As the sun sets on 2007, I would like to thank you all for coming by my corner of the Web; for all the comments you have left; for the support and encouragement as I have faced the challenges and trials of the year; for the joy you have shared in my triumphant and happy moments. The blogging experience would have been a lonely one without you, my friends.
May I wish you a peaceful, inspirational, challenging (in the right ways, of course!), and, above all, happy 2008!
After all the stockinette for Tim’s Big Bad Avast (which still needs a zip, but should be done for, ooh, say, his birthday. In March.), I fancied something a little more tricksy to occupy my sofa time over the Christmas week. Surprisingly, this little beauty only took me two days, which I attribute entirely to the miracle of needleless cables. I used two balls of DB Alpaca Silk from my stash, having bought 12 balls in six not-entirely complementary shades in the legendary Knit Happens sale last year, and almost finished up the second ball, so this will be a great stashbuster pattern for presents next year (getting ridiculously ahead of myself here). Despite what Fussypants here says, the yarn is completely non-scratchy, soft and incredibly warm, if a little splitty to knit with. It doesn’t show the cables as well as the original yarn used by BT, but I am pretty fond of the finished result.
Unfortunately, although this hat was actually destined to keep my ears warm throughout January, the close fit makes me look a little egg-heady. There was photographic evidence of this, but it somehow miraculously disappeared… I might try it again though, with one less repeat (this is the women’s size but fits T perfectly as you can see) and using the larger needles to prevent the bottom ribbing from scooping in around my cheekbones.
Pattern: Koolhaas Hat by Jared Flood from the KnittingDaily online pattern store
Yarn: Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk in ‘Sage’ (06, I think)
Needles: 4mm Pony 16″ circular and 5mm Clover bamboo dpns
Modifications: None, but will need to modify for laydeez if intend to knit in this yarn again.
Photo taken by my brother.
May you find peace amidst the hustle and bustle, and may the sorrows of this world be put aside for a short while in the light and love of family and friends this Christmastide.
Christmas Bells
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Being a rather bossy child, I very much enjoyed having a younger brother to play with, as my slight age advantage meant that I led playtime the majority of the time. I remember one of my favourite games involving a blue British Airways blanket that my parents had snagged from a trans-continental flight a few years before my birth. We would spread the blanket out in the corridor of our then home in Virginia, and my brother and I would pile onto it with books, binoculars made of toilet paper tubes, and our ‘pith helmets’ (probably baseball caps, although I cannot be certain). Prior to launching our Amazonic raft, we would arrange our soft toys along the wall of our shared bedroom opposite the doorway where we had so carefully positioned our raft, so that as we cleared the densely overhanging foliage that lined the river side, we could snatch a glimpse of the various fauna endemic to the region. ‘Look,’ I would cry, ‘a lesser-spotted, ringtailed pazuma!’ (or somesuch). ‘Quick, Professor Bumbleforth, you must find the creature’s entry in Dr. Hannibal’s Fearsome and Most Deadly Animals of the Amazon Basin” and we shall learn more of its habits.’ ‘Why I declare, Dr. Handsworth-Smyth,’ he would reply, ‘the esteemed doctor has no record of the lesser-spotted, ringtailed pazuma. We have made a most fortuitous discovery!’ ‘Hurrah and huzzah!’ we would cry, before running off for tea. Of course, it is highly unlikely we spoke to one another like that. We were only seven and four, after all. (Serendipitously, about seven years later we actually found ourselves on a real boat floating on the Amazon, but that’s another story for another time.)
Now that we are all growed up, we lead very separate lives and do not see each other very often. Probably because we are very different people, we have not always seen eye to eye, and I remember having some vicious fights when we were teenagers. R has always been much more self-assured than I have, and has a sense of self and purpose that I have oftimes envied. For example, his life’s goal, since he was about three years old, was to be a commercial airline pilot (despite my various attempts to convert him to zoology and Amazonian exploration). My bro just spent four months in Arizona doing his practical flight training, and I missed him surprisingly much. Definitely the best Christmas present I will receive this year is seeing him again, especially now that he is officially licensed to fly airliners. Congratulations, R! I am so, so proud of my not-so-little brother. I hope you remember all the good times we shared exploring the deepest, darkest jungle when you get to choose your “friends and family” ticket holders – tickets from Australia aren’t cheap, you know!
The start of something big. I should point out that these were taken about a month ago and it has been languishing in a cupboard ever since waiting for that far off distant day I have a couple of spare hours.
*Yes, I skipped over P. P was holding me back. There is so much to say about P that it was scaring the, um, p outta me that I could not easily turn the big thoughts into eloquent words here. I may revisit P, I may not.
One of the first groups I joined on Ravelry was the Chocolate group (do I need to explain this? Really?) Pretty much the first thing I did was sign up to the Chocolate + Yarn swap (again – really?)
So, I got my swap package from CathywithaC about two weeks ago, but y’all know me, takes a while to get photos in deepest, dankest Middlesex. Cathy had mentioned that when she went to take the package to the post office the first time it was going to cost her about $60 to mail the thing – SIXTY BUCKS! That is frackin’ crazy (and also, how much more does it make me love Royal Mail? Actually fairly reasonable pricing. But don’t tell them I said so.) Anyway, me being me, I told her to ditch the chocolate…and just send the yarn. My addiction, apparently, know no bounds (although she did send chocolate covered coffee beans – we had a wonderful caffeine-fueled trip down to Salisbury).
Cathy is very good at this swapping thing. She knows what a sockaholic like me needs. I need Koigu.
I also need American brands that we can’t get over here.
And good lord, but I need vintage Vogue. Look at the weeny waist-age. At the styling poses. At the tight curls going on here.
I guess you could argue that actually, I don’t need Koigu, or Knit Picks or Vogue. I need water, and air, and food (although that is debatable at the moment), but I don’t need knitting stuff.
But you would be oh, so, wrong.
Vintage girl’s cardigan with contrast trim and ponies with tassel tails. I think I need to lie down.
Hello?
If you’re still here – big mwah. The past two weeks have been, well, they have been. And they are still. But a week today it should all ease off, and I can breathe again. Some more photos at the weekend (or sooner, maybe), I promise.
By the way, if you like your Christmas music alternative, check out the Folk Alley Holiday Music Stream. It’s free (although, if you like what you hear, why not make a donation?) and you can listen through a variety of different media. Eclectic is not the word, my friends!
My Monkey Sock Swap package arrived in the mail from Laura in DC (this is the first of a few awesome packages I have received recently). In addition to the very comfortable Koigu Monkeys, Laura included a cuddly monkey, the Rhiannon sock pattern from Cookie A., and an incredibly generous copy of ‘Scarf Style’. Wierdly, and by happy co-inkidink, I picked up my parcel from the post office on the way to the library to drop off my borrowed (and overdue, ahem) copy of this book. Laura, you psychic, wizard-like creature, you!
But the very best thing about my package?
SOCKS THAT ROCK!! Goodness, but how exciting is it to receive your very own skein of a yarn that everybody on the American blogs raves about, but you cannot get easily? Extremely, that’s how frackin’ exciting! And the colour (Backstabber) is just perfect for me – hot pink shading to aubergine: mwah! (Of course, you can’t see this in the above photo because the sun decided to die right about the time I got round to taking these pictures).
Laura, thank you for an awesome swap package! I love everything, and I am definitely saving this yarn for myself!
