Happy Christmas to all!

Knitter's Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all around me
There was unfinished knitting not under the tree,
The stockings weren't hung by the chimney with care
'Cause the heels and the toes had not a stitch there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
But I had not finished the caps for their heads.
Dad was asleep---he was no help at all.
And the sweater for him was 6" too small.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I put down my needles to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash.
Tripped over my yarn and fell down in my stash.
The tangle of yarn that lay deep as the snow
Reminded me how far I still had to go.

When out on the lawn I heard such a noise,
I was sure it would wake up both Dad and the boys.
And although I was tired--my brain a bit thick,
I knew in a moment that it must be St Nick.

Yet what I heard left me very perplex-ed
For nothing I heard was what I expect-ed.
"Move Rowan! Move Patons! Move Koigu and Clover!
Move Shelridge! Move Starmore! Move Spinrite!
Move over!

Lopi, don't circle around, just stand there in line.
Pay attention you sheep and you'll work out just fine!
I know this is hard as it's just your first year
But I'd hate to go back to 8 tiny reindeer."

I peered over the sill. What I saw was amazing:
Eight wooly sheep on my lawn all a-grazing!
And then in a twinkle, I heard at the door
Santa's big boots stomping on the porch floor.

I rose from my knees and got back on my feet.
As I turned around, St Nick I did meet.
He was dressed all in wool from his heat to his toe
And his clothes were hand knit from above to below.

A bright Fair Isle sweater he wore on his back.
And his toys were all stuffed in an Aran knit sack.
His hat was a wonder of bobbles and lace
A beautiful frame for his rosey red face.

The scarf on his neck could have stretched for a mile,
And the socks peeking over his boots were Argyle.
On the back of his mitts was an intricate cable.
And suddenly on one I spotted a small label:

"S.C." in duplicate on the cuff.
So I asked, "Hey, Nick, did YOU knit all this stuff?"
He proudly replied, "Ho, ho, ho, yes I did.
I learned how to knit when I was just a kid."

He was chubby and plump, a well dressed old man,
And I laughed to myself, for I'd thought up a plan.
I flashed him a grin and jumped up in the air,
And the next thing he knew, he was tied to a chair.

He spoke not a word, but looked down in his lap
Where I had laid my needles and yarn for a cap.
He began then to knit, first one cap then 2--
For the first time I thought I might really get through.

He put heels in the stockings and toes in some socks,
While I sat back drinking a scotch on the rocks.
Quickly like magic his needles they flew,
Good Grief! He was finished by two!

He sprang for his sleigh when I let him go free,
And over his shoulder he looked back at me.
I heard him explain as he sailed past the moon,
"Next year, start your knitting sometime around JUNE!"

Let it Snow....

Or really I would rather it not. It has started to come down hard here and it's not supposed to stop until tomorrow. I am leaving work early I don't want to be stranded for Wyn's birthday!

Package Sent!!!!

I have sent my All Hollow's Eve swap package out! I had to mail it from the hotel I am staying at but it's all good. Here's a teaser pic....
I was happy with the way everythig came together so I hope my swapee is too.

Week 5's topic

If you could go anywhere at all to enjoy a wonderful fall vacation - where would you go and why? Somewhere you've been? Somewhere you've heard has amazing fall colors? Somewhere that's LESS fall-like than where you are?

I have heard that Vermont is beautiful in the fall and I would love to see it. As hard as it is to believe, I like IL in the fall. I live along a river and there is nothing prettier than driving along it with the trees changing. Not to mention being in the corn belt you really get a sense of what the season is all about, Harvest time.

Week 4 a questionaire

Q1: Where did the idea of Jack-O-Lanterns originate?
A) Scotland


Q2: Halloween is the 2nd most successful commercial Holiday - what's the first?
B) Valentine's Day

Q3: What is the intense fear of Halloween called?
B) Samhainophobia

Q4: The mask worn by Michael Meyers in Halloween (the Movie) was actually a mask of who?
D) No one - it was an old hockey mask

Q5: In 2004, what was the most popular Halloween Candy?
B) Snickers


And finally - tell us what YOUR favorite Halloween Candy is! I love that I have a kid who trick or treats! I try not to buy a lot of candy but she is great about sharing her loot. My favorite Halloween treat is popcorn balls. Especially homemade ones. Chocolates come in a close second with those Reeses pumpkins topping that list.

