Up from the ashes

Joe and I dropped the ball this Easter. Usually this is a strong suit for us. I make special things, and knit little holiday themed presents, and cook foods that are special to that time of year, and Joe hunts clever gifts down – and we’re usually pretty good at it. We’re very attached to our immediate and extended family, and we enjoy time with them, and building beautiful holidays is important. This Easter? Boom. Nothing. We did nothing.  I’d like to pretend it was because we are so busy and everything in our lives are so complex, and we travel and blah, blah, blah, but the truth is that there’s a huge amount of notice on when Easter is, and therefore no excuse for the fact that on Friday, when Toronto was closed – Joe and I suddenly realized that we hadn’t done anything about the thing, and called around to the girls and discovered that between jobs and commitments, the only time we could have an Easter egg hunt and a family brunch was Saturday morning, and that’s when it got wild.  We checked around and discovered the one open grocery store (all the way across town) and set off to try and pull together this thing.  “Where the hell are we going to get baskets?” Joe queried, and I shrugged, and we got in the car.

When we got there, it was pretty obvious that we weren’t the only people with a procrastination problem.  The store had nothing. No baskets, almost no Easter chocolate, and the few bunnies left were all the ones that were amputees, had their eyes on crooked or had suffered an unfortunate decapitation.  The only thing the store had that was related to the season at all was a thousand million other crazed parents all willing to cut you to get that deranged  looking amputee bunny, and Joe and I (who will fare very poorly in the upcoming zombie apocalypse, let me tell you) opted out of the scrum and backed into a corner near the birthday cards to regroup.  “We’re going to have to get creative.” I said, and Joe high fived me.

We started in the bakeware aisle.  No baskets? That’s cool – how about something basket-like, but useful? All the girls cook… Ah-ha! Bread pans!  The rest was easy.  Instead of that silly paper Easter grass? Tea towels lined our “baskets”.  We went through the store grabbing treats that our young women would never buy, but would love. Pink Himalayan salt in a grinder. Paring knives, all little kitchen bits and pieces, and when we were done we tossed in a few brightly coloured pairs of socks, some maple popcorn, and bam.  The only thing missing was the traditional chocolate bunnies, and we found those in an open drug store we stumbled into on the way home.

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We were feeling good about it. Now all we needed were little gifts for Lou and Myrie, dyed eggs and we were home free.  Sam took care of dying the eggs that night – she’s serious about her craft.  This year she had a plan. 11 beautiful eggs, all the colours of the rainbow, and then one rainbow egg.

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While Sam worked on that, I surfed quickly surfed Ravelry, and found exactly what I was looking for.  A quick stash dive, and knitting commenced.

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By the morning, the house was full of all of us, and I hadn’t really made a dent in the knitting. We had an egg hunt, we played a few games, we had a beautiful brunch, and then I knit. I knit and I knit and I knit.  I got up every so often to start the bread dough for the next morning, and I did my first little training ride for the Bike Rally.  (20 Kilometres only. I’m going to have to seriously pick up the pace.) Somewhere in there Joe got on a plane and left for England (it was a surprise to me too) and I kept knitting. It’s been a long time since I stayed up late on a knitting deadline, but come the next morning I was almost done.

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I got up early, baked bread, threw together a fruit salad,  and made devilled quails eggs – wait, those are too pretty not to share:

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Then off I went to Kate’s house for an Easter brunch, knitting the whole way. Right before the egg hunt, I finished.

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Oh yeah. Right there.  Matching Baby Bunny Booties for Lou and Myrie.  They were the cutest thing ever – and the best part was that Lou slammed his on his feet and ran around the house making sure everyone saw them.

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I upsized the pattern a bit, simply by working them in worsted weight rather than the DK the pattern called for. That made the newborn size into a six month size that fit Myrie perfectly, and the third size became a larger toddler size that fit Lou just right.  (Not that he toddles, the kid runs everywhere he goes. He’s a blur.)

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He loved them, the grownups loved them, and it was totally worth it.

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Pattern: Easter Baby Bunny Booties. Yarn: Leftover Cascade 220 that was kicking around.

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We pulled a great Easter out of the ashes, and the best moment for me?

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Doesn’t that kid look like he’s totally going to be a knitter?

(PS. It is exactly this kind of success after procrastination that means that Joe and I will never change. Failure is corrective. Cute bunny shoes, quails eggs and the best Easter baskets ever? That really didn’t teach us a lesson.)