happy solstice night

A month when time moves too quickly
A full week of snow on the ground, with more to come
Cookies
Tree decorating
Tangerine and clove pomanders
Korknisse
A snow walk at dusk
A room full of candles
Homemade macaroni and cheese

And tomorrow, the days begin to get longer again. Happy Solstice.

colors, and ambitious ideas

I was staring at my Ravelry projects page, sort of spacing out, and realized that all of my projects over the past few months have fallen into a single color scheme. Not one color, but I definitely have a purple/gray/cream/beige/soft blue thing going on.


The weird thing is that these are not all for me, either. Oh well.

I tell myself every year that I am not going to knit Christmas gifts because it's too stressful trying to finish them in time. Then December rolls around and I decide that it is even more stressful to try to shop for everyone, and I decide that making things is a much better idea, fitting in with my philosophy of living and of the holidays. So here I am, starting little projects right and left. I'm not knitting for everyone, and I did downscale some of my ideas (from afghan to scarf, for instance), so I think it is feasible. We'll see.

December is so dark here, I am tempted to call in sick and and stay home to knit in my pajamas all day long rather than leave the house.

the crazies

It's that time of year. There is so much going on with holiday stress, yucky weather, and lack of light. I go into hibernation. I have just enough energy to get by from day to day. I may be knitting, making, and reading all kinds of things, slowly, but the motivation to write it all down leaves me at this time of year. Plus the lack of sunlight at this northern latitude makes good photos difficult at best.

Some good things: waking up early in the darkness to drink coffee and read for 30-45 minutes before getting ready for work. Yoga, on the weekends and a few days after work. A sketch book full of sweater ideas. My first stranded colorwork.


Two years ago, I fell in love with this pattern (Anemoi Mittens, by Eunny Jang) and purchased it along with the yarn to make it. My first attempt at the cuff didn't work out, and the pattern and yarn were put aside. My knitting resolutions the past two years have included learning fair isle. A couple of weeks ago I realized the year was almost over, I had a queue full of various colorwork patterns, and wasn't any closer to knitting them. So, I pulled out my materials and set to work. My tubular cast on is messy, my tension isn't that great, and I just can't get the hang of holding one color in my left hand. So, slowly I go, both yarns in the right hand. But, it's so fascinating to watch the pattern emerge and mittens are such small things that it goes more quickly than I thought. I am farther along than this picture shows, ready to bind off the mitten tip and knit the thumb.

Two small projects for Mina were quickly cast on and finished last month (last month?!?), giving her some more options for bundling up. They don't match, but that probably goes better with her style anyway.


This is the One Day Beret from Through the Loops. It really is a one day project, too. I knit the whole thing one bright Sunday in October, much of it while walking around outside while Mina climbed the rock in the yard and checked the tree for more apples. I used one skein of Bernat felting wool, and when that ran out I finished up with some handpaintedyarn.com Merino Bulky left from my duchess raglan. The beret is knit top down, so this worked out pretty well - the softer merino wool is the part the touches the skin.


Mina also got a very purple scarf, made with Cascade Pastaza she chose herself. I stranded it with some Fonty Kidopale in a variegated purple/turquoise colorway and followed the basic directions for The Purl Scarf in Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I may have made it a couple of stitches narrower to keep it to preschool scale. It's long, with a thick fringe, and I think it's adorable on her but she doesn't hold still for photos very well these days. (In the one above, she's singing the "We Just Got a Letter" song from Blue's Clues and shaking that envelope enough to naturally blur the address for me!)

I have about 15 other projects going on plus requests for additional winter woolens, many books to read, and general chaos, as always. I'll be cooking and enjoying a simple vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, including pumpkin risotto and a brandied apple and stilton soup. I hope those of you celebrating enjoy your holiday and have some time to relax this weekend.

in the autumn

Hey you!


Yeah, you. Have you played in the leaves yet this fall? It's a lot of fun.


We've had plenty of leaf kicking, pumpkin baking (muffins, cake, bread, pancakes...), family visiting, and craft making the last few weeks. Little Mina turned 3 last Sunday, and she's been walking around singing "hap booday ti you!" every day since her party. Over the weekend I made her a bright red tutu, which she refuses to model for a photo. (I'm working on it.) The plan for Halloween was a ladybug costume, but I couldn't find polka-dotted satin or bug antennae at the craft store. She was in a particularly rambunctious mood, so a pair of clip on devil horns came home with us instead. What can I say. At least we are replacing the typical pitchfork with a sparkly gold star magic wand.