My Package Came!!!!

I received a wonderful package from my secret swap partner. It included a green cloth plus super soft mittens, Puma shower gel and cologne, nail polish (which my daughter loves!), hot cocoa mix, chicken soup mix and fabulous alpaca blend yarn in a lovely dusty blue.



The only problem is I can't figure out who to thank. I think I have read every ones blog and either I am really obtuse or I missed someone. So if this package was from you.... THANK YOU!!! I am a very happy spoilee.

Week three's topic a day late

What's the oddest/strangest/weirdest Halloween decoration you have ever gotten for your home? Or, if you've never had a "wow, did I REALLY buy that?!" moment - what's the strangest Halloween decoration you've seen somewhere else?


I don't think I have anything too odd (but that doesn't mean that someone with less refined taste might not find something ;) )! I do think the vintage grinning black cats and pumpkins are a bit creepy. They look more maniacal than happy to me. I am into the black silhouettes and apothecary jars for Halloween right now. Hallmark had a line out a couple of years ago that I loved (Hauntington).

This weeks topic

- What are your favorite parts of fall? How do you know it's truly arrived where you are?

I love fall! The crisp cool air, the smell of the damp earth, the brilliant colors.... What's not to love? There is something comforting about fall. It invokes images of curling up in a sweater with a good book or wrapping a fantastic hand knit scarf around your neck and taking a stroll. The thing I don't like is that it is fleeting. For me summer lasts too long and winter seems to never end but fall is like a "blink and you miss it" season.

The Big Read

I found this on the blog of AmberF. while working on this week's assignment for the All Hollows Eve Dish Cloth Swap and thoght it would be fun. If you've only read 36 of the 100 are you really well read?

The Big Read is an National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

*Look at the list and bold those we have read.
*Italicize those we intend to read.
*Underline the books we LOVE .

Share this list in your blog, too, if you like.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas in French
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery in French
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo in French

What a Summer

This has got to be the oddest, most stressful year I have had yet. Life just seemed to derail and it took a bit to get it back on track.
I am officially divorced. I still can't quite wrap my head around it. It happened so fast. I decided to file in April and we were almost divorced by the 4th of July except for a stupid parenting class we were forced to take. Once we got that out of the way it was over shortly there after.
I normally deal with stress pretty well but I think there was just too much this time. On top of the breakup of a 14 year relationship I had work complications as well. I love what I do, and most of the time I don't find it stressful at all, but the property I was at for six years was sold twice in about eight months. And then they tell me it is up for sale again....
Now do you think I could just get headaches or not be able to sleep or something annoying like that? Of course not. My stress decides to manifest in back issues. I ended up in the ER twice and had weeks where I couldn't hardly move and wasn't supposed to work. Needless to say I started looking for a new job. It happened so fast I wasn't quite ready for it. I applied on a Sat, interviewed on Wed and was offered the job on Thur. Two weeks later I became the GM at a new property.
It's hard to believe but I haven't had a bit of pain since I switched jobs! (I am knocking on wood right now)
The school year has started so now I have to include all of Wyn's activities into the schedule but even then I feel more relaxed and on top of things than I have in months.

It really doesn't surprise me......

You Belong in 1959

You're fun loving, romantic, and more than a little innocent. See you at the drive in!

What Year Do You Belong In?

All Hollows Eve Dishcloth Swap

Questionnaire
Knotting Yarn
1. Do you knit or crochet? For how long? Both for about 15 years.

2. What sort of needles or hooks do you enjoy using the most? Are there some you've been dying to try out and haven't? I am not picky, I love Harmony needles and I like Brittany as well.

3. What kind of projects do you most enjoy? Small things you can take with you, or big complex ones that are just gorgeous when they're done? I like small ones I need the instant gratification! I am trying to make myself start a large one.

