Good & Not So Good

I do not really do a lot of Christmas knitting.  For some of the more recent Christmases, I have had several gifts to give that were actually samples knit throughout the year for teaching or design work.  I am not sure why, but this year there was not so much of that.

Each of my children received a hand knitted gift...

I gave my amazing daughter the original Jonna Cowl (which I did get back from Quince & Co sometime late in the summer).  My daughter loves it, and I know that she appreciates it... there are photos of it all over the world.

I gave my equally amazing son two golf club covers that I mostly knit for him during the car rides to and from Washington DC to see "A Christmas Carol".

After making two of these, I saw that he moved his golf bag from the trunk of his car into the garage.  I also saw that he already had several 'high tech' club covers.

One thing that the high tech covers do not have is personalization... The zig-zag design is a reference to "a Charlie Brown sweater" he has told me he might like me to make for him someday. 

There also was some not so successful Christmas knitting this year... 

I previously shared my husband's sock issue in a November post titled Sad Sock.  I did hunt down the best sock yarns in the house to knit the tops with, but so far I have not been able to pick them back up again.  (I have a hard time knitting something that I know will be ugly.)  (I will eventually decide to start a whole new pair.)

For my very "knit worthy" sister, I made a quick Christmas cowl, but it was not "gift worthy".  I am going to be brave and show you just how bad it looked on me.  I took this photo with my iPad.

It was too soft to stand up nicely.  And it was too stiff to drape in any way even remotely attractive.  Maybe it was too wide.  Mostly it was just floppy.  Like I said, my sister is "knit worthy" and deserves better.  So now it looks like this.

Midweek Meditation

“Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found.”       

                                                                                ~  Lao Tzu

Keep it simple.  Keep it real.  Have a very happy 2013!

Snowed In

During most of the daylight hours today it snowed.  I chose to remain snowed in.  Good news for me as today I finally began to get ahead of the knitting muses that have been working against me.  I will let you know more about this soon.

When I looked out the door to our deck during all that snowing, I noticed the wind chimes.  (Maybe they should have been put away for the winter?)  This is my newest one.  It was a family gift for my (summertime) birthday.

The parrot looked so out of place, but so colorful.  He made me happy.

There will be more snow shoveling tomorrow, but there will also be more knitting.

Just one of many...

traditions...

When I was young, my dear mother liked to burn bayberry candles on Christmas Eve.  She told me that it was good luck to let them burn all the way down.

I recently learned that this tradition has colonial American roots and that there is a poem, with some variations, that usually ends... "a bayberry candle burned to the socket, will bring joy to the heart and gold to the pocket."
 

This year, we burned our candles for Christmas Eve dinner and then through the night.  My daughter was up late watching them burn.  She gave me 'permission' to use her Instagram photo.
  

 

All that was left in the morning was a bit of blackened wick in each holder.  I think that we are in luck.

Wishing for the same light, love, and luck, to you and yours!

Midweek Meditation

“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”

                                      ~ Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

I greatly enjoyed the Saturday matinee performance of A Christmas Carol at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC this past weekend.  I sat in the second row and loved all the actors, young and old, the costumes (so beautiful), and the singing of a great many Christmas Carols!  Fantastic!  

I wish that I could share an image from the performance, but of course that cannot be.  My photo is of the legendary Presidential Box.

From the program: "Ford’s Theatre celebrates the legacy of President Abraham Lincoln and explores the American experience through theatre and education. A working theatre, historical monument, world-class museum and learning center, Ford’s Theatre is the premier destination in Washington, D.C., to explore and celebrate Lincoln’s ideals and leadership principles: courage, integrity, tolerance, equality and creative expression."

I do find it interesting that Lincoln and Dickens were contemporaries, having lived their lives during the same period of time.  Also from the program, "Dickens's and Lincoln's lives were woven by common threads: family hardship resulting in tough labor during childhood and a desire to treat all people fairly and charitably...This holiday season, and at all times, let us remember both Scrooge's lesson learned and Lincoln's legacy, which call us to live and act 'with malice toward none; with charity for all.'" 

Midweek Meditation

 "my body is here

but my heart is at the beach"

I have been gradually getting myself into Holiday Mode.  I do enjoy the holidays, but I also strive to balance the busyness of it all.  After work yesterday, in between a doctor's appointment and getting back home to make some dinner, I stopped at Bee Hive Gift Shop for their open house.  I bought some lovely jewelry gifts for my daughter and two nieces.

At the check out, as the proprietress wrapped my gifts, I faced this wall.

The Christmas figures on the mantle and the paper letters taped to the wall were perfect... a reflection of just where my own head has been lately... (remember my last post?)  When I asked her (Patty, the shop owner) if she would mind if I took a photo, she said, "of course not", and she told me that her daughter had made the letters and put them up for her.  (Daughters are like that.)  And then she went into a little monologue about beaches... homes in the mountains (she did not want one)... and such.  She rightly assumed that I was totally in agreement with her on the beachfront thing.

As I prepare for my own Christmas Holiday, I have been remembering Seven Mile Beach... where I was just one year ago...

 

Just Remembering...

my 2011 late November trip to Grand Cayman Island...

I was walking my dog under drizzling gray skies this morning, and I began to remember some photos that I took... some with Christmas decorations...

It was very good remembering...

FO: Tweeds in Balance

Pattern: Equilibrium Cowl by Carolyn Kern

Yarn: The Fibre Company, Acadia

Ravelry Project Page: Tweeds in Balance

There is something amazing that happens when beautiful tweed yarns are used in colorwork.

This project began and ended in October.  I worked on it at Rhinebeck.  I wore it to Gosh Yarn It! when Courtney Kelley and Kate Gagnon Osborn -- knitwear designers, teachers, authors, and distributors of The Fibre Company yarns -- came with their trunk show on November 3.  I bought their newest book which they autographed for me.  It was great to meet them.

Midweek Meditation

“I only hope that we don’t lose sight of one thing – that it was all started by a mouse."

“The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique.”    
                                             ~ Walt Disney, born December 5, 1901

Photo credit:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/shannon-vaughan/5341460493/lightbox/