The Joy of Christmas

I'm home and still in one, recently modified, piece.

Ankle

It has now been two weeks since my surgery. I spent the first 8 days in the hospital. Overall, they took great care of me and, as much as I love being home, I was glad to stay there and let them take care of me. There is a lot to be said for IV pain medicine and that orange nurse call button. So, first week there, second week home. I did basically the same thing both weeks: slept, took my meds, drank a lot of water. Yesterday I went to the doctor to have my stitches and staples removed (16 and 6, respectively) and to have my cast changed. The new cast is glow-in-the-dark. Umm. This is the highlight of the news from my corner of the world. (ha)

Thank you all for your emails and your kind words.

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Knitting

I've been doing some knitting, mostly simple little bits and pieces that lend themselves to dozing off in the middle. Last week, I got yarn in the mail. Always a good thing. I got new yarn from the one and only fabulous Susie. Two skeins of something secret (I'll show you eventually) and this beautiful skein in her colorway November 15. This yarn is (likely) going to one day become hunting socks for my husband.)

Susie (generous, kind soul that she is) also sent me this bag of mini/scrap skeins of her hand dyed yarns, for me to use for tiny socks. (See those above? Those are her yarns.) Thanks again, Susie!!

Christmas

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Christmas was wonderful here. We were all together (my parents, the siblings/spouses, and the children) and that in and of itself was fabulous. I received so many great gifts and enjoyed so much delicious food. My sister bought me a skein of beautiful handspun alpaca (which I haven't taken a picture of yet) and a cute little sheep finger puppet.

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Remember I told you about my brother-in-law, Jeff? Well, Jeff occassionally reads this little blog and apparently he has been paying attention because look what showed up in my Christmas goodies: The Loopy Ewe kit I had been longing for! When we got home from my parents, I immediatley sat down and started trying my luck at needle felting. The legs are sort of hard and I am sort of sleepy but here is my progress so far.

So, that's it. Now I think I'll sleep some more.

Today's Quote:

"The earth has grown old with its burden of care

But at Christmas it always is young,

The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair

And its soul full of music breaks the air,

When the song of angels is sung."

-Phillips Brooks

Meme: Page 161

Memes.

They are lovely and make for excellent blog filler but I am bad at them. RC tagged me 10 days ago and I am just now meme'ing. Better late than never, right? This meme instructs the participants to "open the book(s) you're currently reading to page 161 and read the fifth sentence on the page, then think of 5 bloggers to tag with."

Current reading with 161 or more pages...

• from Crazy Aunt Purl's Drunk Divorced & Covered in Cat Hair:

"Hurry inside and lock the door?"

• from Less is More: How Great Companies Use Productivity by Jason Jennings:

"They explain how things work: 'When we get a new member on our team, they get ninety days to make it.'"

• from 2007 California Labor Law Digest, Volume 1:

"The secret videotaping in that case was done as a part of an undercover investigative report on 'telepsychics' by a television reporter in a workplace with low, open cubicles where conversations could easily be overheard by anyone in the room."

• from Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen:

"By late morning, I'm just another menagerie man: cleaning dens, chopping food, and hauling manure with the rest of them."

So that's it for current reading. I'm not tagging 5 people - I'm tagging everyone. If you read this post and want to meme along, please do so. And leave me a comment so I can read yours, too.

On the Knitting Front: All Sweaters, All the Time

Tiny sweaters, tiny sweaters everywhere.

I've done the figuring. I need 14 for my family's Thanksgiving at my parents' house, which I will (sadly) not be attending. I need 11 for Thanksgiving at my mother-in-laws, where I will be spending the holiday. I need 2 to send to Tegan and her roommate and I need 3 more for something else. That makes 30. Technically the 3 spares don't have to be done by Thanksgiving (technically they don't have to be done at all) but if I'm going to do them, I'd like to get them all finished before November 21.

The photo above was taken when I had 12 sweaters complete (though only 11 made the picture.) The one below is number 9. Blue Misti Alpaca Pima Cotton Silk, leftover from Kim's ISE scarf, held together with some furry fluffy something that was hanging out in the yarn bin. Very soft.

When I'm all done knitting the sweaters, I'll post pictures of all of them individually (or at least in small groups.) It will be a veritable sweater parade.

Today's Quote:

"Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again." California Senator Barbara Boxer

Hedgehog on the Half Shell

(Please be patient with me. I recently upgraded to the new blogger and I'm still figuring out the spacing. At least I seem to be able to upload pictures with wild abandon now so that is a step up!)

I started this post sometime the first part of last week but wanted to share it with you anyway...

I've made some progress on the first hedgehog and I'm now confident that I'll get them both finished in time for Christmas.

Ok, so the picture isn't the greatest (those hedgehogs are fast) but at least you can see what I've been up to. Once you get going on these, they seem to go pretty fast.

Here are some more pictures of these boys, pre-felting and post-felting.

Before:

After:Before:

The only after shot I got of the black one was the group picture from yesterday.

A few notes: I used a much longer "fur" on the brown guy and he has a bit of a porcupine look to him. I think that might have something to do with the sparseness of the quills...I mean fur. I made a mistake with the yarn for the brown fella, too. I used a chunky weight tannish-grayish yarn for the belly and a sort of mocha brown worsted along with the fur for the back. It turned out to be a happy accident, as I was pleased with the results.

For the black hedgehog, I used chunky for both front and back. The black fur is shorter and very dense. He is MUCH fatter than the brown guy. They are so different and each has such personality. It was neat to see how unique they are considering they are made from the same pattern.

These pictures don't show it but I ended up needle felting the eyes and nose. It was my first attempt at needle felting and it really was as simple has everyone says it is and the finished product was exactly what I had hoped for. Thanks to Lois at Elegant Stitch for not only giving me a quick needle felting tutorial on Friday, but also for giving me a needle felting tool!

All of the animals were well received. Mama put in a request for some hedgehogs of her own so I will try to get busy on those in the next few weeks. I give all of these Fiber Trends patterns an enthusiastic endorsement. They are easy to read, interesting without being unnecessarily complicated and the results are everything they promise to be.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was great, though too quick. My parents bought me a swift (HURRAY!!!) and a Knitter's Satchel from Jordana Paige. My sister got me the KnitPicks Options needles....I am exceptionally blessed to have a kind generous family, who may not understand my knitting but still support it. We had a great dinner and played games and just relaxed. It was a very Merry Christmas.

A Very Merry Christmas!

What a crazy, exciting, busy, wonderful

week it has been leading up to Christmas.

I hope you are all enjoying time with family and/or loved ones and that you are feeling loved and blessed this joyful season. When I count my Christmas blessings, please know that I count each of you among those blessings and I'm looking forward to the coming year with such anticipation.

I did get all of the felted animals completed - and it didn't include any knitting at all on Christmas Eve. (Though the hedgehogs did get seamed amidst the last of my Christmas Eve wrapping...) Now I'll just hope that the recipients love them as much as I do.

So from me and mine to you and yours,

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!