4. List one pattern for a dishcloth that you love to make, or just tell us about one you've made or received that you loved.
5. What are your 'must have' notions? Are there any notions you need or can never have enough of? Any that might make you cry if you owned more? I just found a cable needle necklace that I am in love with and I love wooden tapestry needles though I have a hard time finding them.

Petting Yarn
6. What are your favorite yarns to work with? Any you hate or are allergic to? I love natural fibers and do not have any allergies.

7. What colors do you like to use in projects? Any we'd never catch on your needles? Blues and Greens are favorites I like muted colors over super bright ones.

8. Any cottons you'd like to try you can't find by you, or just haven't gotten around to getting? We do not have a LYS near us so anything that can't be bought at Wal-Mart is great!

Halloween, Fall, and General Stuff
9. Do you like to use bar soap or shower gel more? What kinds of scents do you love? What kind do you hate? Either, I like spicy or herbal scents over fruits and florals.

10. What's more 'Halloweeny' - Ghosts, Pumpkins, or Witches? Pumpkins

11. What's your favorite Treat to get? Sweet or Salty? Anything you're allergic to or just hate? I love Black Licorice and Dark Chocolate I don't like salty things as a rule.

12. What was your favorite Halloween Costume as a kid? As an adult?? As a kid I dressed up like Madonna a lot (typical child of the 80's) now a Witch is standard.

13. Are you on Ravelry? What's your ID? Rhea

14. Anything else you'd like to be sure your pal knows? not right now.

1. Do you knit, crochet, or both? both

2. What do you prefer to knit or crochet? socks What would you like to try to knit or crochet? lace shawls

3. What are your hobbies outside of knitting or crocheting? reading

4. Do you have any fiber allergies? no Fiber preferances? natural fibers

5. Do you have any favourite books, music, or tv shows? If so, what are they? Harry Potter, Anne of Green Gables, Monk and the Big Bang Theory

6. Do you have any pets? 1 dog and 7 cats

7. Do you prefer salty or sweet snacks? sweet

8. Do you prefer coffee or tea? tea

9. Aside black, which colours do you like/dislike? blues and greens especially peacock blue

10. What is your favourite time of the year? (season-wise or holiday-wise) fall

11. What is your favourite scent? cloves

12. What do you collect? books

13. If there's anything else you'd like your swappee to know, list them here:

But Baby it's COLD outside!

This has been one of the coldest weeks ever. We topped the scales today at a whopping -10. I have no intrest in doing anything except curling up and knitting in front of the TV. I can't wait for spring!
I am almost done with the second Nagini sock and will post pictures soon. After I finish that I have to decide what patten I want to use for the sock swap I am in. So many choices so little time.

Posts sent....

I have sent out posts to my sock swap partners! I love shopping and with the holidays over I don't get another good chance for awhile. Keeping a secret is hard, but I will do my best!

I received my name for the Harry Potter Sock Kit Swap and ideas are spinning in my head. I can't wait to start putting together my package, it's my first swap and I am a bit nervous. I am still reading a lot of other peoples blogs to get ideas. I am a huge planner and want to be very sure of everything I want to include.

Knitting as a Tribe

I picked up a magazine the other day and I haven't wanted to put it down. Check out http://www.livingcrafts.com/ . I am so in love with the knitted farm article that I am trying to get everyone I know to work on this with me. A group of 12 knitters from all over each worked to make squares of this playmat and then swapped so all of them had a complete set.

This one is by Fiona Duthie, check out her webiste too! http://fionaduthie.com/

I think its absolutly fantastic! So.... if any of you all want to join me I can't wait to cast on.

There are times....

when you just have to let it go. Panic only gets you so far, well lets admit it, panic pretty much leaves you in the same place you were before. My mantra for the day is "There is only so much you can do, and after that, just make sure your name isn't mentioned."
I am going to spend the afternoon with a cup of tea and a set of double pointed knitting needles. Woe to the person who causes me to frog!!!

Well, here goes ......

I swore I wasn't going to start a blog, and yet here it is. The posts will probably be short and sporadic. They may end up being all about knitting and raising an only child. I can't promise enlightenment or amusement, but if nothing else they may be cathartic for me.