This tutu is really much fuller and puffier than it appears - the light was coming through it when I took this photo. I used three yards of red tulle and these general intructions. I used one-inch elastic for the waist rather than ribbon, and my strips were several layers thick. It didn't take long, and I think it's the cutest tutu ever.

One day last week I suddenly decided that I NEEDED to start making my own bath and body goodies, so after a few days of research and recipe collecting, I headed to a local soap supply shop and brought home two bags full of goodies. Two successful experiments later I have enough body butter and lip balm to last one person for a year. And I've only used a fraction of the supplies I bought.


The body butter is firmer than a cream but the oils absorb quickly. It's doing wonders for my ragged, dry hands. What I really wish I could share through the internet is the fabulous scent! I combined green tea and kumquat oils and ended up with the fruitiest, brightest, most uplifting scent ever. I'm just a little in love with it. I'm also in love with the process of making this stuff, so expect to see a lot more of it in the future.

On the knitting front, I have a finished Ingenue that needs blocked and a so-close-it-isn't-funny cowl pullover. I've also finished a few small items that have never even been mentioned, so hopefully I'll get photographs of everything soon. I'm doing what I think of as my typical fall "thing," where I have a ton of inspiration and things I'd like to do, but the realities of diminishing daylight and accompanying loss of energy (pain, fatigue, etc.) send me into super hibernation mode. Fortunately we've had some gloriously sunny days and the colors this year are amazing. I sit in pools of sunlight, soaking it up like a cat. I'm doing my best to keep my chin up. Maybe with intentional focus on a few choice projects I'll make it through the winter more easily this year.

not quite

Does Ingenue look finished to you?


Yeah, me neither. This proves that under normal circumstances, I cannot actually finish a sweater in under a week. It was a good experiment, though.

I am still planning to see Wendy Bernard this evening, but I won't be wearing this sweater. That's ok. I have a backup.



Snow White has been finished for months, but I haven't shown you yet, have I? I had been planning to take two or three inches off the bottom, but after wearing the sweater for a day I decided against it. Overall I really like this sweater - the yarn (RYC Cashsoft Aran) is soft, the design is lovely. It is very tight though. It has to be a high confidence day for me to feel good in it. I also wish there was just a bit of extra room in the armholes. I tend to tug at them throughout the day, and the tight armholes combined with super-clingy ribbing wears on me after a while. I heave a sigh of relief when I take the sweater off. But, that doesn't mean I dislike it! Now that the temperatures have dropped (it dipped below freezing last night!) I'll be wearing this quite a bit. Including this evening.

progress report

As of 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Ingenue looks like this:


Normally I would consider this excellent progress. I began knitting late Saturday afternoon, giving myself a deadline of one week later. I'm planning to see Wendy Bernard when she visits Third Place Books in Seattle to sign Custom Knits, and I decided it would be fun to wear one of her designs when I go. One week isn't unreasonable, right? Then this afternoon I remembered that I'm going to need time for the sweater to dry before Saturday afternoon, which in this rainy season really means that I need to be finished knitting on Thursday night. In order to do that I would need to finish the body of the sweater tonight, and then knit one sleeve over each of the next two days. Since I can't really neglect my job or my family, that leaves just three evenings over which to knit... a lot. Really a lot.

Some pluses and minuses: 1) I knit sweater bodies quickly. My fastest knit of all. 2) Sleeves are slow. 3) The ridge stitch at the collar, hem and cuffs is slow. 4) I can probably get Mina to sleep relatively early this evening, leaving several hours of uninterrupted knit time.

We'll see. At this point I'm a little skeptical that I'll be able to finish in time, but I'll definitely try my best. There's nothing like a crazy deadline to make me focus and get things done, and after my last post it should be fairly obvious that I'm generally lacking focus (big time).

Enough analysis, I need to get busy!

evidence...

that I am either very busy or very crazy. Probably both.


Five sweaters. From top to bottom, that's Blossom from Knitting at Knoon, the Cowl Pullover from Norah Gaughan's Knitting Nature, Lily by Marnie Maclean, #11 Forestry by Veronik Avery from Fall 2008 VK, and a swatch (which is now almost an entire collar and yoke) for Ingenue from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits. Yes, five. And those are only the sweaters. Or how about this?


These books are all "current" in some way - library books, recent purchases, things I've started reading. And the stack doesn't include the three knitting books I just got with a gift certificate, the library book on my desk at work, and a couple other random things. Add to this my full time job, keeping the house in some semblance of order, and a preschooler who is constantly on the go -



and I am very busy. Or crazy. Or both.

(Also, I just sort of announced to the world right here that I would have Ingenue finished to wear on Saturday. Busy (crazy), indeed.)