Solitude

After the December holidays, I like to have a day to myself to gather my thoughts and reorganize the occupations that make life meaningful. I love friends and family and the time spent together during these festive weeks is always wonderful. But I find myself craving some solitude at the end... just one day to calm my mind and order my thoughts.

In keeping with this day of solitude, here is one of the projects that I made for a Christmas gift, the Solitude Tippet.



The pattern is Saroyan (Ravelry link) and it's a quick and very pleasant knit. It's written as a scarf, but as you can see, I shortened it to a tippet (a Victorian neck-warmer) to fit the hand-spun skein I had. It can also be lengthened and widened to make a shawl, something I plan to do for the winter Ravelympics. Saroyan is knit end to end, from narrow end to wide center to narrow finish, creating the leaves as you go.



My skein of worsted-weight yarn is from Solitude, a "small batch artisan yarn from the fleece of Tunis sheep blended with red alpaca." It was 120 yards, and nature dyed with Cochineal, a beautiful rose-grey. I used the entire skein, with just a three-inch tail at start and finish.



I think the recipient liked it - it certainly looked great on her - but you know how it is with handmade gifts. Do people really like them? I do. So I guess that's why I keep making and giving them. I live in hope.

Christmas travels

It's hard to imagine that almost four months have passed since we had a new addition to the family. Although I've made a lot of baby things - as my project pages on Ravelry will attest - I haven't made as many as my friend Nad, who is a kind of knitting wizard!

Here you can see the results of her nimble fingers: a Baby Tomten being modeled in action.



She used a beautiful multi-coloured fingering weight yarn (which must have taken forever on little needles) and all the colours blended so perfectly. I highly recommend this pattern, although I haven't made it myself. It's easy to get on and off a wriggly baby and has that adorable pointy hood! This particular Tomten is getting a lot of use!

It's coming on Christmas

It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

I can tell that Christmastime is coming... It's been snowing - lots - and kids are ice skating in the streets (no traffic)... and the only movies on the TV are sappy Holiday romances (girl returns to hometown, finds love she left behind, rejects him again, snow storm strands them alone where they become convinced that life together is not that bad, Christmas marriage, Rinse, Repeat). I can also tell its Christmas because I have projects that I can't reveal on the internet. Was there ever a time when you could post your holiday projects and your entire social network wasn't watching?? I didn't think so, but thought I'd ask....

Finally, though, I've completed an old WIP and it's just for me, me, me!



Simply Lovely Lace Socks
Yarn: 2 skeins Debbie Bliss Cashmerino
Needles: DPNS US size 0
Size: Women's 6.5 (small)

I started these Simple Lace Socks (which are not simple, may be lace, and are definitely socks) when they first came out in a summer edition of Interweave Knits. It was 2006. Does anyone else have socks they've worked on for FOUR years? I made classic mistakes: I used Debbie Bliss Cashmerino - not a sock yarn - and chose the smallest needle size in the pattern, which was meant for light fingering weight - size 0 - and I used the cast on and stitch count for the lightest yarn choice. This all resulted in the tightest lace stitches imaginable: not a comfortable or enjoyable knit at all. I struggled through the first one, just past the heel gusset and then, understandably, abandoned these in favour of other things.

But I always remembered how pretty they were and how perfect it would be to actually wear them with my summer shoes... So this year, in spite of the ever increasing holiday obligations of handmade gifts, I pulled out the project bag in which they slept, woke them up, dusted them off (so to speak), and whipped right through them. The only glitch...and one you can't see because of creative picture-taking... was that I ran out of yarn for the tip of the final toe graft of the second sock - I needed only 5 inches. Yes, 5 inches of yarn!

I used a bit of Cashmerino from the odds-and-ends bin... It was purple.