Knitting Karma Baby!!

Buddy of mine, Craig, has a sister named Juliet. She came to visit him in Germany this summer and when I met her, she was sitting on a barstool at Finnegan's downtown knitting a sock. I was so excited; I jumped up next to her and whipped out my current sock project. There were loads of comments and much rolling-of-eyes from her brother and my boyfriend, but we had a cute little knitterly moment that day. We talked about price of wool, KIPping and how her major hobby is making glass beads. Couple of weeks later, Craig was over one Saturday night to play cards and drink beer (a typical crazy night at Casa la Treanor LOL) and mentioned that he was heading home in a couple of days to surprise Juliet for her birthday. I immediately gathered a couple of balls of sock wool and sent him home with a very warm birthday present for his sister. Juliet was so happy with her socky present that she sent me something for Christmas. Look (and turn green with envy) at my beautiful new bracelet - a Juliet Page original:



And now some overdue Christmas photos:

Cian before dumping the contents of his stocking - I think he's just a little delighted with his sled.


Dave is carving the turkey (and I use that term loosely) ;)



Better picture of everyone else:

'Twas the Christmas Disaster (Averted)

It was two days 'til Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring 'cause I kicked them all out!
You! Time for bed and you! to the pub!
I've got gifts to knit here and I won't be slowed up!

I curled up on the couch with a red bucket hat
Only a few rows more and that would be that.
Then what to my wondering eyes did appear,
My Denise cord snapped and my eyes they did tear.

What horrible luck, what a bad end to the year,
To destroy a knitting notion that I held so dear!
And what of the hat that was due the next day?
Must my friend warm her head some other way?

With a few tips and tricks I finagled a plan,
Thread in another cord and all will be grand.
It took some hard work since the yarn it was doubled,
But the motiviation inside continuously bubbled.

A couple of naughty words and many minutes later,
My hat was ready to finish and would be all the greater.
Woolly and fluffly with eyelash on the trim,
Sits the end product on my head while I pet the brim

Now my friend knows how to knit and respects the time put in,
All of my gifts to her are received with a grin,
And it's not like knitted gifts ever break my back,
But will she ever know this gift nearly gave me a heart attack?!

Now the excitement is over and I'm ready for bed,
While visions of LYS Gift Certificates dance in my head.
And I wish to you all, lacking more time to write,
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!

And, Santa, can you please amend my list to add one replacement cord for my Denise set? I promise to take better care of it this time and not subject it to the rigors of doubled and tripled yarn - no matter how cute the hat ;)

p.s. This is dedicated to Steph (you know who you are) who inspired me to challenge myself with LOTS of Christmas gift knitting - I've shocked myself with how many of the projects I was able to complete :) Thanks for that!

p.p.s Here's the hat, teddy was kind enough to model it for me and do his best Paddington Bear impression. Really, he's great with impressions - you should see him do Zsa Zsa Gabor with a scarf! LOL



Oh yeah - Cian says hi. He went to the salon to get his hair cut today and she added some spray-in hair colour. He wasn't too happy when she mentioned it would wash right out with shampoo. Any volunteers to try and get him into his next bath???

Dahling...

Currently knitting the Flower Basket Shawl from Fall 2004 Interweave Knits. Found soft, soft mohair/acrylic mix called Hair by Schachenmayr. I never thought I would be this excited by lacey girly stuff, but it's really cool to knit and, as long as I keep the lifelines in (the white lines of wool you see after every repeat-just in case I really screw up) I don't freak out when I have to rip out a row or two. Have to admit, I really like the colour, too. It looks less purply and more periwinkle off-camera. Hopefully, all the holds between the stitches will make sense after blocking - the pattern writer said so :)


Christmas decorations are coming along nicely. I'll spare you the job I did on the roof window - had to be all cutesy and fashion the multi-coloured lights into a Christmas tree shape. Hope the neighbors are impressed - the Irishman sure isn't. LOL So I present the garland-wrapped banister (kid friendly as the garland is wrapped around the bottom and not the top) complete with intertwined lights :)

If you're looking closely, you'll see the jacket my sister quilted for me last year (from Mary Engelbreit fabrics, thank you!) and underneath it the quilt Mum gave me for my 21st (great for nursing hangovers - talk about good timing) and Goonies playing on the computer monitor. I can't remember the last time I saw Goonies - I forgot how much fun it was to watch. Think I'll make some popcorn to watch the rest with. Goodnight World :)

Trimming the Tree

Note to self: buy more ornaments - with SOME colour in them.
The straw/wood ornament thing is quite quaint, but gets old after you cover your tree with it. Kids had enough fun hanging stuff on the tree today, I'll just save the rest of the job for them to do next weekend - at the very least, it'll keep them quiet/busy for at least an afternoon ;)
Funny thing is Germans traditionally put up their tree on Christmas Eve. Tree stays up for a week, maybe for the full 12 days of Christmas (until Epiphany). Moral of the story, our brand new, super sturdy, better than the best tree stand is about 1.5 inches deep and 6 inches wide, at the most. Tree is standing next to the heater for the next 5 weeks and right in front of the smoking window. I plan on checking the water everyday. Am also thinking of moving most-precious things to the cellar so that they don't burn down with the apartment...
At least with all the straw ornaments it'll burn clean and hopefully not release any noxious fumes.

Snowy View from Apartment

Snowy View from our apartment this past Monday. The next morning everything was covered and then all gone by noon. Still pretty :)