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 :)

Say Chiiiiic!

My big Christmas idea was to knit hats for everyone. Patterned hats, fuzzy hats, chic hats dorky hats and everything in-between. At a shopping spree this weekend I went a little nutty at the local Idee (German Michael's) and got a couple of pairs of really cool stripey wool from Gedifra and a handful of colours of Schachenmeyer Merino and Extra for a patterned hat for the Irishman (who, it turns out, is quite the colour picker).
Long story short, I found this pattern through Google yesterday and decided that would just be the coolest thing for the lady friends instead of hats. To knit a full 14 inches, I think it'll take more than my two balls.
Need to get an extra ball of wool tonight to finish this. But it is mega soft and silky feeling am thinking I might need one of these this winter, too. :)

Big Fat Update and man-am-I-late-to-read-this! WTF????
Pharamacists are refusing to fill birth control prescriptions because of their religious beliefs.
Great Response here.

And we thought history never repeats.....nah, we just kind of regress.

Tadaaaaaa!

Look Ma! I finished one of your socks. Mum sent me the book and I loaned her my Knitting on the Road - Nancy Bush junkies, that's us :) Anywho - she sent me the book with not-so-subtle post-it notes commenting on which designs she thought particularly pretty. And I'm so proud to have the done the extra repeats on the foot part thus proving that I didn't lift this picture from the book AND that I can in fact knit a two-stranded sock that can be pulled on to a live human foot (very vague referrence to my third ever sock-knitting attempt, wherein I thought Fair Isle looked pretty but then couldn't get the freakin sock over my ankle).

Proof

See? I wasn't lying - I did do more than party this weekend. Did I mention that we found Ben & Jerry's ice cream in Germany this weekend? That's right baby - Ben AND Jerry's ice CREAM in a pint in many flavors and even some flavors mixed together. Friday evening, I was cooking Italian in the kitchen (you know, just minding my own business, baking some garlic bread) and Neal walks in with a plastic bag from the gas station. He starts pulling stuff out and setting it on the counter on the other side of the bag and me, in full-garlic-bread-focus; caught a glimpse of something pint-ish and frozen out of the corner of my eye. Poor Neal jumped about a foot when I turned on him and squealed "What the f*** was that?!!" His meek answer of "ice cream?" No, I'm serious, what was that? And then he showed me the pint. One beautiful, lonely pint of Half-Baked. God bless me father - civilization has finally found Germany. It's okay, I told the Irishman, you don't have to worry about me running off home anymore. Family I can call on the phone, but Cookie Dough Ice Cream from Vermont just never answers.... Now we have found each other again - girl and ice cream; we are one.
If you think I'm being dramatic about some frozen dairy in a paper can, you should have seen the reaction at the dinner table that evening. 5 Adults and 2 kids, each with one spoon fighting over a pint of ice cream that was frozen solid. All of us hacking away at the solid block of creamy goodness until the kids fought over who was going to lick the lid. And to make things even better - Neal and Iveira came over again Saturday night.....and brought 2 pints of Ben & Jerry's for dessert :)


This doily felt like knitting dental floss and man did I knit the floss out of it. Knit, knit, knit - yarn over and k2togs all over the place and it did cross my mind at one point that someone had once suggested to carry a piece of string through lace knitting every 10 rows or so. It was about that time that I realized my count was off a little, by one stitch and I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out where or what happened. But that's okay, that's why we do test pieces. This was a swatch really - I mean it was wool, what was I going to do? Actually rest a wet glass on 100% wool? I knew all along, it was just an exercise in yarn-overs and k2togs; now that I've got'em mastered, I'm ready to begin my real lace knitting.
Behold: the Dog-Eared Doily (pre-rip).

There Was Something About Yarn and Needles

Oh yeah, I remember : knitting.
It's not all about Canadian Immigration these days. I did loads of knitting over the weekend.
Well, not loads, but I got in a lot considering I entertained Friday and Saturday night - did shopping on Saturday and brunch on Sunday.
I started and finished another Christmas sock on Saturday night from this link and worked on a doily with a star from this link .
I've done some yarn-over's and picot edgings before, but never really concentrated oh-my-god-these-needles-are-freakin-tiny lace knitting. I only screwed up one section and the Irishman couldn't even see it. :)
I finished the heel and gusset on the Jaggedy-arsed socks - mere minutes remain until we start making sacrifices to the evil god Kitchener.
And I started a lovely little hat (from the Fall Interweave) should be made with Manos del Uruguay but I have some hand-spun alpaca from the Appalachains and I thought I might just make a little something for She Who Likes Alpaca for Christmas. If her royal Alpacaness can't remember making this request like over a year ago (yeah, I know, takes me a while to catch a hint) then I certainly hope she likes surprises :) @[smiley: Surprise: [13/13_1_14]]

Because I just can't get enough.... 

Therapy

The above two were found at Almost Felted.





This reminds me of a bumper sticker my sister saw: Republicans for Voldemort!

Please make it stop hurting!!!

The Irishman asked if he could get me anything, a glass maybe - I asked for a straw.
I'll search the internet tonight - I'm sure somewhere there's a 12-step program for ex-pats from a facist regime. Don't tell anyone, but I'm thinking about defecting to Canada...."just 'cross the border and into the city/won't have to drive too far/finally see what it means to be living" not sure if those lyrics were in the right order - might be the Smirnoff typing at this point.
Have to admit, I was surprised at my reaction. I was the one spouting last week "oh, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets elected again - he's got the country scared stiff with color-coded terror alerts" and when I read that Kerry conceded to Butthead this morning, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. I finished my last two hours at work somehow and traveled home in a daze (bouts of don't-cry-at-work were followed with don't-cry-on-the-ubahn) and made it to the front door. By the time I reached the bedroom, I couldn't see anymore, my eyes filled with tears and I blubbered like a 13 year old girl who just learned that Mom and Dad did not, in fact, take MommaKitty away to live her days out on a farm.... Embarrassed that I was, at 29, still filled with school-girl hope that the country would see the light and elect an advanced life-form to office, I cried until my eyes were empty, throbbing and sore. Then I found the Smirnoff Ice that Sandrine gave me for my birthday and now I'm starting to feel a bit better. In fact, I might feel this damn good for the next four years. Let's just hope there's enough Smirnoff to support me.
Slainte!

Ooooh - I almost forgot the knitting content (I mean, this is a knitting blog). Do you suppose I could three-needle-bind Bush's lips together?

How cute is this??!!!!

I give you sweetness herself, my niece Erika Anne:



Honestly, I ask you - could anyone else wear this sweater?

Not that anyone in Florida is in need of sweaters just yet - here's Mum and David enjoying the 84 degree Autumn weather in Barefoot Bay. Rough life, I tell ya, rough life....

When I grow up, I want to be my mother :)

Okay, so this is turning into Gratuitous Family Photo Day. What the hey. There's even knitting content in the next one. The Pipsqueaks book strikes again. Erika is above in Imp and below is Kerry and her Granny sitting next to her new Lucky cardigan. Mum put the button on for me. For some reason, I can knit like the wind, but sewing doesn't come quite as naturally...

This was Kerry's first visit to Nova Scotia - lucky girl :)