Rainbow Chills

Year End Knitting

In 2007 I finished:

• 2 sweaters for me (Santos and Hourglass)
• 3 Wallaby sweaters (2 in the 4 yo size, 1 in the 6 yo size)
• 1 pair of baby booties
• 6 pairs of socks (5 for me, 1 for Sockapalooza)
• 2 baby blankets
• 1 stole

I'm really happy that I finished two sweaters for myself this year. I hadn't finished one since Rogue, back in 2004.

I have many, many things unfinished right now.  I've got two unfinished baby blankets, 10 unfinished pairs of socks, 1 pair of gloves for Michelle, 1 tank, 1 sweater, and 1 shawl. I am determined to finish the baby blankets in the next two months. One of them is several years overdue and I want to give the recipient the blanket when we meet her for the first time in February.

I want to be more careful about what I start knitting and what I keep in my stash. I don't plan on making any other goals or resolutions in terms of knitting. I just want to be happy with what I'm knitting and happy with the yarn in my house. I feel pretty confident that I won't need to buy any yarn until Maryland in May. If I need to finish a project or make something special for a gift, I certainly will buy something but at this point, I've got plenty to keep me busy.

Thanks for hanging out with me this year.

Little Red Riding Hood

Picture swiped from my sister Cathy:

This is my niece Eve in her new Wallaby sweater. She likes wearing the hood up because she thinks she looks like Little Red Riding Hood. I made the sweater a little bit big in hopes that it will fit her next winter as well.

Merry Christmas

We had a great Christmas.

I made my nieces and nephew each a Wallaby sweater.

Here's Evie modeling her sweater.

Here I am explaining to Joshua that I still had five inches of hood to finish and that he couldn't keep the sweater. Argh.

And here's a sleepy Abigail using her sweater as a substitute blankie.

I started the sweaters back in November and would have finished Joshua's had I played fewer games of Sudoku over the past two months. I used an acrylic yarn called Leader by Phildar. It will be great for my sisters to be able to machine wash and dry these but this was a big reminder why I haven't used 100% acrylic yarn since my first few months as a knitter. It's not much fun to knit with. The yarn was purchased at Webs though if you are interested. They had a ridiculous color selection back when I bought the yarn in late summer.

Tomorrow, I'm spending the day with two knitting friends- Jody and Katy. I can't wait.

See you in 2008.

Christmas stuff

Christmas Meme

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  Both but mostly wrapping paper. It's much more fun than bags. I especially love kids opening presents surrounded by wrapping paper.
2. Real or artificial tree?  Artificial. We had an artificial tree growing up. Now, we always put the decorations up before Michelle's birthday (12/7) and I like to keep everything up until the Feast of the Epiphany. An artificial tree does that job well. Also, we live in an apartment and at times, we've lived in places where live trees were not allowed.
3. When do you put up the tree?  Typically, we decorate on Black Friday or that weekend but it was very early this year so we decorated the following weekend. The goal is to have everything up before Michelle's birthday.
4. When do you take it down?  After the Feast of the Epiphany (12 days after Christmas).
5. Do you like eggnog?  I don't know that I have ever had it but my hunch is no.
6. Favorite gift received as a child?  I have fond memories of getting my Cabbage Patch kids (an original in '83 and a preemie the following year). I always loved getting Barbie stuff and I remember my mother being so frustrated at my aunt and uncle for getting us the Barbie kitchen set which had something like "64 fabulous pieces.") She did not enjoy assembling that one.
   
