(Nearly) Instant Gratification

With the completion of the mittens for my mother-in-law, my Christmas knitting is finished.  To celebrate, I'm knitting for myself.

I knit a coffee cup sleeve to use at work.  I sometimes drink cocoa here, and the paper cups they have for hot drinks are so thin that I have to use two to keep from burning my fingers.

Now I don't!  This was knit from scrap yarn I had leftover from another project.  It was ridiculously fast to knit, and I think I'll use it a lot.

It even makes diet cocoa look cozy.

The Importance of Blocking

I have a delightful mother-in-law.  She loves snow, snowpeople, Christmas, and winter merriment in general.  Since she is lovely and also birthed the most wonderful human I know, I made her fancypants mittens for Christmas.

Before admiring, let's take a moment to note how important blocking is.*

Here is a picture of the mittens straight off the needles.

You'll note that they look kind of wadded up.  That's because they had spent their entire existence up to this point either wadded up in my knitting bag or wadded up in my hands. 

I soaked them for awhile in cold water and Soak to give the wool time to relax.  Then I used my extremely expensive mitten blockers* to stretch them to the shape I wanted.

After they dried, they looked like this:

and the backs looked like this:

I love them and am really pleased with the way they turned out.  Here's hoping my mother-in-law loves them as well.

*If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here.

**Also known as "bits of an amazon box cut up and wrapped with plastic grocery bags."

If Anyone Receives Gifts With Bows That Are a Bit Squished...

...I may or may not know the reason.



A Very Tiny Bit of the Bug

If you were around last year, you may remember that I had a bit of a falling down with regard to knitted Christmas ornaments.  This year I decided to make only one ornament, which would be given to my in-laws.  Last Christmas, they gave me a kit with yarn and patterns for ornaments, so they deserved to get the first ornament I made from that kit.

It's so adorable that they only reason I've been able to abstain from knitting more is that I'm currently obsessed by these.

And Then I Remembered...

It's cold and snowy here.

Nobody should be shocked by that.  It's December in the Midwest.

However, there was a news crew on my street this morning broadcasting live about (gasp!) THE WEATHER BEING COLD!!  A tiny blond woman wearing a lot of makeup, a snowsuit, and a stocking cap was flitting around our street chatting about the weather.

I was just trying to walk the dog.

She accosted me with her microphone, brightly saying, "Here comes a woman all bundled up.  You're on Fox Live!  Is it true that the only reason you're out in this weather is because your dog needs go to out?"

Are you kidding me?


"True.  We're going to keep walking now."

"Ha ha!  She's like, 'I'm not going to stop and talk to you.  It's too cold!'"

Sigh.

No, tiny woman, I am not going to stand and talk to you because:

a)  Of course it's cold.  Nobody watching the news needs to hear you dithering on about it.  We know.  We live here.

b) I just rolled out of bed, threw on layers, and am walking the dog.  I do not have the energy to chat with you about the obvious.

c) I have no desire to appear on television.

d)  Even if I did, which I don't, I wouldn't choose to do it directly after rolling off my air mattress.*

e)  My dog has to go to the bathroom.

I thought about being really irritated by this encounter, but then I remembered,

Nobody I love watches Fox News anyway.

*Yeah, that's another story.  We have an old school waterbed.  It sprung a leak on Sunday.  We've ordered a new mattress and are now sleeping on an air mattress on the floor.  It's doing wonders for my temperment.

What I See

I started wrapping presents tonight, and it made me think about the fact that we give lots of Christmas ornaments as gifts. 

This is a new tree we bought from Ikea on a whim.  I have fallen madly, passionately in love with it.  The slightest touch will make the tree wobble and ornaments slide off their precarious perches and crash into one another.  Naturally, we put it outside the cat door because we're smart like that.

Despite its dubious location, it's a great illustration of why we seem to give ornaments that are only used for a few weeks a year.  When I look at this

I see New Orleans. 

When I look at this

 I see Guatemala.

And when I look at this

I see something I made myself when I was hanging out with friends, and I think about all those people who have similar ornaments they made that same night.

Happy decorating to everyone celebrating Christmas in this way! 

I hope everyone celebrating Hanukkah had a great final night.

Whatever you choose to do to celebrate light in the midst of darkness, I hope it's meaningful and gives you joy like this metal, tree-shaped coil gives me.

Happy December, everyone.



I May Not Know Much About Horticulture...

...but when playing Jeopardy tonight at our last Master Gardening class, my team won through a combination of horticultural knowledge (my partner) and an odd fascination with our teacher's ties (me).

Our teacher wore a different tie each class, and he always indicated how the tie tied* into the topic for the evening.  Apparently, I retained that important information and knew three of the five ties pictured for our Jeopardy answers.  I think I also knew a question about evergreens and maybe one about pruning, but it was mostly his ties.

The only reasons why I agreed to play on one of the three Jeopardy teams was that a) team 3 needed one more person and no one was stepping up, and b) I had my eye on one of the prizes.

I am now the proud owner of a Master Gardener bag AND a badge with my name and "Master Gardener Intern" on it.  I have fifty volunteer hours to do within the next year before I get my certification.

For now, I'm going to try to get those knitting projects done before Christmas!

*Sorry about the pun.  How about "related"?