Life's a Stitch

Letting the cat out of the bag

Now that the holiday gifts are given I can post about the knitting. It's tough to keep a secret in blogland.  It must have looked like I had abandoned knitdom, but truth be told, most everything knit was a gift. This one was for my niece, a college freshman. All dorm kids need the huggy comfort of a soft scarf. Especially those way up in the Northeast.

Pattern: Wavy,  by Sarah Smith, available free on Knitty

Yarn: Heirloom Alpaca 8-ply

Needles: Who knows? I've got to start writing down the needle size prior to putting them back in the needle holder. My best guess is a US 6.

Thoughts: Great pattern, I give it my highest compliment: I would knit it again. It needed the growth from blocking, but I also liked the more bunched up unblocked version.

 

A fluey holiday

Despite having the flu shot in October, the flu bug bit me, hence my blogging absence. As my doctor said "You can imagine how bad it would have been if you hadn't have had the shot." I can't imagine.

Thankfully it didn't hit until the 30th making our Christmas in the desert one with some positive memories. Two condos and two hotel rooms brought together our family including the kids, partners, and grandbaby, my sister's family, my SIL and husband, cousin from Denmark, and a high school friend of my daughter's along with her family. For a few nights the table was set for 17.

Far away from our traditional nativity and ceramic Christmas tree, we were surprised by friends, who had a tree waiting and decorated. By the time we arrived, there had been a craft session to add traditional Danish paper ornaments. On the non-traditional side, daughter Mari found the "Rock Star" for the treetop. The stocking was on the unconventional side as well. Make that the creepy side.

 

Christmas day, the baton was passed. Mari took charge of the turkeys and I didn't lift a finger.

We had our Danish frokost (a table full of cold fish, meat and cheese plus shots of akvavit), Polish Oplatek and a kazoo orchestra.

Not without  mishaps, besides my flu, Bryant tripped and ended up with 12 stitches. And, as I'm not one to throw away good food, but packs my bag to the weight limit, I had to make a choice. The five pound of brown rice or the liter of Canadian maple syrup? I went for the syrup. We taped every obvious area twice and sealed it in a zippered plastic bag. I'm still washing maple syrup out of the brand new luggage.