Holiday Fun

I had my own Festivus Pole at work this year.


Unfortunately I didn't buy one, with a nice base. This was just an, umm, Festivus Pole that we found in the workshop that we didn't know we had. Yeah. That's it. So I had to prop it up with a stepstool. But I was pretty excited. It cheered me up every time I looked at it.

Christmas Eve at the Office From Hell was another story. Our boss had initially told us we could leave early on Christmas Eve, but only if we made up our time in the next week. In other words, if we wanted to leave at 2:00 p.m., we'd owe him three hours of make-up time sometime in the next week.

Well. Can we say "Ebenezer"? I've never grumbled (too much) about working Christmas Eve, as I always have, I'm used to it. But we always used to get to go home early with no strings attached. So this new twist was kind of a bummer.

My co-worker and I decided to have a bit of silent protest. We got these name tags (I forgot to buy any, but found a place online to easily print them right on to the same Avery labels we use for everything else in our office ... it's almost like they knew ... ). Here's mine.



(That's stuck overtop of a skull and cross-bones because the only red shirt I had to wear was one that said "I LOVE PIRATES" ... so that's what I wore to work today, with my green cardigan ... just call me Ms. Christmas).

Anyway, my co-worker's name tag said "Hello, my name is BOB CRATCHIT."

Ironically (maybe the ghost of Christmas Future paid a visit?), just as we were patting our labels into place, our boss came in and said he'd changed his mind, we were all going home at 1:00, and no one had to make up the time.

Hmmm. (He hadn't seen the labels, so that's not why). (Unless he heard us talking about it, which is possible).

Anyway, that's been my holiday fun and giggles for the last two days. Now I'm done with that place till Monday (wooo-hooooo), I'm done wrapping presents, I have one more Christmas-y thing to do, then I'm going to go sit down and work on that baby blanket in the beautiful Captain's Parlor ... have I posted this yet? I'm thrilled with my Christmas-y, Victorianesque living room. (That last thing I have to do is put up the pine garland along the mantle, which I have procrastinated about as long as I can, seeing as it's Christmas Eve ... but it will be up there at least for tonight and tomorrow).

It's here!

Happy Festivus!

Baby blanket progress

Progress on the first baby blanket ...


... and I'm having a blast with it. I can't believe how much I missed knitting, or figure out why it took me so long to get back to it. Well, yeah, okay - that part I kind of get. With the chaos that was The Move, I'd pretty much lost track of it all.

But regardless, the obsession is back, and it's fantastic. I noticed, though, that this blanket was knitting up a lot more 'solid' and firm than the one I made for us, and then I figured out why. The yarn calls for a size 8 needle, and I believe that's what I used for ours. But when I started this one, for no reason I can figure, I simply went and got my bamboo size 6 circular, and started it. Well, you can knit this yarn on a size 6, but it gives it a pretty solid construction. Not as drapey and 'flow-y' as ours.

I debated on frogging it and starting over on the larger needles, but decided not to. It is a baby blanket, which I'm hoping will be used for at least the first several years of the kid's life - sturdy enough to toss in the car for travel, or throw on the ground for play. So perhaps being a little more 'solid' will be a good thing.

Although for the next one I may try a size 7 and see if I like it better.

Speaking of knitting, I found the most awesome knitting website ... Ravelry. It's hard to explain and would only interest a knitter, but if you happen to be one, check it out.

Okay, I'm cheating ... better get back to work.

Holy Cow, There's Knitting Happening.

Yes, it's shocking, I know. But I actually knit something today.

Those of you who have been here for awhile know that this blog started almost exclusively as a knitting blog. But then I branched out into other things, and then at some point last year I quit knitting entirely. Not for lack of interest, but too much other stuff going on, with the house hunting and buying and whatnot. Since we moved in I haven't even known where most of my knitting stuff was, and have had little time to work on such projects.

I'd been thinking for awhile that I was jonesing for some knitting, so this weekend I dug out a project - the sweater I'd started a year and a half ago.


The good news is, I was able to pick up right where I left off, with no problem.

The bad news is, in the basket in which this project was located, there are only two additional skeins of the yarn. Yet I have more than half the back of the sweater, and two sleeves, to go. Now, I know I ordered more than enough yarn for this project way back when. I probably stashed the rest of it, and only kept a few skeins in the basket, handy. Problem is, I have no idea where the rest of it is. We've unpacked most everything, or at least moved it around enough till I have a good idea where most things are. And I am not aware of any boxes or totes or anything else, that has a yarn stash in it which includes that project yarn.

So, since I'm concerned it somehow got lost in the move, I'm hesitant to put too much more time into that sweater till I find the yarn. Because I know those two skeins aren't enough to finish it, and I know I can't order more, almost two years later, and have it match.

But that's not too big an issue at the moment, because I have some more pressing projects. Greg's got 3 siblings all going to present him with nephews (or possibly a niece) in the next 6 or 7 months. I've decided they all need knitted baby blankets.

You may remember the log cabin blanket. Well, I had so damned much fun knitting that project, that I decided it would be a great format for baby blankets. I used to gravitate to the frilly, lacy, specialty-stitched baby blankets. But Greg pointed out something very useful to me - having had two kids, he said those lacy baby blankets are actually kind of a pain because babies' fingers and toes tend to get caught up in them, annoyingly.

Besides, I wanted something durable and long-lived and really useful. So I decided - and he wholeheartedly agreed - that a log cabin baby blanket would be the bomb, as it's about indestructible. It can be used for a crib blanket, car seat blanket, thrown on the ground (or in the sand at the beach, as they all live in North Carolina), used and abused, and washed and dried, and turn out looking better than when it started.

