Are You Thinking about Christmas Gifts?

Seems awfully early. This is busy season for craft sales, usually named holiday something. Get in the mood!

Come by if you like. I'll be at the

Marie Curie School Craft Sale, Saturday Nov.2, 9-3; 4080 Governor Drive (1 block east of Genessee), parking off the side street, in the corner by the food.

Kate Sessions School Craft Sale, Saturday Nov.16, 9-3; 2150 Beryl (on the east  side of Pacific Beach).

And I'm now in the Coronado Art Association and will be at their

Art in the Park sale, Sunday Nov.17, 9-4 and December 1; Spreckels Park on Orange in Coronado.

Do I have a lot of pots? Yes. Onward!

What are these? They are pansy rings.

So what are pansy rings? Evidently a very traditional vase for short-stemmed flowers. I'd never heard of them until the Maertzweilers stopped by my booth at a craft sale and asked for some. I looked online and tried some before I saw the one they had  -- not a great way to see reality, it turns out. How big, how wide is the opening, how high? What's the bottom like? 

It turns out to be a very useful vase shape. How else would you display pansies? hibiscus? plumeria? anything your little kid picks short-stemmed and brings you? 

 I've tried several colors and minor decoration, but here is the one they showed me, as their source for the design, much more elaborate and decorated, with carved, added feet.I like it.

And somewhere I have never looked, clearly there's a tradition. At the last sale I attended, someone stopped, petted the ones I had for sale, and lovingly described the pansy ring she remembered from her childhood. I feel, happily, like the village potter.