Nine More Days...

The tree is up. The cards are mailed. A good deal of the presents have been bought, and I think there's actually plenty of wrapping paper and bows available this year (tape may be another story!).

The cookie ingredients are lined up on the counter, and soon our house will smell like an Italian bakery as my husband whips up batches of traditional Christmas cookies.

In the midst of all the holiday preparations, we got the glad tidings last weekend that our son proposed to his girlfriend while they were on vacation in Hawaii.

I may bemoan the commercialism and materialism so rampant this time of year, but it's been a joy to see my youngest daughters as they've carefully planned and created gifts this year, delighting in the spirit of giving. My family has a lot to be happy about and grateful for as the holiday approaches.

Merry Christmas!

That's Better!

This time I wanted yarn for one hat and glove set that would match a light blue jacket as well as a pink and orange one -- preferably all in one skein -- so I was happy to find Bernat Mosaic in the color Daydream.

If I had made the gloves a little shorter and perhaps omitted the flower on the hat, one 3.5 oz. skein might have been enough, but I bought two.

This is an odd yarn. It's 100% acrylic in a medium (4) weight, and it looks and feels like spun flannel at its thickest parts. The thinner parts, however, are almost like a tightly twisted string.

Since I have more than enough left over, I'm making another hat -- after some knitting on the socks, I mean!

Green Fail

I had a partial skein of Dark Sage Simply Soft sitting in a basket next to a tangled mess of what appeared to be the same kind of yarn in black. And I thought that a combination of the two would help in the continuing effort to patch the holes in my kids' accessory wardrobes by matching youngest daughter's green winter coat.

Wrong! And it would have been so easy to check first. But my daughter loves the hat and gloves anyway and is looking forward to wearing the mismatched outfit.

10-year-olds are so forgiving!