Christmas Wrap

Nice day here yesterday --- how was yours?

Among the presents I received:

Could those be ANY cuter????*  You should all know how I feel about Yoda by now.  And Maleficent is my favorite Disney villain.

Also got some lovely smiles and hi-jinks from these two:

Oh, yeah, and Thor.  What a guy.

 I must admit to having some very sad moments.  After we had opened all the gifts and sort of settled into the day, I realized that it was the time that I always called home to wish Mama and Daddy Merry Christmas.  And now I have no one to call.  And we have no "second Christmas" to go to. . .  For me, at least, things were very glum on and off all day.

But, I did do some Christmas Day knitting.  Not on either of these things, mind you.  These were finished some time ago:

 One of the other socks made of Norville Serenity yarn, and

a Noro shawl.

I certainly plan to do a great deal more knitting today.  Once I clear all the dirty dishes out of the sink, that is!  ;]

Enjoy the rest of your holidays!

*The answer, of course, would be "No."

'Tis the Season

Made this this weekend, and still can't get over how cute it is.  The snowflakes and "pearls" are cut from miniature garland, and just tacked on.

Made lots of little things this weekend: several seed stitch buttoned bracelets that are my "Goosebumps" series, a couple of wide buttoned cuffs, pet things.  Just a few sales is all I ask.  If you had told me last year that Christmas this year would be even grimmer, I wouldn't/couldn't have believed you.  But it is.  A year without a job does that to a holiday.

Good Company Makes A Good Meal

November 10, 2011

And I Read, Too

Just the other day, I told a friend of mine that Jose Saramago is my favorite author.  This weekend, I finished his Seeing, the sort-of companion to Blindness (one of my favorite books of all.)  It was, as all his work is, remarkable.  And though Saramago is my favorite author, my favorite writer is:

Heck, maybe he's my favorite reader, too!

Once I got finished with Seeing, I sped through two more books.  Both were fairly short, but so compelling it was hard for me not to read them.  One was Thunder Dog, about a blind man and his guide dog surviving the 9/11 attacks.  (ANYthing about service dogs --- I'm there.)  The other book was Scattershot, about a family with bipolar disorder.  And "family" here is literal --- both parents, and two of the three children suffer with it.  After all my mental health issues this year, it was both a comfort and a fright to read their struggle.

Knitting does continue.  I restarted Briton's Christmas sweater with a different color yarn --- just wasn't satisfied with my first choice.  I've got just a couple of facecloths to knit for Hannah, and all my knitting for her (so far as I know) will be done.  I'm doing little things for the etsy shop --- tree ornaments, brooches, that sort of thing.  I hope, I hope, I hope I get some traffic this year, because if I thought last year's Christmas was tough. . .  Twelve more months of unemployment have broken the back of this one.

Priorities

Before I give you the Tennessee slide show, and the bullet points of my trip to Nashville, let me say these things:

My darling Roxanne is blogging again!  The girl is HISSterical.  Give her a read.

The just-as-darling Jo reminds us that now's the time to knit scarves for the 2012 Special Olympics. I did this last time, and felt so involved.  Everything you need to know is here.

Go check out Knitter Bunny's fantastic double knitting rabbit scarf. It's her own design, and she did a great job.

Me?  I got some Christmas knitting done while I was gone.  Other details of my trip tomorrow!

Fall Comes to Athens

A fairly representative sample of the lack of color around here.  Too many pine trees, not enough leafed.

Still knitting like a fiend.  This project was to be for the etsy shop, but I am so in love with the feel and color of the yarn, I'm going to have to keep it for myself.  (It will be a cowl.)

The color is "Sweet Potato" from KnitPicks, and, I swear, I can smell and practically taste sweet potatoes when I just look at it.  I was skimming around the KnitPicks site the other day, and was devastated to see that this color is being discontinued.  Would that there were enough money in my bank account to buy all that they have.
Finished my first Who's Feet scarf:

 Thirteen feet and three inches altogether.  It will be given to the first Whovian I ever knew, my best friend Lisa.  (Who probably doesn't read this, so no worries.)

My Dear Twinnie

Just made these:

 Without a pattern.

I'm so proud.

The Scarfigan

Ingenious design, a favorite yarn, some buttons, and: