended and were very active in, the church my parents were married at, and the church my sister and I were baptized at.
Years later, the church decided to expand and the tree needed to go. They dug it up and re-planted it in my grandparents' backyard. It has been there as long as I remember, a gigantic monster of a tree that grew right in the middle of the concrete patio that makes up about a third of their backyard.
Recently, the giant tree needed to be trimmed, so 80-something Grandpa has been outside off & on for the past couple years on the roof to reach branches, tying ropes around branches to try to keep them from falling on someone or on the house, and occasionally attaching the chainsaw to a long pole so he can reach higher. (This is not, mind you, one of those chainsaws that is meant to be attached to a pole. It is just a plain old chainsaw that Grandpa has decided that he can attach somehow to a pole. I'm sure he went over the details with the guys at the coffee shop and they all came to a consensus before he tried anything crazy.) But, I digress.....
Point is, this perfect bowl is a little piece of family history and I will display it proudly in our house. It might even make its way into some pictures on the Etsy shop if I can find the right occasion.
Hooray for unexpected treasures!
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