Ho Ho Ho

Many Things shipped today! What's left to do is minimal: a Christmas stocking for the new boy, and a few loose ends on some other projects. I am feeling caught up, accomplished and close! to! done! and I have that nagging feeling that I am forgetting some thing....is it always thus?

The sunny weather helps, shops locally have been cheerful and uncrowded, which can be good or bad, depending on how you look at these things, and I have had lunches out with a few friends in these past weeks, so all in all a successful festive season.



I am planning to spin, listen to music and my book (The Goldfinch) as a quiet marking of the Solstice Saturday. With a fire going, spinning with a cup of tea, a book and a cat, it sounds like the perfect way to welcome the turning of the year.



Wishing you and yours a festive season, a wondrous Solstice, and 12 days and nights of Christmas full of friends and family, good food and good cheer.

A Giant Cupcake

The yurt looked like this most of the week! It was too cold to melt the snow, and thus clearly too cold to go down those stairs and turn on the heater. Plenty to do otherwise anyway, I've been working away in the house:



Final edits are done and sent back now (sorry for the sub-standard cell phone picture...I did not think to take a picture until I was in the car on the way to FedEx). People here and there have read it and given me feedback, corrected what errors we could find, but oddly, even with all those eyes looking, we will undoubtedly miss a few. Ah well!

I also made a warm hat for this happy little character:

but alas, forgot to take a photo! Imagine a blue hat, pointy and tasseled at the end :).

I have managed, toward the end of the week as the weather warmed a bit, to get the loom warped:



The colors are warm and inviting, and now the exercise of weaving it off is warming me up too! These are the colors of the sunsets these winter evenings, as each day and night brings us closer to the solstice.

Happy Friday the 13th! A day once thought lucky, especially for women, in honor of the Goddess Freya.

'Tis the Season

Busy!! as we all are this time of year: with two sons' birthdays, Thanksgiving with family, and preparing for Christmas, it's a blur. One son relocated, so I spent a few days helping and hauling, in the midst of the busy whirl.

This:



is one of the few photos of work-in-progress I can show as of now: it's not a gift, or a deadline knit, it's not for publication or anything! Just a time-filler, simple project for out and about or traveling. It is leftover-yarn-knitting: gloves, whether with fingers or not to be determined. It's been living in this grab-and-go bag:



A simple rip-stop nylon bag, made by a friend a few years ago. It's effectiveness makes it the go-to bag of the month: secure drawstring closure, lightweight and small, easy to pop into a larger bag, and the carabiner hangs it onto a strap, or my seat belt on airplanes. It holds yarn, scissors, markers and needles close at hand, nothing falls on the floor or rolls around or escapes, and it leaves me hands free to knit.

The Big News! is the acquisition of this:



1909 Singer 31-20, tailoring and upholstering machine, with a 1.5 horsepower motor. Whoop! I've been playing, practicing and learning how this works, and soon! I will have it down. It's a simple machine, made to sew straightforward seams, but it is strong, and durable. Heavy too, all cast iron, and serious!

Given the time of year, I will have to wait to learn its intricacies, but it is installed, and ready. And? I got it in trade for beads. I feel like I just bought Manhattan!

More soon! But until then: it's a continuing happy and productive advent season for me, and best wishes to you, whatever holiday you may choose to celebrate.