Present hopes

Present hopes

Originally uploaded by rjknits

2009 seems to have been hard for a lot of people: Family losses, job losses, new job stress, and the news media acting more like a bad-news blog that yammers about every uptick and downtick in the world (while not reporting on important things like 7 car pileups unless they’re half a world away). I’m hoping we all find safe, appropriate ways to celebrate this change of the year, and that 2010 is a bright shiny package filled with good things.

Keep safe! I’ll be back blogging once I’m done partying like it’s 1999 (hey, the picture is of purple wrapping paper — you wouldn’t imagine me skipping out on a “the artist formerly known as” reference).

Scenes from the Holidays

From Green Eyes of desire (wild-eyed beneath the Christmas tree), to ornaments under green boughs, and packages tied up with bows, it has been a colorful season.

Hope one of the shiny presents underneath your tree is filled with a peaceful, calm, and blessed 2010. A few hopeful signs for the workers and those looking for work would be nice too.

Ol’ Green Eyes hopes for a mouse for every cat this year.

About that snow on the rooftop

No, I’m not saying anyone has dandruff. However, all drivers of trucks and gi-normous campers — you might want to check if you still have some snow on the roof still.

I was behind one camper that had so much snow and plates of ice on top of it, that it was streaming fog like streams of glory while dropping big chunks of frozen snow in front of my tiny car. When you’re creating your own meterologic event, you might want to consider the other people who need to swerve around your detritis.

Once people get their presents, I will end up showing off some of the knits. One baking idea — if you’re making sugar cookies from Fannie Farmer cookbook, you might want to try adding 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg. It balances out the vanilla content.

Christmas knitter confessions

OK, I’m curious. What are you looking forward to doing once the Christmas preparations are all done, people have unwrapped presents, and you no longer have deadline knitting?

Me, I have a pattern for mittens with birds on them. I have periwinkle and off-white yarn. And I have sticks. And I have very, very cold hands. Although I’ve recently heard enthusiasm from someone about what a pair of legwarmers could do in weather with snow above the bottom of the back door. So, after the tiny things created for tiny creatures are done… I will either have a case of finishitis and finish some of my other older projects. Or I’ll cast on for mittens. How ’bout you?

Meet me at the eagle

Window shopping meant meeting friends at the eagle in Wanamaker’s Department store, then browsing through ladies’ silk or nylon scarves and the high-end costume jewelry. I think I shopped more often at Strawbridges’ down the street, and I have really vague memories of being somewhere in town watching a hat be trimmed for me or mom. But Wanamaker’s was where we could get the appropriate gloves for church. And afterwards, during December, there was a light show.

Now, like many other people, I live in a different town.  It’s all part of growing up, after all. The stores I knew are gone, and the ones that replaced them don’t seem to have quite as much wonder (Macy’s or Lord & Taylor’s… meh). So I am now thinking about other seasonal traditions I should try to create or resurrect. Perhaps baking bread, or making cookies today would make me feel more festive.

Getting in the mood for winter

If you’ve been hoping for snow, and it’s still too warm… (or you live in a snow-adverse region, like the desert) here’s a book that will make you want to burrow delightfully under an afghan with a hot drink: The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys.
In different years, the Thames has frozen solid. The author tells stories from the perspective of first-hand narratives from moments in time when the water is still.  These are the extraordinary moments when ordinary folk skate on ice in the margins of a rich man’s Book of Hours. Each story is self-contained, so the book can be picked up and put down inbetween preparations for holiday visitors. Perhaps it would be a good gift idea for your favorite Anglophile.

Seasonal delights

1. Practicing choir music for 2 hours while standing. It’s a better cardio workout than I’d get at the gym, and I whine about it a lot less. (2 hours of stop and start singing of 11+ pieces of music, with reminders for correct breathing, tone, punctuation, and for g-sakes don’t hit the other people in front of you with your sheet music by mistake.)
2. All the free light displays that are up right now. I’m fine enjoying other people lighting their houses, decorating their mall entranceways like palaces from the Nutcracker, and putting wacky light displays on light poles that seem to be town-specific displays. (Yes, I understand hanging flags from light poles, or trees on light poles, etc. But hanging lights on lights seems recursive to me. Delightful, but recursive.)
3. Knitting presents (and then deciding to rip said knitting and just get ‘em a book). At this stage in the season, there really aren’t that many commitments.
4. Window shopping, by looking in department store windows (harder to do these days, but there still are some stores that have good displays).
5. Looking for the perfect card to send overseas to friends.
6. Coffee made with nutmeg, hot cider with cinammon, or cocoa made with mint.
7. Listening to BBC’s Evensong.
8. Going through cookbooks to see which cookies I have time to make for people on my list. (Babka? Pie?)
9. Wearing wool socks as often as possible.
10. Contemplate candlelit meals at the kitchen table.

So, that’s my small toe into that big tidal wave known as Christmas preparation. If anyone from Australia is reading this, hot drinks and warm socks are probably the last thing wanted right now.  How do you enjoy the beginning of the season? I, personally, am hoping to avoid Santa at the mall and bad traffic.

It ain’t easy being green

Well heck. Welcome to my big ol’ trip to the frog pond. After a month of working with needles that were too small (even to the point of having to use two double points in one row to allow me to knit all the stitches without falling off), the project nicknamed “Limetwist in a hurry” is no more. Long live Limetwist2.

Sigh… My hands were getting chewed up by Limetwist the first, and the gauge was very very off after each row of knitting it. I won’t try this pattern again until I have the right yarn, the right needles, or the right stars in alignment. I still love the fabric I was getting (see the ISBN stripe post I made earlier). I hope to revisit this pattern again soon, and I really liked the Dalegarn yarn but I need to use it for something else now.