One up, one down

The tree is up.  Sam helped me out last night and got the lights on the thing while I was at a Bike Rally function (I’ve joined the Steering Committee this year. There are many meetings even though we’re months and months from the ride) and when I got home I got all of the ornaments on it.

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It’s very, very pretty, and it would totally have given me the sense of accomplishment and festive prowess I was looking for, if I hadn’t have had a fairly significant knitting setback.

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I’m still trying to get everything for the holidays on the needles. I have this sense that if I can get it all started, that finishing will seem easy – and so yesterday I grabbed some yarn, chose a pattern and whacked a pair of mittens onto the needles.  Then I left the house, and hopped a bus, and then a streetcar, and two minutes into my travel I knew I’d made two mistakes. First, the yarn, needles and pattern weren’t playing nicely together, and second, I’d brought no other knitting.  None. Not so much as a wee sockie, and so there I was, knitting on a project I knew was doomed pretty much the whole evening.  I kept going. I mean, what else was there to do? Not knit? For a whole evening? Two streetcar trips? That would end in disaster, I know that for sure. That ends with me having to apologize to a bunch of people all while saying something like “I didn’t mean to say that, it’s just that I was out of wool and it effects my self-control.”

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When  I got home, I took the thing off the needles, and I guess I’ll have to start again – although to be sure it’s bad, I’m giving it a bit of a bath first.  Part of me thinks maybe it will be all right, although I can tell it won’t be.   In the name of all things moth repellant, why do we always think these things will work when we can feel it in our hearts that it won’t? Does hope spring that eternal? Are we that determined, or stupid? What about my good sense has me swishing this mitten cuff round a sink of warm suds like my forty years of knitting experience hasn’t already told me it’s bloody awful? It’s the desperation born of twenty days till Christmas, that’s what it is, and frankly, I can’t believe I’m falling for it. It’s nothing but a failed swatch, and I know it.  One whole day of lost knitting time.

What did Luis hang today?

El corazón. The heart.

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I asked Carlos why he picked that one, but apparently the reasons are a mystery.  It’s not what I thought he would pick next, but there you have it. (I understand there’s a bit of a debate happening over there. The Santa is supposed to go last, to indicate that Santa’s coming that night, but apparently Lou’s got it in his head that if he hangs that one, he can call the great man at his bidding. The heart may have been his second choice,  for not being able to make today Christmas Eve.)  For this ornament I used this pattern, (I think) and added a little row of other hearts inside.  You know, to make it more heartish.  I can tell you that this one is really a symbol of my love, not just because it’s a heart, but because that thing was a royal pain in the arse to sew up.

Gifts for Knitters, day 5.

Tee shirts for knitters! You’ll know best if your knitter is the tee-shirt type, but if they are, trust me, these are great.  This one is an inside joke, but your knitter will get it. I’d wear this one as regular clothes, although this one is probably more appropriate. This one is still a dream that won’t come true,  and if your knitter is also a sewer? This fabric printed to look like knitting is very, very cool (and comes in other colours too.) This fabric has balls of yarn on it. (We like those.) These are knitting needles, and if all else fails. Remember. Sheep.

There’s a million things like this out there. If none of these speak to you, check the comments below. I bet most of these knitters have a favourite shirt.

PS. Because someone will ask, the glass ornament in the top picture are these snowflakes.