Three years & I've still got the touch...

Well, my boss is gone & I’ve made it through my first end-of-month close on time & with my sanity intact (mostly) - now I get to enjoy a day of rest to catch up. First thing on the list (after a shower, breakfast, & reading the paper) is to catch up with my blog friends.

Vacation was blessedly quiet & uneventful; I kept up a rigorous routine:

 

1.      Sleep until 7:30 or 8:00

2.      Eat

3.      Do one errand

4.      Eat

5.      Nap

6.      Read

7.      Eat

8.      Watch TV & Knit

9.      Bed by 10:00

 

The weather cooperated with this stringent schedule, by being staying cold, wet, & stormy, so I was never tempted to deviate from my regime of sloth.

Jessica ended up spending a couple days with us for the holidays; the guys drove down Christmas Eve to pick up, while I stayed home to cook dinner~ ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, corn muffins, & picked up my favorite pumpkin pie from Costco. We invited the guys- Jerry & Don- over & had a great evening, eating, laughing & sharing stories.

While she was here, Jess asked me to show her how to knit; evidently, she met a group of knitters that gets together at a coffee shop close to her apartment & has developed the itch to play with yarn.

 

 

She caught on pretty quickly, finishing an 18” practice piece in the first day; I think if she sticks with it & is willing to ask for help from her group, she’ll develop the knack. After binding off her practice piece, she wondered aloud what she should do with it; as a lark, she draped it across our old lady Daisy’s shoulders as she waddled by. Surprisingly, an hour later, Daisy was still wearing it, so we sewed a big button on one end & she now sports an original designed Cat-Shawl.

 

 

I sent her home with several sets of needles, enough yarn for a couple small projects, & a beginner’s book for inspiration. I’ve written about my own need to create, what it means to my life & sanity; it’s my prayer that Jess finds that for herself.

It was a “Knitter’s Christmas” for me this year; the guys got me Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s new book Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again, two gift certificates to the local yarn store, & handmade yarn swift. What is a yarn swift, you ask?

 

 

It’s a tool to wind hanks of yarn- which are difficult to knit from without tangling- into more manageable center pull balls.

 

I found some photos of a tabletop model that I saw at Stitches last year, so the guys put their heads together, raiding their collective stashes of scavenged materials, & created this collapsible swift out of solid oak. The funny part was- they all rushed over here on Christmas afternoon, so they could watch me use it for the first time; even though they had built it, none of the men could figure out what I was going to do with it- but now they’re already tweaking the design & planning some improvements J

 

 

I had best get going; we’re having dinner with some friends tonight & I need to fix something for to take for dessert. I hope your New Year has been shaping up nicely- so far, so good around here- & I’ll leave you with a few random photos from Christmas.