And since they're so dang fun to knit, I said, that'll work. So today I went out and bought some yarn to start the first baby blanket.



I hadn't knitted in so long (well over a year) that I was afraid I had actually forgotten how. It turned out to be like riding a bike ... no problems. When I had to cast on for the blanket, as I was thinking about it, I was thinking, "I don't remember how to do this," and thought I was going to have to go find my knitting books to look it up. But as soon as I picked up the yarn in my hand, it all came back to me. Beautiful!

So, I started the blanket today, and I am beyond thrilled. This is wonderful, to be doing this again. And log cabin blankets are the best, especially when you're out of practice, because it's just straight knitting, and very little counting - in fact, no counting while you're knitting if you don't want to ... you just have to occasionally count rows after the fact. (And even that isn't that big a deal, as the pattern still works fine if you make too many or too few rows).

I'm pretty psyched to be back to knitting.

Oh no. Insomnia.

I don't get this often, but this feels like one of those nights. So I thought I'd do a blog update.

We've been crazy busy through the beginning of the holiday season. Funny, I'd heard about that, but never really experienced it.

Greg's mom, step-dad and grandmother were here, and spent the night, for Thanksgiving. We also had a couple other guests as well, so that caused a flurry of finding places for everyone to sleep, and finding and washing blankets for everyone. We have blankets all over the house, but they haven't all been sorted and washed since moving. And though it's a big house, we only technically have one spare bedroom, so when there are multiple people, places still must be arranged.

Then we got busy hauling out the Christmas decorations, sorting out what we had and what we needed, and figuring out what we wanted to put where. It's not as cut and dried as one might think. This is (I've mentioned before) a big ass house, and there are far more areas to decorate than there were at the old house. We don't have nearly enough decorations, but we already spent a ton of money on outdoor lights, so gathering up the nice decorations for the rest of the house will have to be done a little at a time over the next few years.

We bought a ton of multi-colored lights to string in the shrubs out front. But we wanted LEDs because they are so easy on the electric bill. Well, the entire front shrubbery filled with multi-colored LEDs was horrendous. It looked like a carnival attraction. I couldn't stand it, and went out the next day and took them all down. Then we went out (again) and bought a bunch of plain white LEDs. Greg ended up putting the second batch up, and he creatively combined the white ones with just a few touches of the multi-color ones, and it looks much better. Those LEDs are still ungodly bright, which I suppose should be a good thing, but I don't know ... I'm used to the more muted shades of Christmas, the soft glow of Christmas lights - not a jittery glare that would induce seizures in an epileptic.

I would have returned all the multi-colored lights, except that I knew I'd never get them back in their stupid boxes, and I'd ripped up the little packages of spare bulbs that were attached to each string, so I couldn't return them in "as bought" condition ... had it only been one or two boxes I'd have probably tried, but we had six boxes of them. We decided to keep them and use them in other places around the house. Some landed up in the Imaginarium, some in the pub. Next year we'll probably put them on the downstairs tree.

Oh, yeah - we wanted two trees, one in the pub, and one in the living room / parlor. But we only had one tree from the old house. Fortunately, the former owners left a very, very large Christmas tree here when they cleaned the place out. I was grateful, as it's a very nice tree, and looks fantastic in the parlor. They also very kindly left the lights that went on it - one giant string the geniuses had spliced together, so that all the lights for this one tree are all there on one string - ergo, only one plug! Well, I say genius now, because they all still work. When sections of them stop working, then I won't be so thrilled, but for this year, kudos.

I've even managed to get some Christmas shopping done, and not just online. Yes, I actually went into stores and bought things for people. I haven't done that in so many years, I forgot what it was like. But it was kind of fun. I'm not done yet, but I'm probably about half done, which is a miracle for me this early. In the past few years I've been ordering all my Christmas presents online, but unfortunately my procrastination genes have kept me from starting until about December 18th, causing me to have to pay exorbitant shipping to get the stuff by Christmas. So far I've placed two orders with standard shipping, and should be fine.

And the holiday rush is far from over ... we have Greg's birthday party this weekend, and then we'll probably have a free weekend, and then Christmas, and then something for New Year's. Yep, it's going to be a busy month.

I've been doing some more work on the Imaginarium too! I'm way psyched. I'll have to post pictures when it's finally done, which it almost is. I did some more painting, and got a new bookcase.

Now that I'm actually starting to make real progress up here, I am totally loving it, and can't wait to do more. I'm really excited about working on the bathroom, partly because it's such a small room so I can do a lot for little expense, meaning I can let my creativity go wild; and partly because it's probably the most outdated and relatively kind of ugly room up here, so will benefit so much more from even a little attention.

I'm also psyched about starting to work in the kitchen area, which is kind of the guts of the whole Imaginarium. It's the area where all my crafty stuff is stored, and my work area. I have some preliminary ideas ... swapping out the ceiling light fixture with some track lighting; painting the cabinet doors; and replacing the knobs.

That's a start. Eventually I'd like to paint the countertop. I've been reading up on that, and looking at pictures online, and apparently, if you're careful and do it right, you can make a crappy old countertop look pretty astounding. I haven't yet figured out exactly how I want to do that, so I'll work on other things I'm more sure about first. Having a crappy old countertop isn't really such a bad thing, anyway, because I don't worry so much about messing it up or damaging it when I'm working on a project.

Hopefully one day soon I'll have things organized enough to actually use the space for something crafty. It's been forever since I made anything, or did any knitting (as of right now I think I forgot how, but I'm hopeful that when I try again, it'll come back to me). I miss it, and want to finally get back to that side of things, as well.

Okay, I guess that's enough rambling from me. I'd better go try to get some sleep.