7. Do you have a nativity scene?  Three. I put two out this year.
8. Hardest person to buy for?  My grandmom. She likes everything but she doesn't need anything.
9. Easiest person to buy for?  Michelle. My dad- he loves anything you give him. We joke that you could give him a used handkerchief and he would be thrilled. My nieces and nephew are also pretty easy.
10. Worst Christmas present you ever got?  I have two sets of aunts/uncles who used to buy gifts I didn't like. We were always taught to be very grateful for whatever we got though so I'm not one to complain about that or regift.
11. Mail or email Christmas cards?  We mail about 60 or 70 cards. Michelle made about 2/3 of them this year and we sent cartoon-y cards to folks with little kids.
12. Favorite Christmas movie?  Where to begin...we had so many Christmas movies and so much Christmas music that we start playing it on November 1 to get it all in. In terms of actual feature length movies, White Christmas, It's A Wonderful Life, and Muppet Christmas Carol are my favorites. I adore animated Christmas specials though and have many on tape and dvd.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?  Usually around Thanksgiving although I often don't start shopping for Michelle until after her birthday. We're done shopping for the families but I stil have a few things to get for Michelle.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?  Michelle is pretty transparent about regifting. When people come over who she thinks might like something that we don't, she offers it to them. We don't rewrap things and pretend we bought it. At work, we have a regifting exchange at the holiday party. Everyone brings a regift and we do a pirate pollyanna. I sort of hate it because I just end up with a different piece of junk than I had to begin with. It's fun to see other people's weird gifts though.
15. Favorite thing to eat on Christmas?  When I was a kid, my mom started making Pillsbury Cinnamon buns on Christmas because there was too much going on to have a big breakfast. My sister Cathy and I have both carried this on in our adult lives. I also like to eat my mother's Christmas dinner which is identical to Thanksgiving. My mom also gets caramel smidgens from Gertrude Hawk that I love. Oh, and she makes these Crunchy Jumble cookies too.
    
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree?  Clear.
17. Favorite Christmas song?  In terms of Carols, I'll say O Holy Night. But I could go on and on and perhaps I will over the next two weeks.
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?  Home. Even when we go to my sister's for Christmas, it's just for a few hours and the drive is about 1.5 hours each way. We have way too many traditions in my family to go anywhere. And Michelle and I will never give up our pajama day on the 26th.
19. Can you name all of Santa's Reindeer?  Yes. Duh.
20. Angel or star on top of tree?  Angel, although our Angel is quite fairyish which we like.
21. Open presents Christmas Eve or morning.  Morning except for one package. We always opened one present when I was a kid- new pajamas. Michelle and I have continued this tradition at our house.
22. Most annoying thing this time of year?  Obligation events, though I do a pretty good job at not going if I can help it.
23. Do you decorate your tree in any theme or color? No. Both Michelle and I grew up in families where the tree was reflective of the family- craft ornaments, pictures of the kids, ornaments we had received as gifts. We each have a Rudolph ornament that we put on our family's Christmas tree. It's fun for the whole family to decorate the tree if it is reflective of everyone. My mom's best friend decided one year that she wanted only angels on her tree. It was beautiful but every year she decorated it by herself because it wasn't fun for anyone else- the ornaments didn't have any memories or stories with them.
24. What do you leave for Santa?  As a kid, we left cookies out for Santa. He always left an empty beer bottle out with the empty cookie plate. I think it may have been an accident the first time but it was so funny that it became a tradition. Only in recent years have I learned that Santa drank beer at other people's houses. I thought we were the only ones.
    

I got this from Teresa C. Take it if you want and let me know in the comments so I can read about your Christmas traditions.
 

It begins

We decorated our tree last night. I love my very liturgically incorrect advent wreath- three glittery red candles and one silver. 

We live in a small apartment- between 600 and 700 square feet. These are the bins of Christmas tree stuff. There are two more big totes (the size of the bottom one) and one medium one that contain the other decorations- the Village pieces, Nativity, Rudolph figurines, etc.

MIchelle insists that I include the disclaimer that our decorations would take up much less storage space if I didn't insist on keeping the box for every decoration. It's the way my mom did it and while I don't do everything in my life according to my mom's example, I think the way that she handles the Christmas decorating is just right.

Our tree tells a lot about us- the we love Little Women, fairies, Rudolph, cooking, Barbie, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Peanuts, knitting and travel. We get a number of new ornaments each year, including ones from any trips we take.

We got a few ornaments in Rehoboth this summer but my favorite may be this one.

There hasn't been a substantive knitting post here since mid-August. I actually have been knitting a little over the past few weeks. I plan to put my most recent finished project on Ravelry later today. Stop by there for more info.