Look out Below: Holiday Avalanche!

If one is not careful, one could just be buried
neck-deep right about now with food, cooking, shopping, wrapping,
coiffing, quaffing, KNITTING?

There you go – ya just need ONE to escape the Others…

My GreatGetaway Knitting continues to be the Rebecca Chinese top! So far, I’ve seamed the shoulders and sides (went rather easily and quickly using the ribbon yarn and mattress stitch – I am SHOCKED!). Then it was Pay-Off Time.

Now usually they say this can be a M…, well you know, but really, it wasn’t all that bad ONCE I just surrendered. Ribbon is just STRING after all and behaves rather remarkably like yarn, if you squint your eyes and pretend a little. I used a crochet hook and picked up stitches all around the bottom as instructed by the pattern then plopped them on the Bamboo needles I knit the body with. Edging: Done. CAKE WALK…

NOW I once again march up to the Maze of Choices of My Own Making and stall…

Awhile back, I bought a little golden frog closure to hook the keyhole shut. It doesn’t really match the color of the trim and really, I thought it looked a tad Frederick’s of Hollywood.

Generally, that would be a good thing for me (my DNA requires me to be 10% overdressed/undressed at all times) but in this case, it was verging on, oh about 25% tack-i-fonic.

OUT came the brooches!

Ooh my, will it be Bakelite? Shell? Paste? Rhinestone? Hey, why do they call it rhinestone anyway?

As if I’m not spinning like a Top with all the Holidaze Excitement already, I must twirl myself some more…

the Joys of the Season

thank you so much Meg!

YES! I’m a little slow on the uptake, but lately I’ve been discovering first-hand what all the fuss is about. The adorable HappyBean herself, (hi Meg!), sent me some of her gorgeous handspun yarn and I’ve been knittin’ it.

The bitter cold is doing strange and wonderful things to my brain. I am actually getting a LOT done. My theory is that when you are forced to lurk inside, the Cabin Fever just might give birth to some glorious whim. SUDDENLY! You are furiously writing or stitching or composing or cooking – the weather just might free(force) you to create…

It is not unusual, when the cold spell lands, for me to grab multi-strands of yarn and combine. I don’t do this other times of the year but in the deep winter it’s like grabbing for the covers in the early morning chill and favoring your ears with their warmth.

My Ears.

Possibly the most vulnerable part of my body when I’m working outside. (Now nose and fingertips, do not whine – you are sissies too!)

So it became the plan to craft a chapaeu that would honor My Ears and warm my little head…

I mixed one strand of aqua worsted weight handspun with one strand sportweight Dale Sisik (chartruese) left over from these and knitted an earwarmer. I was going to stop right there but something made me tour the Stash and look what I found…

So some more Mixing was unavoidable – and here’s something I haven’t done before – changed up from a much smaller gauge to a larger one in a different section of the work. EXCITING stuff to be sure but something that took a couple (cough) tries to get the proportion right.

I still have to finish the top of the hat BUT a dilemma remains – POMPOM noPOMPOM?

  Monday Morning Mirth  

ReGIFT

from WORDSPY (09/27/02): “Today’s word originated with that always reliable source of neologisms, the TV show Seinfeld. Regift (and the noun regifter) appeared in the episode titled The Label Maker, which first aired on January 19, 1995.”

PROOF (positive that everything I know, and you too, I learned on TV!):
Here’s the script snippet where regift was used in that Seinfeld episode (regifter was used earlier in the show; note, as well, yet another neologism: degift):

George: The wedding is off. Now you can go to
the Super Bowl.

Jerry: I can’t call Tim Whatley and ask for the
tickets back.

George: You just gave them to him two days ago,
he’s gotta give you a grace period.

Jerry: Are you even vaguely familiar with the concept of giving? There’s no grace period.

George: Well, didn’t he regift the label maker?

Jerry: Possibly.

George: Well, if he can regift, why can’t you degift?

Jerry: You may have a point.

George: I have a point, I have a point.”

OOOHHhh, my family knows me so well! I opened a shipped box from my Sis and found the above lovely pahck-ahge. Now, if you’ve been reading CK for awhile, you can find a Christmas theme in this label…

Every year I receive a Singing Toy! Last year, it was this, shown in this little movie. Be afraid – be very AFRAID.

There has been a veritable collection through these doors, and I must say the word THROUGH, because the biggest Joke/Gift of all is they ALWAYS become a ReGift. I had a caroling stuffed frog that was cycled around for YEARS and was only retired when my friend’s elderly Mom REFUSED to ReGift! She loved that Frog, with his croaky Jingle Bells, et al… and roundly told us all off when we informed her it was HER turn to pass it along…

I am dying of curiousity about this package but other family etiquette (MUST wait until Christmas Eve) prevents me from tearing into it. So I’m going to have to satisfy my craving by asking YOU:

What’s the best ReGift you’ve given/received?